Press and Data
WaterScore compiles the drinking water quality results that Australian water utilities publish and scores 8,416 suburbs against the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines. Journalists, researchers and students are welcome to use our figures and files. Please credit WaterScore and link to the page you used.
Key figures
These figures are worked out from our current data each time the site is updated. The best and worst suburbs article lists the full rankings.
8,416
suburbs scored
9.33
average score out of 10
9.5
median score
7.9 to 9.8
lowest to highest
105 suburbs share the top score of 9.8, and 102 of them are in Tasmania. 7 suburbs share the lowest score of 7.9: Carcuma (SA), Jabuk (SA), Moorlands (SA), Netherton (SA), Parrakie (SA), Peake (SA) and Wilkawatt (SA).
Average score by state
| State or territory | Suburbs scored | Average score |
|---|---|---|
| Australian Capital Territory | 169 | 9.70 |
| Tasmania | 797 | 9.64 |
| New South Wales | 1,512 | 9.54 |
| Victoria | 731 | 9.45 |
| Northern Territory | 378 | 9.35 |
| Queensland | 928 | 9.31 |
| South Australia | 2,084 | 9.25 |
| Western Australia | 1,817 | 9.03 |
PFAS in tap water
From our check of the PFAS results published by utilities and state health departments. The full article has the results city by city, with sources.
- In every capital city that publishes numbers, the latest results are below the June 2025 limits, mostly under 2 ng/L against a PFOS limit of 8 ng/L.
- Since 2024, drinking water above the new PFOS limit has been recorded in the Blue Mountains and in Warialda, Tarcutta, Narrabri and Ayr. Most fixed it by shutting bores or adding treatment.
- Water Corporation (Perth) and TasWater publish no PFAS concentrations, and NSW Health has not released town-by-town results for the 83 council water utilities it tested.
- Australia's PFOS limit of 8 ng/L is twice the US limit. Its PFOA limit of 200 ng/L is 50 times the US limit of 4 ng/L.
- Boiling doesn't remove PFAS. Reverse osmosis and two-stage under-sink filters removed 94% or more in independent tests.
Download the data
One row per suburb, in CSV format, free to use. Each file has the suburb, state, postcode, water utility, WaterScore, and the latest hardness (mg/L), pH, fluoride (mg/L), chlorine (mg/L), turbidity (NTU) and total dissolved solids (mg/L), with a link to the suburb's page.
- All of Australia (8,416 suburbs)
- Australian Capital Territory (169 suburbs)
- Tasmania (797 suburbs)
- New South Wales (1,512 suburbs)
- Victoria (731 suburbs)
- Northern Territory (378 suburbs)
- Queensland (928 suburbs)
- South Australia (2,084 suburbs)
- Western Australia (1,817 suburbs)
Before you use the files:
- The figures come from utilities' published reports, mostly results for a whole supply zone or treatment plant. They are not tests of water from a particular home.
- Suburbs without published results are not in the files. We currently score fewer than a third of the suburbs in Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales, where many regional areas are missing.
- For Perth we hold one hardness figure for the whole metropolitan area, so the files leave hardness blank for Perth suburbs.
- The methodology page explains how the score is calculated.
Using our data
You can quote and chart our figures, use the data files in your own analysis, and publish the results. Please credit WaterScore and link to the page or file you used. In a story, "Source: WaterScore, from water utility reports" with a link to waterscore.com.au is enough. The utility reports behind our figures stay under their publishers' own terms.
How to cite WaterScore
Articles and suburb pages with water data have a ready-made citation at the bottom. For example:
WaterScore. (2026, October 22). PFAS in Australian Tap Water: 2026 Results by City. https://waterscore.com.au/articles/pfas-in-australian-tap-water/
For the data files:
WaterScore. (2026). Tap water quality scores for Australian suburbs [Data set]. https://waterscore.com.au/data/australia.csv
Badge for your website
Plumbers, filter suppliers, real estate agents and local sites can show a suburb's figures with a small badge that links to its WaterScore page. Copy the code from the Embed section of the suburb's page, for example Parramatta. The badge is plain HTML: no script and no tracking.
Media enquiries
Email hello@waterscore.com.au with the subject line "Media Enquiry". We can help with figures for particular suburbs or utilities and with how the scores are worked out.
Corrections
If you find an error in our data or articles, email hello@waterscore.com.au with the subject line "Data Correction". We fix confirmed errors and add a dated note to the affected article, as we did for the national suburb rankings in October 2026.