Dr Briony Rogers talks Vic water impact

On 17 October, our Chief Research Officer, Dr Briony Rogers, was part of a three-member panel for the Victorian branch of the Australian Water Association’s technical event, Our water life.

The event explored the interconnections between policy, industry and community, and how they’re influencing water management in Victoria.

Briony joined Warren Price (Infrastructure Delivery Coordinator at Western Water) and Toni Radcliffe (Senior Policy Officer, Rural Water Policy, at the Department of Environment, Land Water & Planning) on the panel, to share stories about how their work directly impacts how we use and manage water in our state.

The seminar was held in Melbourne and a live stream of the event went out to the regional city of Wodonga.

Briony said three key themes emerged from the different insights and perspectives of the panellists:

• a recognition that the way we think about, plan and manage our water is fundamentally changing
• the need to become comfortable with complexity and different types of uncertainties and risks
• the importance of collaboration among stakeholders, including meaningful engagement with the community.

‘While the three panellists shared insights from very different perspectives—from using recycled water to irrigate peri-urban food crops, policy levers to manage irrigation districts in rural areas, to my focus on the community value of water in cities—these common themes emerged from our presentations and in the subsequent discussion with the audience.

‘It is clear the lessons we are collectively learning through our water sensitive cities lens have relevance more broadly,’ Briony said.