How to access the online sessions for the 5th Water Sensitive Cities Conference
As you know, much of the 5th Water Sensitive Cities Conference will be online. You’ll find everything you need on our conference platform (https://wscconference.org.au/).
The first step is to select your conference hub – Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia or Victoria.
Once there, you can:
Join a Q&A about a site tour (Monday 15 March)
Explore transformed Bendigo Creek, which integrates Traditional Owner knowledge with water sensitive design to restore a degraded urban waterway. Or stroll along the water sensitive streets of Yarrabilba (in Queensland), Aquarevo (in Victoria) or East Village (in Western Australia), to see water sensitive housing typologies and urban design features in practice. Or find out more about managed aquifer recharge.
Watch the tour videos (as many as you want) before the conference starts. Then on Monday, join the livestreamed Q&A with your ‘tour guide’. Just click on the link to the livestream. (Times for each Q&A session are in the program and details will be on the page. Each Q&A session is 30 minutes, so you’ll have plenty of time to quiz the tour guides about the why, where and how of each project.)
Join the integrated urban and water planning workshop (Monday 15 March)
If site tours are not your thing, then come along to this workshop. It showcases our IRP3 project on integrating urban and water planning. It will be the first time we have shared some of the major research findings.
Come along if you are an urban planner, or a water planner who wants to know more about the urban planning process.
If you’re in Queensland or Western Australia, you can attend this workshop in person.
But if you’re somewhere else, or because it’s more convenient, you can join the livestreamed workshop. Just click on the link to the livestream. (Times are in the program and details will be on the page.)
Join the state conference days (Tuesday 16 March)
The state days are planned as in-person events, but you can also attend virtually. That might be what’s most convenient for you. Or it’s because you want to jump between sessions in different locations (e.g. learn from early adopters like Hornsby and Blacktown (in New South Wales), before jumping over to find out about water sensitive transitions in Townsville and Gold Coast in Queensland).
The conference welcome by Ben Furmage (CRCWSC CEO) and the keynote address from Distinguished Professor Billie Giles-Corti will also be livestreamed.
Just click on the link to the livestream. (Times are in the program and details will be on the page.)
Join the national conference (Wednesday 17 March)
Our National Conference day has become a national webinar series, made necessary by COVID restrictions on gatherings in some hubs. The series starts on Wednesday 17 March, and continues in the following weeks.
We’ll have 2 livestreamed events on Wednesday 17 March—the panel discussion on fostering political change for water sensitive cities and the closing remarks by Cheryl Batagol (CRCWSC Chair). Just click on the link to the livestream. (Times are in the program and details will be on the page.)
Learn how to use CRCWSC tools (Thursday 18 March)
You’ve heard the theory and seen the case studies. Now, have a go yourself.
You’ll get a taste of tools such as the WSC Index, the Scenario Tool or the Infill Performance Evaluation Framework. You can attend one session in the morning and one in the afternoon. Register for the training sessions here. Sessions numbers are capped at 20 participants in each.
Once you’ve registered, you’ll receive the link to your training sessions via email.
Ask questions
We have several ways for you to interact.
You can submit a question via the form on the conference website, and can do so before the session begins. You could use this, for example, to ask a question to one of the keynote speakers. You submit your name, contact details and who your question is for.
If you are joining the conference online, you can also use the chat function on the website during the session.
And of course, you can ask questions if you’re part of the live audience. We’ll use all 3 for the live Q&A sessions.
Explore water sensitive projects and practice across Australia, without leaving your city.
Over 4 days, we’re providing this information in multiple ways, along with a choice of avenues to interact and chat with the experts and your peers.
TICKETS FOR IN-PERSON EVENTS CLOSE 5PM (LOCAL TIME), WEDNESDAY 10 MARCH. You can register for online events until 5pm (local time) Friday 12 March.
Good luck and enjoy the conference.