City of Joondalup wins WSC Award

The City of Joondalup in WA won the third ever Water Sensitive Cities Award. Professor Tony Wong, founding CEO of the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC), announced the award at the CRCWSC’s final event in December 2021.

The City of Joondalup won the award for its outstanding Water Sensitive City initiatives on ground, as measured by the Water Sensitive Cities Index, a tool for benchmarking urban areas against 34 indicators that characterise a water sensitive city.

The Award recognises excellence in Water Sensitive City practices, and is given to the city that achieves that highest Index score since the award was last given out. Previous winners include the City of Armadale (also from WA) in March 2021 and the City of Port Phillip (Victoria) in March 2019.

Joondalup Mayor Albert Jacob said the City was pleased to be recognised at a national level for its water sensitive practices.

“The City of Joondalup has been working to address water efficiency and water quality for a number of years and has implemented some highly-innovative systems,” he said.

“We recognise the vital importance of sustainable water management and the need to balance the provision of water services for the community with the protection of water resources in the context of a drying climate.”

Mayor Jacob said the national benchmarking indicated strong results in areas including the equity of essential services, ecological health and adaptive infrastructure.

“Thanks to the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities for its leadership in urban water management and valuable research. Thanks also to the Water Corporation, which sponsored the city’s benchmarking workshop and supported our endeavours to become a water sensitive city,” he said.

To date, the WSC Index has been applied in more than 60 locations throughout Australia and overseas. It supplies reliable evidence about a city’s strengths and weaknesses for use in strategy development, seeking project prioritisation and funding or approval, and to track progress over time. You can find out more about the WSC Index here. To arrange its application to your city or town, you can contact us at admin@crcwsc.org.au.