WaterNSW engages CRCWSC to help Blue Mountains water sensitive future

Blue Mountains City Council (BMCC), in the World Heritage Blue Mountains National Park, has done a remarkable job of progressing its water sensitive city (WSC) transition.

With the ongoing support of WaterNSW, BMCC already had a WSC strategic plan and a well-developed water sensitive urban design (WSUD) team and action plan when the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities was engaged by WaterNSW to support BMCC's next stage.

During this next stage, BMCC wants to shift its organisational culture away from traditional water management practices towards WSUD. With funding and other support from WaterNSW’s Urban program, BMCC is actively pursuing a water sensitive city, based on water efficiency, water reuse, best practice stormwater management, and a water-literate community.

But as a city within a delicate World Heritage Area, the Blue Mountains has much at stake. Its catchments support unique ecosystems, rare and threatened species, and drinking water storages servicing over four million people. These assets underpin the city’s reputation as a ‘must see’ tourism destination, local jobs, businesses, and the community’s quality of life.

This presents extra responsibilities and costs for BMCC, including those relating to managing the impact of development on the environment, protecting and conserving world heritage natural values, and protecting the health of drinking water catchments. Applying water sensitive practices and making the transition to a water sensitive city is essential. Climate change makes the need to transition even more urgent.

At the point of the CRCWSC’s recent engagement with BMCC, the Council was ready to move beyond water sensitive cities projects into influencing broader council activities, urban development, and community actions and behaviour. Much of the focus on this next level is about widening the scope—to activities, benefits to be delivered, and stakeholders to work with—a major focus of the CRCWSC’s strategic work.

WaterNSW actively supports councils like BMCC and was instrumental in helping BMCC take this next step in its water sensitive transition. WaterNSW funded the CRCWSC’s engagement with BMCC, and participated in the workshops, to build an ongoing relationship with the Council. WaterNSW’s aim is for all councils in Sydney’s drinking water catchments to demonstrate WSC best practice, and protect the water quality of Australia’s largest city.

At the request of BMCC and WaterNSW, the CRCWSC facilitated three community vision setting workshops with the Blue Mountains community, asking what a vision for water could look like (see Water Sensitive Cities protect a World Heritage area). As is often the case, a key outcome of these workshops was developing and deepening connections between Council and the community—an essential element of any successful WSC transition.

We then used the outputs of the community visioning to review BMCC’s draft water sensitive strategy, and delivered an WSC Index and Transition strategy process with internal Council stakeholders, looking at the barriers to WSUD. Together, we developed a strategy to move beyond these barriers using the CRCWSC’s Transition Dynamics Framework.

Throughout the project, Council’s dedication to its WSC agenda was clear.

‘Shifting the culture of any organisation is a difficult task. Assistance from WaterNSW and the CRCWSC has been invaluable in helping us to navigate our way through this complex, daunting process. This assistance has increased our team’s capacity and, enhanced the profile of our project, and helped generate momentum for change across Council.

‘The collaboration has helped us to create a road map to light the way forward—from engaging widely within Council and community, to formulating a strategy for action, benchmarking our current position, and outlining where we need to be, to identifying opportunities and formulating strategies to overcome barriers,’ said Geoffrey Smith, Healthy Waterways Program Leader at BMCC.

The CRCWSC’s engagement with BMCC and WaterNSW is a great example of how the CRCWSC can form partnerships with organisations to provide access to the right expertise and evidence-based analysis at the right time, as each organisation becomes more ‘water sensitive’. This advice and support is backed by evidence-based frameworks and principles to guide WSC thinking, and helps organisations to gain real traction during their WSC transition processes. Our delivery is based on collaboration and a recognition that real change cannot happen without real partnerships across agency, community and new knowledge brokers (such as the CRCWSC).

For BMCC, WaterNSW is central to this partnership. WaterNSW’s goal is to build partnerships with councils to improve management of water in these cities, not just project outcomes.

‘WaterNSW invests in projects that will foster deeper and stronger partnerships. These relationships are necessary to develop a coordinated and effective way to manage water quality across a catchment,’ Julia Barnes, Catchment Program Coordinator from WaterNSW, said.

The CRCWSC’s National Engagement Manager, Jamie Ewert, who led the process for BMCC, said that BMCC’s projects are already delivering improvements in the engagement and governance of stormwater in BMCC, including relationships BMCC has with its community, and across the units within Council itself. It’s also focused on building executive support for WSUD.

‘The engagement would not have been successful without the internal champions within Council and its management, who are clearly on side. WaterNSW also played a major role, through its encouragement, funding, and other support.

‘We applaud WaterNSW's vision and commitment to encouraging and supporting councils in its catchment to develop a WSC vision and road map,’ Jamie said.