New publication: Ranking projects for water-sensitive cities: a practical guide

Water agencies and utilities wishing to support water sensitive projects face the challenge of deciding which of the many possible projects and options they should support with their limited resources.

As value for money often tops the criteria, a new CRC for Water Sensitive Cities publication offers an easy-to-use guide to the best mathematical approaches for ranking potential projects.

Professor David Pannell from the University of Western Australia has developed the report ‘Ranking projects for water-sensitive cities: a practical guide’ as part of his research for Valuation of economic, social and ecological costs and benefits (Project A1.2).

“Projects vary greatly in their benefits and costs, so selecting the best projects can make a major difference to the level of benefits that can be generated for a given budget,” Professor Pannell said.

The report provides formulas to evaluate for valuation of benefits, the effectiveness of management, time lags, behaviour change, various risks and various costs.

Sample templates for project proposals and spreadsheets for ranking projects are provided, to make it easy to put the principles into practice.

View the report