Envisioning a water sensitive Gold Coast

Water is fundamental to the landscape and psyche of the Gold Coast. Preparing a water sensitive city vision has been part the city’s progressive approach to tackling its water related vulnerabilities, and to protecting what makes the Gold Coast so special.

The CRCWSC worked with the City of Gold Coast to provide a long term orientation for planning and prioritising action across many different stakeholders. Over a 50-year time frame (so people can stretch their ambitions and look for transformative change), the WSC vision has 10 key outcomes:

1. Water and land environments and resources are well protected and enhance community health, wellbeing and safety.
2. All urban areas have abundant beautiful, well designed spaces that celebrate water and bring people together.
3. Gold Coast communities share access to water environments, which supports their identity and lifestyle.
4. Water systems, infrastructure and land-use planning are integrated, deliver multiple benefits, and are adaptive to changing circumstances.
5. Water infrastructure systems enable efficient and sustainable use of resources to maximise social, economic and environmental outcomes.
6. Water infrastructure systems are innovative, support a diverse and sustainable economy, and help shape the Gold Coast as a world leading water sensitive city.
7. People understand, cherish and protect their surrounding water environments.
8. Collaboration delivers sustainability goals and supports environmental stewardship.
9. Water decisions are made through informed and inclusive processes to support social, economic and environmental sustainability.
10. The Yugambeh people are actively engaged in water decision making, knowledge sharing, and the stewardship of water and land environments.

Transitioning Weipa towards a water sensitive town

With distinct wet and dry seasons, a tropical climate, and little or no rain for six to eight months of the year, Weipa is a challenging environment for its residents and businesses. But its water sensitive city vision offers plenty of opportunity for being cool, green and sustainable.

Facing risks from heat, limited water supply, and water pollution, Weipa wants to secure the future of its population and plan its growth. Working with the Weipa Town Authority, we prepared a WSC vision that responds to the risks, so the town can benefit from:

1. improved liveability, amenity and community spirit/connectivity
2. increased water storage and supply, which make the town more resilient against risks (to human health and industry) from low supply
3. reduced environmental discharge and other waste
4. re-established native flora and fauna
5. better options for cooling the city
6. support for blue–green corridors
7. more business initiatives and employment opportunities.

Improving stormwater management in New South Wales

Current stormwater management practices in New South Wales are siloed, focusing mainly on flood protection (conveyance), and excluding the potential to achieve multiple outcomes through water infrastructure. But, Water NSW and NSW local governments are starting to explore water sensitive storm water management practices to disrupt these siloed approaches, achieving multiple objectives through water.

Urban stormwater is a major threat to Sydney’s waterways and drinking water reservoirs. Business as usual approaches are primarily concerned with flood protection, yet are siloed, limiting the scope of flood management and raising costs.

We conducted a WSC visioning workshop to provide a system analysis of the social, institutional and biophysical systems in several local government areas. By synthesising key demographic characteristics, catchment and water trends, and the current regulatory context we gave councils the tools to:

• establish a water sensitive vision for water in the region through benchmarking
• explore long term management, behavioural, economic and political changes in stormwater management practices
• consider public health, economic efficiency and affordable services, and add a boarder mix of outcomes often associated with more livable and climate resilient cities and towns
• engage the community to determine their water value and expectations within the local context
• implement system management projects based on identified actions in each council's water sensitive city transition strategy.

Helping Hornsby achieve its water sensitive vision

We’re using our Water Sensitive Cities Transition Planning Process, to help stakeholders align the various political and environmental resources available, and achieve a shared vision for a water sensitive Hornsby.

Hornsby wants to transition to a water sensitive city, using the progressive statutory planning controls and strategic direction outlined in the Greater Sydney Strategic Plan.

The CRCWSC and its industry partner Alluvium are helping, by applying the Water Sensitive Cities Transition Planning Process. This process is based on a series of participatory workshops that bring diverse stakeholders together, to develop a common framework for guiding strategic action to accelerate Hornsby’s water sensitive transition. These workshops will:

• identify the community’s values for liveability and resilience as they relate to water (including waterway health)
• develop guiding principles for urban and catchment management
• identify on-ground opportunities and barriers for each guiding principle
• adopt targets for each guiding principle, and any risks to achieving those targets
• identify where council currently sits with respect to each guiding principle and the target
• identify a method for measuring progress towards each target.