Our Guidelines

Our Guidelines will provide you with the information and guidance you need to plan your approach, influence opinion, and facilitate progress towards creating water sensitive cities.

System change

These resources can guide practitioners on how to create the social and institutional conditions a city needs to realise its water sensitive vision.

• Principles for engaging communities in water sensitive city transitions presents 10 key principles to help practitioners and policy makers work with their local communities to plan and implement water sensitive city actions.
• Moving toward water sensitive cities: a guidance manual for strategists and policy makers provides practical examples of water sensitive transitions in practice.
• Towards a Water Sensitive Elwood : a community vision and transition pathways outlines the community engagement process employed in Elwood (Victoria).

Community engagement

These resources can guide practitioners on how to better engage with communities to create water sensitive strategies and solutions that reflect local knowledge and gain community support.

• Principles for engaging communities in water sensitive city transitions offers 10 principles to help policymakers and practitioners work with their local communities to plan and implement water sensitive city actions.
• Getting the message right: the use of frames, community-friendly terminology and visuals provides guidance on community-friendly terminology and visuals to convey key messages about water.
• Designing raingardens for community acceptance helps practitioners understand community attitudes/perception about raingardens.

• Community engagement in the water sector: an outcome-focused review of different engagement approaches highlights different approaches to working with communities and examines the different types of outcomes that these different approaches can generate.
• Towards a Water Sensitive Elwood : a community vision and transition pathways outlines the community engagement process employed in Elwood (Victoria).

Policy process

These resources can guide practitioners on how to identify and exploit opportunities to influence policy makers and regulators, and foster the authorising environment for water sensitive cities solutions.

• Policy influence: tactics and strategies for researchers examines strategies and tactics for influencing policy and regulation formulation. It outlines the ‘rules of the game’ and how to play it.
• Moving toward water sensitive cities: a guidance manual for strategists and policy makers provides practical examples of water sensitive transitions in practice.

Education

These resources can guide practitioners about how they can develop the skills and knowledge they need to implement water sensitive cities approaches.

• Catalysing WSCs through professional learning: design and delivery recommendations identifies the skills and knowledge practitioners need to implement water sensitive cities approaches.

Behaviour change

These resources can help practitioners to encourage water sensitive behaviours.

• Guide to promoting water sensitive behaviours explains how to identify the behaviours to encourage and any behaviours that may limit uptake of water sensitive behaviours.
• Behavioural roadmap presents information on the impact and likelihood of householders performing a range of water saving behaviours.
• How influencing behaviour can accelerate the transition to a water sensitive city: Behaviour Assessment Database helps practitioners develop and test interventions that seek to encourage desirable behaviours, particularly among householders.

Performance evaluation

These resources can help practitioners assess the performance of water sensitive solutions.

• Infill Performance Evaluation Framework evaluates infill development options at the city, precinct or site scale.

Economics

These resources can help practitioners quantify and assess the benefits and costs of water sensitive solutions in monetary terms.

• INFFEWS BCA Tool: user guide provides detailed step-by-step instructions and advice for completing a BCA in the using the BCA Tool.
• INFFEWS Value tool guideline explains how to adjust non-market values using the Value Tool so that they can be applied in a new context.
• Strategies for preparing a robust business case helps frame and build support for water sensitive projects and develop successful business cases.
• Constructing a business case for water sensitive investments: a guideline for local government translates valuation tools and outlines how to build strong and compelling business cases for water sensitive investments.
• Ranking projects for water sensitive cities: a practical guide presents ranking formulas to identify the best possible water sensitive projects in which to invest.

Flood resilience

These resources can help practitioners to design cities that reduce flooding risk and rapidly recover from substantial and frequent flooding with minimal damage, disruption and cost.

• Adaptation mainstreaming for achieving flood resilience in cities adapts lessons on flood resilience from overseas for the Australian context.
• Appropriate flood adaptation outlines a step-by-step approach for adaptive planning that aims to enhance resilience against climate-related flooding.
• Flood resilience in water sensitive cities: guidance for enhancing flood resilience in the context of an Australian water sensitive city sets out a framework for integrating flood resilience with other urban water management objectives such as water supply, ecosystem services and societal benefits.
• Stormwater runoff from green urban areas: modellers’ guideline outlines the issues and practices related to modelling stormwater runoff from green areas in urban catchments.
• Flood damage assessment: literature review and recommended procedure explains how to assess flood risk, which combines flood hazards (the amount, extent and location of flooding) and flood vulnerability (the susceptibility of an area to flooding).

• Flexibility in adaptation planning: guidelines for when, where and how to embed and value flexibility for urban flood resilience provides a step-by-step approach to increase resilience against climate-related flood hazards, allowing practitioners to identify adaptive responses.

Water sensitive urban design

These resources can help practitioners to design and implement water sensitive urban design features.

• Adoption guidelines for green treatment technologiesdemonstrate how green and living walls can treat stormwater and greywater.
• Adoption guidelines for stormwater biofiltration systems highlight the flexibility of scale and application of biofilters.

• Vegetation guidelines for stormwater biofilters in the south-west of Western Australia provide information on how to select the most appropriate plant species for biofilters. The general principles are application to regions other than south-west Western Australia.

• Designing raingardens for community acceptance discusses factors that affect residents’ perceptions and acceptance of raingardens.
• Stormwater runoff from green urban areas: modellers’ guideline outlines the issues and practices related to modelling stormwater runoff from green areas in urban catchments.
• A guide for monitoring the performance of WSUD elements in areas with high groundwater describes techniques for monitoring and analysing the nutrient removal performance of WSUD elements in areas with high groundwater.

Design

These resources can help practitioners to design and implement water sensitive neighbourhoods.

• Designing for a cool city: guidelines for passively irrigated landscapes guides how to use stormwater to irrigate street trees, gardens and turf, and maximise their cooling benefits.
• Trees for a cool city: Guidelines for optimised tree placement provides an illustrative guideline for planning and prioritising street trees to achieve the largest cooling benefits for human thermal comfort.
• Infill Typologies Catalogue provides evidence-based design guidelines to support better residential infill practice. The catalogue has a range of housing densities and configurations and evaluates their water sensitive performance.

• Infill Performance Evaluation Framework evaluates infill development options at the city, precinct or site scale.
• Towards a Water Sensitive Elwood : a community vision and transition pathways outlines the community engagement process employed in Elwood (Victoria).
• Designing raingardens for community acceptance discusses factors that affect residents’ perceptions and acceptance of raingardens.

Waterways

These resources can help practitioners create or restore urban waterways, which play a key role in liveable cities.

• Improving the ecological function of urban waterways: a compendium of fact sheets guide the repair or design of the 9 ecological components of flowing waterways. There are 2 fact sheets for most components: one for the site scale and one for the catchment scale.
• Riparian design guidelines to inform the ecological repair of urban waterways identify 10 ecological processes performed by riparian zones, how these processes are stressed by urbanisation, how they can be repaired and a framework for prioritising on-ground action.
• A guide for monitoring the performance of WSUD elements in areas with high groundwater describes techniques for monitoring and analysing the nutrient removal performance of WSUD elements in areas with high groundwater.

Alternative water sources

These resources can help practitioners improve the water quality of alternative water supplies.

• Characterisation of chemical hazards in stormwater investigated the presence of pollutants (e.g. metals, nutrients, pharmaceuticals and pesticides).