What does Water by Design do?
The scope of the Water by Design program
The urban water cycle includes the three water streams: potable water, wastewater and stormwater, as illustrated in Figure 1 below. The natural water cycle includes catchments, streams, rivers, lakes, estuaries and marine waters.
The Water by Design program supports the management of the whole urban water cycle in order to achieve sustainable development, including protecting and restoring the natural water cycle. Importantly, the program is not limited to managing urban stormwater.
Figure 1: Aspects of Integrated Water Cycle Management (from Hoban and Wong 2006)
In South East Queensland at present there are concentrated areas of activity in managing specific aspects of the water cycle, including:
- The successful rainwater tank and demand management programs of State and local government
- Research into decentralised wastewater treatment systems being undertaken by State government and research agencies
- Purified recycled water (PRW) schemes of the State government
The Water by Design program operates in a complementary rather than competitive approach with these existing programs. It focuses efforts in specific aspects of integrated water cycle management where there is an identified need and initiatives are not in place to meet this need. Importantly, the Water by Design program works with existing programs in SEQ to promote a holistic and integrated approach to urban water management.
What is Capacity Building?
The Water by Design program seeks to build capacity in the region to deliver sustainable urban water management.
Capacity building is defined in Australian Runoff Quality (Engineers Australia, 2006) as having five key elements which are shown in Figure 2 below. Capacity building interventions have traditionally been implemented as training and education programs (i.e. professional development) based on the idea that equipping individuals with new knowledge and skills will enable them to successfully implement sustainable practices. However, the organisational and broader institutional context presents as great an impediment to sustainable urban water management as the inability of professionals to understand and practise more sustainable techniques. Therefore, effectively and efficiently delivering sustainable water management outcomes across a catchment or region not only depends on having sufficiently developed human resource capacity, but also sufficient capacity in organisational contexts (Engineers Australia, 2006).
Figure 2: Elements of Capacity Building (from Brown et. al. in Australian Runoff Quality, Engineers Australia 2006)
Consistent with a robust and holistic approach, the Water by Design capacity building program supports initiatives across all five aspects of institutional capacity. These are briefly described as :
Knowledge building: This aspect refers to gathering the knowledge needed to deliver sustainable urban water management. This information may be technical (i.e. tools to help design water management practices) or non-technical (i.e. strategies to improve inter-organisational relationships).
Professional development: Developing effective human resource capacity involves equipping individuals with the understanding, skills and access to information that enables them to perform more effectively. It can be focused on developing both technical competencies as well as management and leadership skills.
Organisational strengthening: Strengthening organisational capacity involves the review and improvement of management structures, processes and procedures, not only within organisations but also between water management organisations.
Directive reforms: Directive interventions typically involve regulation. For example, the requirement to comply with WSUD-related design objectives when seeking approval for new developments.
Facilitative reforms: Facilitative (non-mandatory) organisational reforms, such as marketbased instruments that use financial incentives and disincentives to achieve desired outcomes, are increasingly being advocated as efficient resource management strategies. Facilitative reforms also include mobilising community and political support.
The role of Water by Design in the water infrastructure lifecycle
There are five key phases in the infrastructure lifecycle of water management assets as shown in Figure 3 below:
Figure 3: Urban Water Infrastructure Lifecycle
The Water by Design program aims to play an important role in building capacity around each phase of the infrastructure lifecycle illustrated above. Each phase plays a role in achieving the objectives of sustainable urban water management. Strong policy and planning by itself does not deliver positive benefits for waterways. It is critical that concept designs for urban developments reflect this policy, and that this design intent is then appropriately reflected in construction drawings.
Water sensitive urban design is a relatively new field, and accordingly there is limited experience in the construction industry on how to appropriately build and establish infrastructure. As such, ensuring appropriate construction and establishment (especially of vegetated stormwater treatment systems) is an important link in the cycle. Once built, appropriate asset management systems are required to ensure maintenance is carried out throughout the life span of this infrastructure, and that decommissioning or refurbishment occurs at the end of the infrastructure’s life.