What Water Sensitive Urban Design seeks to achieve
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Improve the amenity and liveability of urban areas.
Urban waterways offer many benefits - from recreational, scenic and cultural to biodiversity conservation to flood mitigation.
Good open space planning, innovative urban design, placemaking activities and natural asset management can help reconnect people who live in urban areas with these benefits.
Right: At Wahgunyah Drive in Port Stephens Council an urban drain is now a feature of the suburb's park.
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Use all urban water resources more efficiently.
'Future proof' urban water supplies.
The aim is to reduce our reliance on the treated drinking water we import into our towns by making best use of the rain that falls in our suburbs. Water efficiency, as well as water recycling and reuse are possible means to achieve this. Considering a range of water supply options can help improve our resilience to drought and climate change.
Right: Dungog Shire Council is a very small rural council in the Hunter Valley that has established a scheme to harvest stormwater from an erosion prone laneway. The harvested stormwater is reused to water the town's sportsfield and showground - improving the chance these community facilities can stay open during dry times. |
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Protect the ecological health of waterways by reducing the negative ecological impacts of urban development.
It is possible to seek a better balance - by doing urban planning and development in ways that better reflect the ecological needs of our waterways. A basic principle to achieve this is to reduce or prevent stormwater pollutants that put a strain on receiving waterway health. Another principle is to seek to 'mimic' the flows of natural water cycles.
Right: A Murrays Beach, stormwater treatment starts at each residential lot, continues along the kerb and through the streetscape until the suburb's stormwater flows into the receiving environment of Lake Macquarie. |
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Add value. Reduce the ongoing life cycle costs of
managing built and natural waterway assets.
Right: Gosford Council has installed relatively low cost 'infiltration pits' on the Woy Woy peninsula. These devices are being trialled to reduce localised flooding during more frequent events and avoid the expensive exercise of kerbing and guttering a low lying older suburb adjacent to the highly valued Brisbane Water.
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