The Australian Government has recently recognised the critical importance of urban water by awarding $30m to establish a Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) for Water Sensitive Cities (WSC).

Internationally unique, the CRC-WSC is a consortium of Australian and international universities, government bodies, water corporations and private industry, with the shared goal of delivering urban water management solutions that take account of both social and technical requirements to make Australian towns and cities water sensitive.

The CRC-WSC has similarities with programs such as Greenworks Philadelphia, and the Texas Clean Rivers Program, locally focussed initiatives with an emphasis on coordination of agencies and community engagement. In addition the CRC-WSC is also concerned with developing innovative technologies and systems and ways to remove the policy obstacles to achieving water sensitive cities.

Professor Tony Wong, the nominated CEO of the CRC-WSC, said that the output of the CRC will guide capital investments of more than $100 billion by the Australian water sector and more than $550 billion of private sector investment in urban development over the next 15 years.

Water sensitive cities are defined as resilient, liveable, productive and sustainable. They efficiently use the diversity of water resources available within towns and cities; enhance and protect the health of urban waterways and wetlands, and mitigate flood risk and damage. They also create public spaces that harvest, clean and recycle water, increase biodiversity and reduce urban heat island effects.

Monash University (in Victoria, Australia) will lead the 74 research, industry and government partners drawn from five states of Australia and internationally. The members are research groups at Monash, University of Western Australia, University of Queensland and the National University of Singapore, state government agencies, water corporations, other university centres, local government, private companies, an NGO and a number of international institutes.

International participants include City of Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Danish Hydraulic Institute (Denmark), Public Utilities Board of Singapore (Singapore), Technical University of Denmark (Denmark), UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education (The Netherlands) and University of Innsbruck (Austria).

The CRC-WSC builds on current, very successful interdisciplinary research projects. From a focus on the social and biophysical sciences of urban water management, cross disciplinary projects have now expanded to include urban climatology, climate change science, environmental economics, urban planning and design.

Professor Wong believes that there is not just one problem to be solved but many – and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. A nine-year research and development program has been mapped out grouped into the following programs:
Program 1 – Society – will focus on understanding the social, economic and political factors that help or hinder efforts to create water sensitive cities.
Program 2 – Water Sensitive Urbanism –will apply green infrastructure and climate responsive design principles to water security, flood protection and maintaining ecological health at both macro and micro levels.
Program 3 – Future Technologies – will focus on the development of integrated, multi-functional urban water systems.
Program 4 – Adoption pathways – will focus on improving community engagement, enriching education and training programs and supporting robust partnerships between scientists and policy makers.

The CRC-WSC will be established in July 2012. Participating organisations will contribute $27m in cash and $59m in-kind to the operation of the research centre.

The team at Citygreen are in full support of these initiatives, and believe these are essential to bringing life and sustainability back into our cities.

Share with us your thoughts and experience…

A noticeable trend over recent years in many countries, has been the interest in placing trees in immediate proximity to road pavements. More specifically, a number of design teams are working with engineers to beautify key roadways using trees in the central median.

The excerpt below from a recently published research paper supports that trend. Australian expert, Dr Martin Ely (University of Adelaide) recently undertook a quantitative study to obtain a ‘snapshot’ of the attitudes and practices of local government street tree practitioners and managers throughout Australia.

Streetscape design

Appropriate streetscape design is seen as a key starting point to successful street tree planting and establishment. Respondents were asked if they currently practice, or intend to practice, a range of streetscape design practices. The intent of the question was to obtain a ‘snapshot’ of respondent’s uptake of a number of streetscape design practices identified in the literature review, with provision for additional open ended comments. Figure 16 presents the percentage of respondents reporting that they do undertake certain practices.

 Discussion

 Median planting was the most common practice, with most Council’s undertaking it in some form. This was followed by attempts to create more space for trees including larger planting sites, cluster planting and footpath widening. The least adopted practice was (costly) service relocation.

 Open ended responses (30 responses)

 Resistance to innovative practices, by engineers and others was mentioned. More stringent constraints on tree planting in medians planting was raised, as was the option in some situation of ‘no trees’. Space available for tree planting was seen to vary between localities. Resistance to planting trees in the parking lanes was also noted. Other streetscape design initiatives raised included aerial bundled cable and WSUD installations with street trees.

 Conclusion

 The literature review identified a number of strategies for the design of streets to better accommodate trees (Urban 2007). The survey showed that a number of these practices have already been adopted by some Councils, primarily increasing space for trees through measures such as footpath widening. Other desirable practices such as service relocations are less widely adopted, primarily due to cost factors.

Click here to view the full paper.

Structural soil cells perform to National Road Standards while enabling bio filtration or vegetative growth.

Share with us your thoughts and experiences in utilizing median strips and areas adjacent to roadways for WSUD.