Sustainable urban development in Brisbane City - the Holy Grail?

2003 ◽  
Vol 47 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 73-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Rahman ◽  
T. Weber

Impacts from urban stormwater runoff on receiving environments have been well documented, particularly through specific regional scientific studies. Using various local government planning and management elements, urban developments in Brisbane City are now able to address stormwater management in an increasingly holistic context. One key initiative includes facilitating Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) components within an Integrated Water Management Strategy that looks at policy formation, planning strategies, design option, community marketing and acceptance, maintenance programs and finally evaluation of various WSUD approaches. These can include the use of Natural Channel Designs, grassed swales, bio-filtration systems, porous pavements and roofwater tanks in several economic combinations. By linking with the Cooperative Research Centre for Catchment Hydrology, Brisbane City Council has influenced the design of WSUD planning tools and benefited the city with academic inputs into extensive evaluation programs. As well, it has also contributed to the Cooperative Research Centre's research outcomes. These evaluation programs are increasingly providing better understanding of various stormwater quality best management practices throughout Australia. As part of the overall implementation process, active involvement by a range of stakeholders has been crucial. These stakeholders have included internal planning, development assessment and design staff, external consultants, developers, and other local and state government agencies. The latter two groups are assisting in the important task of “regionalisation” of Brisbane City Council's policies and guidelines. Implementation of WSUD initiatives and stormwater re-use strategies under Council's new “Integrated Water Management” agenda are showing some excellent results, suggesting that sustainable urban development is no longer like the search for the Holy Grail.

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Sally Thompson ◽  
Margaret Shanafield ◽  
Ana Manero ◽  
Greg Claydon

New land releases in the Perth Region on Western Australia’s Swan Coastal Plain are increasingly constrained by seasonally high groundwater (within 4m of the land surface). The measurement, modelling, and management of the effects of urbanisation in these high groundwater environments remains a challenging problem. To address this problem, the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities (CRWSC) funded the “Knowledge-based water sensitive city solutions for groundwater impacted developments” Integrated Research Project, IRP5. In 2019, this project convened an Expert Panel to assess best-practice, and make recommendations to land development, engineering consulting, regulatory and advisory stakeholders. The Expert Panel explored strategies for groundwater risk assessment and provided technical guidance for measuring, modelling and predicting changes in groundwater as urbanisation progresses. It also obtained extensive input from stakeholders on the need to reduce the costs and risks of urban development in sites with high groundwater. In this paper, we argue that, by integrating technical best-practice groundwater assessments with design innovations and reforms to governance, urban development on high groundwater sites on the Swan Coastal Plain can minimise the current reliance on large volumes of sand fill. Although challenging, shifting to a low-fill development paradigm would represent a triple-bottom-line “win” for developers, homeowners and the environment.


2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
VLADUT-SEVERIAN IACOB

The study aims to point out the features of cities and sustainable urban development, integrated management of water resources and the relationship between them, the basic principles and the advantages of their application in future sustainable development of cities. The method is based on the analysis of bibliographical information relating to sustainable urban development.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 4745 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter W. Newton ◽  
Briony C. Rogers

In the 21st century, the creation of built environments that are carbon neutral and water sensitive is critical for addressing sustainable urban development challenges. Both require transformative change: Decarbonisation to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and incorporation of green-blue water sensitive solutions to adapt to climate change impacts. Transition pathways in both arenas involve combinations of new technology, innovative urban design, enabling policies and regulations, new processes for planning and managing urban development, and demand-side changes in consumer attitudes and practices for urban living related to energy and water use. In this paper, we present new knowledge, concepts and frameworks developed for application in Australia, as well as internationally, through research by the national Cooperative Research Centres for Low Carbon Living (CRCLCL) and Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC) between 2012 and 2020. These findings and outputs illustrate common features of the research strategies and initiatives that were central to the activities of the CRCs, and highlight promising directions for collaborative interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research that drives urban sustainability transformations towards carbon neutral and blue-green cities.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marion Diaz ◽  
Zahra Thomas ◽  
Alain Prenveille ◽  
Nicolas Floch

<p>Adaptation to global changes and promotion of cities resilience requires the development of integrated approaches to take into account the urban critical area as a whole. The major challenge is to assess this integrated approach evolving the main actors taking part on critical zone management. One way to do so might be the development of a network of actors and scientists committed to the long-term evolution of practices and having a common strategy for territories use. The poster presents a case study aiming to implement an integrated water management strategy in urban development based on the organization of a network of territory actors and scientists. The methodology here presented was built to focus on three main questions: what specific problems does integrated water management reveal for the various stakeholders? What are their usual opportunities of exchange and information? And which organization allows them to solve their problems, while taking into account the pre-existing networks on water management?. To answer these questions, we conducted comprehensive interviews with water and development stakeholders and representatives of networking organization.</p><p>Our results highlights the need of collaborative development of urban projects between planners and water managers: each of them is confronted with a diversity of concerns related to several factors, such as</p><ul><li>their position as a stakeholder in the intentional management of water or in the effective management of water;</li> <li>the scope of responsibilities of local communities in the management of wastewater, stormwater, drinking water, biodiversity ;</li> <li>the specific regional characteristics (coastal territories, morphologies of urban area).</li> </ul><p>Moreover, the results show that the existing networks address partially some of the questions: the study highlights in particular the lack of dialogue and knowledge transfer between water management actors and urban development actors, resulting in the design of urban projects that are not adapted to the new standards of urban management (e.g. stormwater). In addition, research projects are emerging in relation to big cities issues, but are sometimes in competition with each other. Also, the dissemination of results remains reserved for cities already endowed with significant engineering capacities.</p><p>Improvements in the networking is required to promote integrated urban water management, we come up with three organizational scenarios including objective analysis of existing networks of the main actors. The implementation of an integrated approach to hydrological systems linked to energy efficiency in urban areas requires taking into account the critical zone as a whole.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-46
Author(s):  
Rebecca Oberreiter

Rapidly changing framework conditions for city development such as globalization, demographic trends, deindustrialization, technological developments or the increasing urbanization as well as the economic, social and political changes are profound and change our urban life. This leads, that the cities of tomorrow will differ essentially from today´s city principles. Therefore innovative, strategically wise and quick action becomes a criterion for success. Here, more than ever, local conditions and requirements must be taken into account as well as global framework conditions. The responsible parties have to set the course so that the “City” remains competitive and sustainable in the future. Therefore, innovation processes and sustainable strategies for dealing with the diverse and complex agendas of a city in dialogue with those who are responsible for it must be initiated and management systems established so that new things can develop continuously and systematically. This work illustrates how the boundaries created to manage and market future liveable and sustainable city destinations are the root of the practical and academic problems that trouble city management these days.  This paper aims to develop the new integrated Smart Urban Profiling and Management model, which presents a new integrated approach for city marketing as an instrument of sustainable urban development. In this way, comprehensive research was conducted to evaluate if the holistic city marketing concept that integrates elements of smart city strategies and adaptive management is a more suitable instrument and integrative process than conventional city marketing in order to improve the sustainable urban development. Therefore, in this work, the designed “Smart Urban Profiling and Management model” for city management introduces an alternative and holistic perspective that allows transcending past boundaries and thus getting closer to the real complexities of managing city development in dynamic systems. The results offer the opportunity to recognize the city and consequently allow to developing successful strategies and implementation measures. This study targets to contribute to this endeavor in order to produce new impulses and incitements in the city management field and shall provide a fresh impetus for a new understanding of city marketing as the initiator of development processes, mobilization and moderator in concerning communication and participation processes. This paper is written from a perspective addressing those responsible for the city- management, city- & urban marketing and development.


2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 261-267
Author(s):  
J.L. De la Peña ◽  
M. De la Peña ◽  
M. Salgot ◽  
Ll. Torcal

The history and water-related features in the Poblet Cistercian Monastery, located in Tarragona province, Spain are described. The study is undertaken with the main purpose of obtaining data for the establishment of an integrated water management system inside the walls of the abbey, which is suffering water scarcity due to increasing demands and the prevalent semiarid conditions.


1995 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 393-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joost de Jong ◽  
Peter T. J. C. van Rooy ◽  
S. Harry Hosper

Until the last two decades, the global perception of how to control our various water bodies was remarkably similar – water management was organised on a sectoral basis, as it always had been. It was only in the 1970s that the people actually responsible for implementing water management began to become aware of the serious implications of such an approach: water quality deterioration, desiccation and an alarming loss of the flora and fauna that characterised their local water environment. It was a growing awareness that led to the formation of the concept of integrated water management, a concept almost universally accepted today as the way forward. However, despite the fact that few dispute the validity of the concept, a number of obstacles remain before this theoretical agreement can be transformed into practical action. Three main bottlenecks stand in the way of implementation: institutional, communicational and socio-political. Whilst solutions to these are available, the key question still to be answered is whether society is really prepared to accept the consequent changes in the way we live that will result from putting the theory of integrated water management into practice. It was this issue that dominated the “Living with water” conference held in Amsterdam in September 1994. The following is a summary of the discussions held there and the various papers that were submitted.


1995 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 301-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Govert D. Geldof

In integrated water management, the issues are often complex by nature, they are capable of subjective interpretation, are difficult to express in standards and exhibit many uncertainties. For such issues, an equilibrium approach is not appropriate. A non-equilibrium approach has to be applied. This implies that the processes to which the integrated issue pertains, are regarded as “alive”’. Instead of applying a control system as the model for tackling the issue, a network is used as the model. In this network, several “agents”’ are involved in the modification, revision and rearrangement of structures. It is therefore an on-going renewal process (perpetual novelty). In the planning process for the development of a groundwater policy for the municipality of Amsterdam, a non-equilibrium approach was adopted. In order to do justice to the integrated character of groundwater management, an approach was taken, containing the following features: (1) working from global to detailed, (2) taking account of the history of the system, (3) giving attention to communication, (4) building flexibility into the establishing of standards, and (5) combining reason and emotions. A middle course was sought, between static, rigid but reliable on the one hand; dynamic, flexible but vague on the other hand.


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