Presenter & topic
Simon Brink, Projects Engineer Manningham City Council, Victoria – Zero additional maintenance water sensitive urban design
Program
This presentation and workshop session will cover zero additional maintenance water sensitive urban design (ZAM-WSUD) philosophy, an explanation of existing installations, photographs, construction methodologies, laboratory testing results and practical learnings from field trials. The workshop will provide a practical example showing how ZAM-WSUD shared resources can be utilised to allow new installations to be easily incorporated into capital works projects, including site selection, design considerations and development of contractual documentation.
Context
Water sensitive urban design (WSUD) systems continue to be successfully installed across Australia, reducing nutrient and pollutant discharges to our waterways and oceans. A major challenge for asset owners (typically Councils) is the ongoing cost to maintain these systems to ensure that they continue to both effectively treat stormwater and meet community aesthetic expectations. Forecast ongoing maintenance costs from many WSUD designs can be so significant that they impact on the willingness of asset owners to actively support further installations thereby slowing transition towards water sensitive cities.
The ZAM-WSUD project was initiated by Manningham City Council (Victoria), based on the concept of designing WSUD systems that have no additional ongoing maintenance requirements for asset owners, compared to standard maintenance requirements for typical urban or rural streetscapes. In collaboration with Melbourne Water, Monash University and the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities, a number of innovative new initiatives have been developed that can almost entirely remove asset owner maintenance requirements. New initiatives have been incorporated into practical, robust, low-cost designs suitable for both urban retrofit and new projects. Over twenty ZAM systems have been installed to date within Manningham and are continuing to function effectively with minimal maintenance requirements.
As part of the project, freely available shared resources have been developed that can be easily utilised by other Councils for integration of ZAM-WSUD systems into their capital works projects, including a handbook, standard drawings and technical specifications.
About the presenter
Simon Brink is an environmental engineer at Manningham Council in Victoria, where he manages complex construction projects and facilitates training programs. He initiated and led the ZAM-WSUD project, including initial strategic development, obtaining multiple funding grants, coordinating research, project managing construction contractors and developing the ZAM-WSUD handbook. Simon actively shares knowledge learnt from the project, and his enthusiasm for environmental innovation, through presentations, conferences and training sessions.