With liveability and resilience in an uncertain climate future emerging as key drivers for how we develop our cities in the future, South Australia now has a dedicated capacity building program to support Adelaide’s transition to a water sensitive city. Water Sensitive SA will provide the leadership, technical support and tools to assist water sensitive urban design to become a mainstream element of the greater Adelaide landscape and throughout our regional areas.
The Water Sensitive SA team thank those leaders across landscape architecture, engineering, planning, urban design, manufacturing and training organisations who attended the Water Sensitive SA Launch on 15 January 2015. Following the informative presentations, there was lively discussion on how Water Sensitive SA will support greater Adelaide and the regions as they incorporate WSUD into practice.
A particular thank you must go to Water Sensitive SA partner, the City of Charles Sturt, for hosting the event, and to CEO Mark Withers for his insights into Council’s journey towards a water sensitive city, from street-scale permeable paving to the highly successful Water Proofing the West project.
The presentation by Water Sensitive SA program manager, Mellissa Bradley, outlined the priorities for the program over the next three years as identified by WSUD practitioners across a broad range of disciplines either on our online forum, during face-to-face meetings or targeted workshops over the past two years.
During the open forum you told us:
- More information is needed regarding the water quality treatment performance of WSUD elements within the landscape, and best practice water quality monitoring needs to be costed during the project planning phase.
- There are opportunities to link to existing training and certified courses to maximise the exposure of industry to WSUD concepts and design techniques.
- Water Sensitive SA need to extend support beyond greater Adelaide.
- Improved connections with research institutions will greatly benefit the program.
- An opportunity to connect practitioners to manufacturers via a technical library within the proposed website upgrade would be welcomed by industry.
Advice to those in the field on methods to protect WSUD elements during the construction phase from sedimentation is critical to the prolonged life of the asset.