Water Campaign™ case study

CITY OF MELBOURNE, VICTORIA

Total Watermark: City as a Catchment – the next step towards integrated sustainable water management

: Community action

: Corporate action

: Partnerships

: Water conservation

: Water quality

The City of Melbourne is the capital city of Victoria with an urban population of 81,366 and joined the Water Campaign™ in March 2002. Council is an ICLEI member and hosts the ICLEI Oceania head office.

Synopsis

: A street tree rain garden in Melbourne

In 2008, the City of Melbourne updated its existing water strategy to extend beyond achieving specific targets to an approach that incorporates and utilises every aspect of the city.

The new strategy, Total Watermark: City as a Catchment, is based on the principles of a water sensitive city, as laid out by the National Urban Water Governance Program.

These principles promote a holistic approach to all aspects of the water cycle in an urban context, from finding water sources that are locally available and ‘fit for purpose’, to incorporating considerations of healthy environmental flows, climate change adaptation and increasing social capital.

Motivation

The City of Melbourne’s first Total Watermark strategy, developed in 2004, focused on achieving specific targets for water conservation and stormwater quality improvement.

Over the years, Council’s understanding of best-practice water management has evolved to a more integrated approach, which considers every aspect of the water cycle, including its relation to the broader community and the environment.

Council has worked with the National Urban Water Governance Program (NUWGP), a research group based at Monash University, to develop the revised Total Watermark strategy based on the Program’s principles of a ‘water sensitive city’

A 'water sensitive city' focuses on the links within and between the urban water cycle, the built and natural environments, and organisational and community values. It uses diverse infrastructure associated with the harvesting, treatment, storage and delivery of water from both centralised and decentralised water supply schemes, and treats stormwater and wastewater before discharge to the environment. The 'water-sensitive city' considers natural waterways alongside traditional water infrastructure to create a more integrated approach to water management.

The City of Melbourne has drawn extensively from its expertise in Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) and 'City as a catchment' practices in order to write a strategy based on these principles.

Partners

The City of Melbourne partners with a large number of organisations in order to deliver its Total Watermark: City as Catchment strategy, including:

Melbourne Water through its Living Rivers Stormwater Program
The Cities of Yarra, Port Phillip and Stonnington through the Inner Melbourne Action Plan (IMAP)
Environment Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria through its Yarra River Investigations and Response Program
Melbourne Water, Sustainability Victoria, EPA Victoria and Yarra, Stonnington and Boroondara councils through the Lower Yarra Litter Strategy
ICLEI Oceania through the Water Campaign™. To date, the City of Melbourne has achieved Milestone 4 in both the Corporate and Community modules
Clinton Climate Initiative: Building Retrofit Program
Sustainable Water Use Reference Group.

Process

: Modular water storage inserts

Some of the ways in which the City of Melbourne is working towards these principles in its revised strategy include:

implementing WSUD using Council’s WSUD Guidelines (developed in 2005)
helping other metropolitan municipalities to apply the ‘city as a catchment’ approach (regional collaboration facilitates wider, coordinated and more effective implementation)
working towards zero potable water use in Council-managed parks
changing roads maintenance, building and construction practices to better provide for water saving and water harvesting, and improve water quality and the health of our waterways
assisting large non-Council sites to implement WSUD
undertaking climate adaptation analysis and research works to feed into stormwater harvesting and microclimates
continuing the sustainable building program with the private sector to reduce water, energy and waste
supporting continued research into ‘water sensitive cities’ using the City of Melbourne as a pilot.

Savings and benefits

Water conservation benefits

Council’s plan identified detailed targets to be reached by 2020, such as a 50 per cent reduction in mains water consumption per employee and a 90 per cent reduction in consumption by Council. Other targets include zero mains water use in Council-managed parks and sourcing 30 per cent (480 megalitres) of Council’s water needs from alternative water sources.

Water quality benefits

Council has set extensive water quality targets for stormwater quality, wastewater reduction and groundwater management, including a 20 per cent reduction in total suspended solids (soil, tyre/car residue) and 30 per cent reduction in litter on Council and non-Council land by 2020.

Other environmental benefits

The plan will also result in enhanced aesthetics through increased vegetation, aquatic elements and landscaping; linked urban and natural environments; and greenhouse gas reduction measures.

Community leadership

Council continues to show excellent community leadership with this updated plan, working with its own community and sharing learnings with other councils.

Further information

City of Melbourne website

Further information
Yvonne Lynch, Sustainability Coordinator
+61 (0)3 9658 8429

Contact details

For further information about the ICLEI Water Campaign™ in Australia please contact:

ICLEI Oceania
5/267 Collins St
Melbourne Vic 3000
Ph:   +61 3 9639 8688
Fax:   +61 3 9639 8677
Email:   oceania@iclei.org
Website:   www.iclei.org/oceania/water

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Council staff for their assistance in producing this case study.

Photographs supplied by Council.

Quoted population figures are taken from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Report 3218.0, Regional Population Growth, Australia 2006-07, March 2008.

Call for future case studies

Does your council have an initiative that could be promoted by the Water Campaign™ as a future case study?

We’d like to hear if your council has implemented an innovative water saving initiative or project to improve water quality. Contact your Water Campaign State Manager with details.

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