WATER CAMPAIGN™ CASE STUDY

CITY OF STIRLING, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Water Smart Parks: Irrigating parks and gardens efficiently

: Corporate action

: Water conservation

: Water quality

Lying approximately eight kilometres north of Perth’s central business area the City of Stirling stretches across 30 suburbs and is the largest local government in Western Australia by population. The City of Stirling is an ICLEI Member and has been a Water Campaign™ participant since 2007.

Synopsis

The City of Stirling's Water Smart Parks strategy categorises all parks for water conservation initiatives, such as ecozoning and hydrozoning, irrigation system retrofits, soil moisture probes and connection to a centralised irrigation management system.

Background

As with the majority of local governments in the Perth metropolitan region, the City of Stirling uses groundwater to irrigate areas of open space and playing fields.

In Western Australia, the current drying climate means that the amount of water being recharged to groundwater aquifers is declining. In addition, the widespread use of groundwater by commercial and private users has meant that groundwater levels are rapidly falling, causing changes in wetland hydrological regimes, acid sulphate soils and saline groundwater intrusion.

The City of Stirling recognises the need for local governments to do all that is possible to reduce the impact on groundwater supplies. Coupled with the fact that the city operates arguably the largest irrigation asset in Western Australia – if not Australia – it has set the pace for the introduction of appropriate watering techniques via its Water Smart Parks strategy.

The city committed itself to developing and implementing management practices that would achieve the sustainable use of groundwater resources within the City of Stirling. Council seeks to advance and strengthen the three pillars of sustainability — social development, environmental protection and economic development.

Process

The majority of the city's parks and reserves are maintained through an extensive irrigation system comprising 360 bores, which cover 740 hectares of irrigated areas over 450 parks and reserves.

The Water Smart Parks strategy categorises parks into zones, being 'ecozones' or 'hydrozones'. These zones may have different watering needs dependant upon zone use, resulting in overall reduced watering requirements.

: Stirling Civic Gardens: The Hydrozoning is visible in the active area in the middle (dark green) receiving more irrigation per week compared to the passive non-active area (olive green).

: Stirling Civic Gardens: The Ecozones are reflected via the portions within Hydrozones that have been converted to native tree and shrub plantings (surrounding areas).

The city prioritises its irrigation based upon reserve and park use, to ensure that water use remains within licensed allocations. Modified irrigation means Water Smart Parks may be a little less green than they were previously.

The Water Smart Parks strategy is the first stage of the city’s broader Groundwater Conservation Strategy, which will address the needs of climatic change and future availability of groundwater, while reducing the city’s water usage and delivering cost savings in maintenance. This strategy works in association with the Public Open Space Strategy, which was undertaken jointly by the Parks and Reserves, and Recreation and Leisure Services Business Units.

The Water Smart Parks strategy was endorsed by City of Stirling Council and the Department of Water. It leads into the city’s plan for a centrally controlled irrigation management system, linked to soil moisture probes and weather stations.

: This sign at Woodchester Reserve shows that Water Smart Parks is a community project supported by the Australian Government Water Fund (Community Water Grants). This sign publicises that the imitative will help community organisations save, reuse or improve the health of their local water resources.

Challenges encountered

Funding

Council was unable to fund a complete overhaul of the water management system at one time due to limited funds, so the city has implemented a staged approach over a number of years.

Community understanding

The community has always expected parks and reserves to be dark green in colour, but reduced irrigation under the Water Smart Parks strategy meant parks wouldn’t be as green. By educating the community through newspaper articles and brochures there is now a greater understanding of why certain parks and reserves are different in appearance.

Funding

The City of Stirling obtained funding via the Parks and Reserves Capital Works Budget and additional funding was obtained through a Community Water Grant from the Australian Government Water Fund.

The city conducted an evaluation of Jones Paskin Reserve and compared the traditional irrigation system to a design based on the Water Smart Parks strategy.

This evaluation showed that the Water Smart Parks irrigation system would cost 15% more than the traditional irrigation system, or $29,000 per hectare rather than $25,000 per hectare.

However, these costs are minimal when considering the value of the water that will be conserved.

Savings and Benefits

: Since implementation of the Water Smart Parks Strategy, the City used only 83.9% of its water licences allocation for 2009/10; hence conserving 16.1%. This is a significant achievement compared with previously being over by 22% in 2006/07.

The primary benefit of the Water Smart Park strategy has been significant groundwater savings.

Each year the Western Australian Government Department of Water allocates a total of 5,226,750 kilolitres of groundwater to the City of Stirling. Analysis of data in 2006/07 showed that the city was exceeding its groundwater allocation by over 22%.

In 2008/09, after implementation of the Water Smart Parks strategy, the City of Stirling reduced its water consumption to being over the annual quota by only 12.56%.

Results in 2009/10 are even more positive, with the city using only 83.9% of its annual allocation – 841,506.75 kilolitres below the full quota.

Overall, in 2009/10 Council has reduced its total water usage by a quarter of the 2008/09 total.

A specific example of a reserve that has benefited from the Water Smart Parks strategy is Jones Paskin Reserve, which has an annual allocation of 24,750 kilolitres of groundwater.

In 2008/09, prior to the new irrigation system being implemented, the city was 64.3% over its water allocation for this particular reserve. However, since implementing the Water Smart Parks strategy only 76.7% of the site’s annual allocation was used in 2009/10, a saving of 5767 kilolitres of groundwater.

Additional benefits resulting from the Water Smart Parks strategy include:

reduced power consumption
reduced fertiliser use
creation of natural/wildlife habitat
increased biodiversity
use of local plants enhancing 'sense of place'
increased diversity and richness of local plants and animals
enhancement of remnant bushland.

The City of Stirling also won the 2009 WA Environment Award for its Water Smart Parks strategy, in the category of Government Leading by Example. The Department of Environmental Protection recognised the city’s leadership, commitment and excellence in sustainability or conservation.

Lessons learned

The city has learned that:

consultation with all stakeholders is imperative to ensure that all aspects of the proposed strategy are addressed
community education funds are required for publicity and promotion
research is imperative to ensure the best strategy is developed
this strategy should be able to integrate with other strategies and work towards a common goal
strategies such as this should be implemented via a staged approach rather than trying to implement it at one time
all future designs of parks and reserves are to take this strategy into consideration
more management time is required for administration
a change in turf management practices is required.

Contact Details

City of Stirling

Don Low, Senior Irrigation Officer, Parks and Reserves
City of Stirling
Ph: 08 9345 8673

Council website: www.stirling.wa.gov.au

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 Megan Turner, Kevin Zoccoli, Don Low and Sam Morrison from the City of Stirling for their assistance in producing this case study.

Images supplied by Council.

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