A Changing Paradigm In Australian Urban Stormwater Management

Contemporary urban stormwater management is aimed at reducing the impacts of urbanisation on the natural water cycle. Management objectives go beyond the traditional concept of efficient and rapid conveyance of urban stormwater runoff and now include the protection of aquatic ecosystem health of receiving waters, promotion of stormwater as a resource and integration of stormwater management facilities into the urban landscape. By necessity, urban stormwater management now needs to be broadly based, requiring multi-disciplinary inputs. In Australian practice, the adoption of an integrated approach to urban design that implicitly integrates urban stormwater management practices has been slow and sporadic. However, the past three years have seen increased efforts to forge a stronger link between research institutions, state and local government departments and the land development industry. This represents a significant paradigm shift in stormwater management practice in Australia. Research organisations are now placing a higher emphasis on effective engagement and partnership with the industry. Recent land development projects have adopted a Water Sensitive Urban Design philosophy, a reflection of the changing paradigm towards an integrated urban water cycle management approach to ecologically sustainable urban design. In most states of Australia, current institutional arrangements are such that the responsibility for urban water resources management are fragmented and make integrated water management difficult. Efforts are made to overcome this impediment to provide the necessary administrative and regulatory framework to support industry adoption of best practice environmental management of urban stormwater. This paper describes the current status of Australian practice in urban stormwater management and outlines some of the initiatives taken to complete the paradigm shift to an ecologically sustainable urban stormwater management.