Adoption and Application of Water Futures – Expert Workshop – Flood Community of Practice

Adoption and Application of Water Futures – Expert Workshop

Purpose of the Workshop

The book Water Futures is steadily becoming a well appreciated resource of ideas and vision for the managing the catchments, waterways and design of the communities living on the Brisbane River floodplain.

To expedite the awareness and increase the utility of the materiel in the book this workshop was able to :

Share the highlights and impressions of the book – so thanks to Bonnie Beare from Water Modelling Solutions for her review and to James Davidson and Clive Bape for sharing their experience in authoring the book.
Seek impressions from each participant on what they liked about the book and how that could be useful – see the report below for the wealth of comments
Build collective small group views on who could benefits from the concepts and ideas from Water Futures and how they might be used in various organisational and regional responsibilities and initiatives – see the report below for these insights

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The insights of each participant and the views of all the six groups are provided below in the click link – enjoy the reading as it is rich in insights and very supportive in the utility of the concepts in Water Futures.

So who came to participate at this workshop?

At this workshop on Thursday 19 April 2018 participants came from:

Local and State Governments:

Toowoomba Regional Council
Moree Plains Shire Council
Brisbane City Council
Queensland Reconstruction Authority

Water Utilities

SEQ water
Queensland Urban Utilities

Research

Griffith University
Sunshine Coastal University
CRC water Sensitive Cities

Non Government Organisations

Bulimba Creek Catchment coordinating Committee
Healthy Land and Water

Industry partners

Delatres
RED Consulatnt
E2Designlab
Water Modelling Solutions
Water Technology
Alluvium
Suncorp

Please click here for the workshop synopsis

Explore the views of participants and each of the groups at they evaluate the utility of the various concepts

The group spent a good 3 hours together all up – first hearing stories and impressions on the book and then a solid 2 hours of developing collective impressions and insights on how the utility of the ideas could be actioned.

All along plenty of activity as is evident in the photo display below. Scroll and expand across to see the mixture of activity that was underway.

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So what was an outcome of the workshop

On the day the mix of practitioners, policy people, academics, insurance people, community engagement and planners all agreed that the concepts in Water Futures simplify a complex set of variables into actionable and appropriate actions, tools and requirements. There has been enough science and knowledge on the catchment in the past 20-30 years to validate the ideas in the book and inform these actions, tools and requirements.

So if we are confident we know what needs to be done and where, how do we best get a Vision such as Water Futures happening and what processes will we use to engage all who need to be involved?

And out of each of the findings of the 6 small working groups there was a common response and action to be done – COLLABORATION.

It appears among the various entities in South East Queensland, there is much in place to make it happen, so a priority should be a next step which starts the process, creates the call to action, provides a leadership forum and gets out of the dreaming and scheming stage into the co-ordinated doing phase.

How that is best done and how that initiation can commence is a rich future topic. So do keep an ear open for a future event that will explore this need.

Are you interested in a copy of Water Futures?

The book Water Futures is rich in refreshing concepts and engaging visual insights.

Look at this recent blog post to appreciate what it is all about.

Copies are available through the James Davidson Architect team at this link – enjoy.