Tools for water sensitive cities – what can they tell us & what can “we” do?

A tour of tools that explore water sensitive designs – with benefits from street trees, rainwater tanks & impacts on urban heat and what is the return on investment look like? Stay posted for more information from the partcipants on the tools they use and what they thought on the utility of the tools presented today. Also how does collaborative effort in urban design look like and what might be achieved. More to come.

Purpose of the Workshop

A current focus of the CRC Water Sensitive Cities is the Tools and Products program.  At this event we:

  • looked at the application of these tools and introduced the broader context and role of the  “Tools and Products” offerings and
  • sought feedback on the utility and needs of the practioners in their implementation and decision making roles

In bringing together this  group of targeted SEQ urban design & water management professionals we

  • Showcased some of the emerging tools, including worked examples
  • Reviewed the results and messages from applying the tools to parts of Brisbane
  • Consider the implications of the outcomes of the worked examples and what they might mean on how professionals work together and how their organisations build synergies for the collective role in urban design

Welcome to new participants

Today we had 40 participants join the Flood Community of Practice team. A special welcome to new participants from Aurecon, Brisbane City Council, City of Gold Coast, Moreton Bay Regional Council, QIT Plus,  Mott MacDonald, Department of Environmental Sciences, QFES, Economic Development Queensland, Hydrorock, Griffith University, CRC Waater Sensitive Cities and GHD.  Having more new colleagues join us continues to expand the expertise pool in our collective – a rewarding opportunity for us all.

Feedback on the various modelling – evaluation/modelling  tools

The presentations from:

  1. Sally Boer  on street tree water use
  2. Al Hoban on urban heat comparisons
  3. Tony McAlister on the application of a cost-benefit analysis tool

are all detailed in the presentations above – and below are the collated responses by the 21 survey participants to their thoughts on:

  • how the tool can help?
  • what will convince/incentivize your organisation to use this tool?
  • does this tool need any other features?

Mapping collective collaboration to better achieve decision making in enhanced urban design (design that is not business as usual)

Towards the end of the workshop, participants formed 5 small groups and each were asked to:

  1. Look at the process of collaboration for urban design/land use planning that has a focus on delivering livability;
  2. Consider what is the process to achieve that from a perspective of collaboration through professional and other networks with the use of the various scenario comparisons and decision making tools – like those presented today
  3. Describe how this might happen and what are the enabling opportunities & incentive to make this happen??

The outcomes of the five groups discussion were quiet varied and the results are presented pictorially below – many thanks Colby Lawton for creating these images from each groups drawing.

This event was a joint Flood Community of Practice and CRC Water Sensitive Cities collaboration.   This particular focus on the utility of water modelling tools is planned to continue in 2019  as part of a broader engagement of professionals in conjunction with the Queensland Water Modeling Network.   The QWMN will hold a range of activity and in November this year they are holding their annual Forum – if you would like to register click here.