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An Overview of Water Sensitive Urban Design Practices in Australia

Article  in  Water Practice & Technology · January 2006

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 An Overview of Water Sensitive Urban Design Practices in
Australia
T. H. F. Wong
1
Ecological Engineering, PO Box 453, Prahran, Victoria 3181, Australia
Corresponding author, e-mail tony@ecoeng.com.au

ABSTRACT
Ecologically Sustainable Development in Australia can be described as going beyond the
protection of the environment from the impacts of pollution, to protecting and conserving
natural resources. In an urban environmental context this means urban development (both
greenfield development and urban renewal) that seeks to have no long term effects on various
aspects of the environment related to aspects such as greenhouse gas levels, material
resources, biodiversity and ambient water environments. Water environments, such as
waterways and coastal waters, and water supply catchments are key areas where urban
development can have significant impacts. Water Sensitive Urban Design in Australia has
evolved from its early association with stormwater management to provide a broader
framework for sustainable urban water management. It provides a common and unified
method for integrating the interactions between the urban built form (including urban
landscapes) and the urban water cycle. This paper presents an overview of current industry
practice and research implementation of Water Sensitive Urban Design in Australia.

KEYWORDS
bioretention, constructed wetlands, stormwater quality, urban design

INTRODUCTION
The pursuit of sustainability has emerged in recent years as a progression from previous
environmental protection endeavors. The ambition of sustainability and sustainable
development is to have lifestyles, and their supporting infrastructure, that can endure
indefinitely because they are neither depleting resources nor degrading environmental
quality. Land development activities impact on the sustainability of the physical
environment, including the health and amenity of water environments.

Water environments, such as waterways and coastal waters, and water supply catchments are
key areas where urban development can have significant impacts. In Australia, Ecologically
Sustainable Development (ESD) initiatives can be described as going beyond the protection
of the environment from the impacts of pollution, to also protecting, conserving and restoring
natural resources. Environmental sustainability can be described as a condition where there
is a zero net environmental cost associated with development activities. While such
ambitions may seem beyond reach, they set a challenge that can reap wide ranging benefits –
environmental, social and economic – with each step towards the ultimate goal of
sustainability.

Water Practice & Technology Vol 1 No 1 © IWA Publishing 2006 doi: 10.2166/WPT.2006018
An Overview of Water Sensitive Urban Design Practices in Australia

Protecting the environment from which, (i) water is diverted for urban consumption, and (ii)
treated wastewater and stormwater is discharged to, is the key objective of sustainable water
resource management. Managing the impacts of urban development on the water
environment must include attention to all three streams of the urban water cycle and
necessitates an integrated approach that is now widely acknowledged as achieving water
sensitive urban development through Water Sensitive Urban Design.

In Australia, Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) has evolved from its early association
with stormwater management to provide a broader framework for sustainable urban water
management. It is a framework that provides a common and unified method for integrating
the interactions between the urban built form (including urban landscapes) and the urban
water cycle. It is increasingly practiced in new urban greenfield development areas and urban
renewal developments linked to a broader ESD agenda. Key guiding principles of WSUD
include:
1. reducing potable water demand through water efficient appliances and seeking alternative
sources of water such as rainwater and (treated) wastewater reuse, guided by the principle
of “fit-for-purpose” matching of water quality and end uses.
2. minimising wastewater generation and treatment of wastewater to a standard suitable for
effluent re-use opportunities and/or release to receiving waters
3. treating urban stormwater to meet water quality objectives for reuse and/or discharge to
surface waters
4. using stormwater in the urban landscape to maximise the visual and recreational amenity
of developments.

INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT OF URBAN WATER STREAMS

Four major inter-related issues are identified as essential elements in advancing the concept
of WSUD in Australia. These include (i) Regulatory Framework; (ii) Assessment & Costing;
(iii) Technology & Design; and (iv) Community Acceptance and Governance. While there
has been advances in research and practice within each of these themes (as briefly presented
below), the scope of this paper only allows for a more detailed review of progress made in the
‘technology and design element’ with specific attention to the management of urban
stormwater.

Regulatory framework relates to the role of local, regional and state government departments
in facilitating the implementation of WSUD in urban development and renewal projects. It is
well recognized that the current fragmentation of roles and responsibilities in urban
catchment management impedes integrated approaches to urban water cycle management.
Over the last five years new research and innovative practices in Australia have revealed
what some of the likely and necessary dimensions of a regulatory and administrative
framework would be for systematically enabling the implementation of innovative
technologies and improved land-use practices. Examples of these include the establishment
of practical and equitable performance standards and a simple rating system for
demonstrating compliance to these standards as described by Kay et al. (2004).

Assessment and costing of WSUD initiatives are linked to issues related to life-cycle costs of
these initiatives and the nexus with external benefits. There have been progressive
An Overview of Water Sensitive Urban Design Practices in Australia

documentations of performance of various WSUD elements derived from field monitoring

and project cost evaluation in Australia.

Community acceptance and governance are considered essential in enabling broad scale
political support for WSUD and is fundamental to facilitating enhanced implementation rates,
as well as improving industry’s technical capacity in complex urban environments (Brown,
2003). There has been a significantly increased focus on the role of communities in both
refining the WSUD ‘problem’ and participating in developing WSUD strategies. Some
recent projects have focused on profiling community attitudes and receptivity to water reuse
and pollution prevention activities to inform local WSUD policy development. Other
projects have focused on implementing community participatory action models including
scenario workshops for jointly envisaging sustainable water futures, and different types of
community-based deliberative forums designed to deliver jointly developed strategies and
local WSUD plans.

Technology and design of WSUD elements have evolved since 2000 with many projects
demonstrating innovation at a range of scales. New initiatives involving collaboration with
building architects have extended the application of WSUD into a new dimension related to
their integration into the building form.

Figure 1 illustrates a recently constructed cluster of apartment buildings in Melbourne that

attempts to “close-the-loop” with respect to the indoor water budget. The buildings are
“plumbed” differently such that there is a separate collection of the water from the showers,
baths and hand basins to a package treatment plant consisting of an aeration balancing tank, a
membrane biological reactor (MBR) tanks. Stormwater is collected from roof and adjoining
impervious areas and directed to gross pollutant traps and thence to a bioretention basin.
Treated stormwater is then directed to the MBR tanks for tertiary treatment. Treated water
passes through a ultra-violet disinfection unit and is then reused for toilet flushing and
landscape watering. This is the first building-scale water recycling scheme and thus has a
high level of conservatism in its design and water quality standards. Monitoring of this
system is on-going and it is envisaged that future variations of such system will require less
stringent water quality treatment requirements.

Aeration and MBR tanks for Stormwater Bioretention System Aerial view of stormwater and
treatment of greywater greywater treatment and recycling
system

Figure 1. Integrating water management systems into residential buildings for greywater and
stormwater harvesting, treatment and reuse (D’Lux Apartments, Melbourne)

The most widespread application of WSUD has been in the integrated management of urban
stormwater. The integration of WSUD elements have been at a range of scales. This is the
focus of this paper with presentation of the current trends in concept and systemic design and
how recent research findings are advancing innovation in this regard.
An Overview of Water Sensitive Urban Design Practices in Australia

Integrated Management of Urban StormWater

The management of stormwater runoff in conventional urban developments has been driven
by an attitude that reflects the view that stormwater runoff has no value as a useful resource,
is environmentally benign and adds little to the amenity (aesthetic, recreation, education, etc)
of an urban environment. Consequently, conventional urban stormwater management has
focused on providing highly efficient drainage systems to rapidly collect and remove
stormwater runoff using a combination of underground pipes and linear “engineered”
overland flow paths (often located along the back fence line of properties to keep them out of
sight). These systems kept stormwater runoff “out of sight” and consequently “out of mind”.
The increased rates of stormwater runoff associated with conventional urban development
coupled with a dramatic increase in stormwater runoff volume and associated contaminants
such as litter, sediments, heavy metals and nutrients has caused significant degradation of the
natural environments.

As part of an emerging new paradigm in urban management, the treatment of stormwater

runoff is no longer considered in isolation to the broader planning and design of the
contributing urban area. Stormwater management is considered at all stages of the urban
planning and design process to ensure that site planning, architecture, landscape architecture
and engineering infrastructure is provided in a manner that supports the improvement of
stormwater quality and the management of stormwater as a valuable resource. Similarly, the
stormwater treatment system are adapted to the requirements of each of the other urban
infrastructure elements in order for the “whole” package to function as an ecologically,
socially, and economically sustainable urban system.

The success of WSUD as an urban planning and design paradigm will rest largely on the
ability of the urban design industry to provide engaging and informative landscape design
solutions within the public realm. The use of innovative landscape elements that show the
connectivity between human activity and the urban water streams are increasingly recognised
as having a powerful influence on the consciousness of individuals and recognition of their
role and responsibility in the protection and enhancement of our natural water resources. By
contrast, there is a distinct lack of visual connectivity between human activity, urban water
streams, and receiving natural waterways with the conventional “piped” stormwater system.
Thus within the conventional urban setting it is difficult for individuals to see, and indeed
understand, the impact of their actions on the sustainability of our natural water resources.

Cooperative collaboration between the urban design professions can achieve “smarter” and
more sustainable urban areas where urban landscapes engage, inform, and influence human
behavior for the benefit of the natural environment and the improvement of the social fabric.
The following sections present the outcome of recent collaborations between the urban design
professions in integration of stormwater treatment measures into the built form.

Stormwater Treatment Measures

Two of the most common stormwater treatment technologies that can be readily integrated
into urban design are constructed wetlands and bioretention systems.

Constructed Wetlands The use of constructed wetlands for urban stormwater quality
improvement is widely adopted in many Australian cities. Research and on-going refinement
to practice have provided a sounder basis for sizing constructed wetlands for stormwater
management and for its integration into landscape design (Wong and Breen, 2003).
An Overview of Water Sensitive Urban Design Practices in Australia

Hydrologic, hydraulic and botanic designs are inter-related and must be integrated for
successful long-term outcomes. Current Australian design practices of constructed
stormwater wetlands include:-

ƒ the compartmentalisation of constructed stormwater wetlands to enable different

processes to be promoted and to provide for the by-pass of high flows;
ƒ testing the particle size distribution on suspended sediments conveyed by urban
stormwater in order to determine the required detention time (Australian catchments
appear to be finer than that for overseas catchments, Lloyd et al., 1998);
ƒ the use of hydrologic effectiveness curves for selecting appropriate extended detention
storage volume of constructed wetlands throughout Australia, linking the influence of
probabilistic storm intensities, duration and inter-event period on the operation of
stormwater wetlands;
ƒ the use of a quantitative measure of hydrodynamic conditions (ie. hydraulic efficiency) in
constructed wetlands and ponds and to relate wetland and pond shapes, bathymetry, and
vegetation layout to hydraulic efficiency;
ƒ the active engagement of landscape designer to achieve a balance between meeting their
aesthetic objectives with those of stormwater quality improvement.

Bioretention Systems Recent adaptations of swale systems for stormwater quality treatment
are directed at promoting a higher degree of stormwater treatment by facilitating infiltration
of stormwater through a prescribed soil media. These systems are referred to as bioretention
systems where a trench, filled with a “prescribed” soil of known hydraulic conductivity, is
used to filter stormwater.

Vegetation is a crucial component of bioretention systems. Plants roots support a wide range
of microbiota (particularly bacteria and fungi) and influence characteristics of the media for
several millimeters around the root (the rhizosphere) and they can significantly increase the
physical trapping and biological uptake of nutrients and water by plants. Plant growth also
plays an important role in maintaining the structure and hydraulic conductivity of the media.
Their growth and death cycle results in macro-pore formation and maintenance, an important
function in prevention of clogging of the soil media.

Recent research and monitoring of field applications have demonstrated that they present an
effective “soft-technology” for removal of urban stormwater pollutants (Davis et al., 2001,
Lloyd et al., 2001, Kim et al., 2003). When designed with appropriate soil media and
planting, these systems have long-term capacities to assimilate heavy metals washed off
urban catchments.

Building, Local and Precinct Scale Constructed Wetlands and Bioretention Systems
Recent research into stormwater treatment technology has been able to confirm the scalability
of stormwater treatment technologies such as constructed wetlands and bioretention systems
for application in small confined areas. Through close collaboration with landscape
architects and urban designers, it has been possible to incorporate many of these technologies
into the urban form at a range of spatial scales. These are described in the sections below and
illustrated in Figures 2, 3 and 4.

Building Scale. Harvesting of roof stormwater runoff can be integrated with building design.
This runoff could be treated with bioretention or constructed wetland systems laid out in a
An Overview of Water Sensitive Urban Design Practices in Australia

roof-garden and delivered to architecturally-designed rainwater tanks that are incorporated

into individual apartments for toilet flushing. Contrary to many misconceptions of roof top
gardens, the entire roof space does not need to be fitted with stormwater treatment measures.
Often, the vegetated treatment areas (eg. bioretention systems and constructed wetlands) need
only to take-up 2% to 5% of the roof area to adequately treat stormwater runoff. A schematic
of a building project where roof water is to be treated in a roof garden and stored in
architecturally designed storage tanks within individual apartments for reuse in the hot water
system is shown in Figure 2 (the building is also to be fitted with a greywater recycling
system for toilet flushing and garden watering).

Integrated Rainwater Tanks into Hot Water Service

Figure 2. Integrating stormwater management systems into buildings – proposed rainwater

harvesting from roof top garden and storage within apartments for hot-water
(Landcom, Sydney)

Local Scale. Public building forecourts and local streetscapes represent the connecting
pathways between the buildings where we live and work and the areas of sub-regional and
regional public open space where we interact and recreate at a local and regional community
scale. In terms of stormwater runoff generation, public building forecourts and local
streetscapes represent public realm areas located closest to the source of most urban
stormwater runoff (i.e. from impervious surfaces associated with buildings and road
pavements). Integration of stormwater management functionality within landscape elements
associated with public building forecourts and local streetscapes allows for a number of key
WSUD best management practices to be satisfied, namely: collection and treatment of
stormwater runoff at its source; first use of stormwater runoff for watering the landscape; and
visual connectivity between the built form and the urban stormwater stream.

Precinct Scale . Precinct scale public open space areas provide an opportunity to integrate
stormwater collection, treatment and storage/re-use facilities within the overall landscape
design of these areas. With competing uses for these spaces the scale and landscape form of
the stormwater management systems needs to carefully consider the other uses of the park
and their potential interaction with the stormwater management systems. Issues of public
safety and aesthetic amenity are important design considerations requiring site analysis to
determine site usage patterns, journeys, site lines, and existing landscape character in order to
ensure an appropriate landscape form.
An Overview of Water Sensitive Urban Design Practices in Australia

Hampton Park Wetland Lynbrook Estate Wetland All Nations Park Wetland
(Melbourne Water) (VicUrban) (City of Darebin)

Dockland Park Wetland NAB Building Forecourt Wetland

(VicUrban) (Lend Lease)

Figure 3. Various scales of stormwater treatment wetlands recently constructed in Australia

Blacken Ridge Bioretention Basin Baltusrol Estate Victoria Park

(Brisbane City Council) (Australand) (Landcom)

Cremorne Street Victoria Harbour, Melbourne Docklands Bourke Street Tree Planters
(City of Yarra) (Lend Lease) (Lend Lease)

Figure 4. Various scales of stormwater bioretention systems recently constructed in Australia

 10th International Conference on Urban Drainage, Copenhagen/Denmark, 21-26 August 2005

CONCLUSIONS
The concept of Water Sensitive Urban Design is based on formulating development plans that
incorporate an integrated approach to the management of the urban water cycle. In relation to
stormwater management, WSUD involves a pro-active process which recognises the
opportunities for urban design, landscape architecture and stormwater management
infrastructure to be intrinsically linked. WSUD espouses the need to integrate stormwater
management into the planning and design of urban areas and applies across the entire spatial
scale from a catchment-wide regional level to the precinct level to the local, building level.

Opportunities for the innovative integration of stormwater management functions within

contemporary urban landscape designs at a range of scales within the public realm and private
buildings were presented in this paper. A shift towards “at source” stormwater management
systems will further advance the development of innovative on-site, streetscape and precinct
scale landscapes incorporating stormwater management functionality.

The principles of WSUD are equally relevant to achieving sustainable developments in other
places with different water infrastructure systems to the Australian context. The challenge
ahead is to continue the collaborative approach to urban design and to provide technically
robust solutions that excite and engage communities and deliver improved environmental
outcomes for today and future generations.

REFERENCES
Brown, R.R. (2003), Institutionalisation of integrated urban water management: Multiple-case analysis
of local management reform across metropolitan Sydney, doctoral dissertation, UNSW,
Sydney, Australia.
Davis, A.P., Shokouhian, M., Sharma, H. and Minami, C. (2001), Laboratory study of biological
retention for urban stormwater management, Water Environment Research 73(1), 5-14.
Kay, E, Wong, T, Johnstone, P and Walsh, G (2004), Delivering Water Sensitive Urban Design
through the planning system, proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Water
Sensitive Urban Design – Cities as Catchments, Adelaide, Australia, 21-24 November, 2004.
CD-ROM.
Kim, H., Seagren, E.A. and Davis, A.P. (2003), Engineered bioretention for removal of nitrate from
stormwater runoff, Water Environment Research 75(4), 355-367.
Lloyd, S.D., Wong, T.H.F., Liebig, T. and Becker, M. (1998), Sediment Characteristics in Stormwater
Pollution Control Ponds, proceedings of HydraStorm’98, 3rd International Symposium on
Stormwater Management, Adelaide, Australia, 27-30 September 1998.
Lloyd, S.D., Fletcher, T.D., Wong, T.H.F. and Wootton, R.M. (2001), Assessment of Pollutant
Removal in a Newly Constructed Bio-retention System, proceedings of the 2nd South Pacific
Stormwater Conference, Auckland, New Zealand, 27-29 June 2001.
Wong, T.H.F. (2001), A changing paradigm in Australian urban stormwater management, keynote
address, 2nd South Pacific Stormwater Conference, Auckland, New Zealand, 27 – 29 June
2001.
Wong, T.H.F. and Breen, P.F. (2002), Recent advances in Australian practice on the use of
constructed wetlands for stormwater treatment In: Strecker E.W. and Huber W.C. (eds.):
Global solutions for urban drainage. Proc. 9th Int. Conf. on Urban Drainage, Portland, Oregon,
8-13 September 2002. CD-ROM, ASCE Publications, Reston, VA.

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