Short Virtual Presentation & Digital Poster 10th Australian Stream Management Conference 2021

Healthy Land and Water (HLW) were commissioned by the Department of Environment and Science (DES) to examine the Stormwater Management Design Objectives (SMDOs) within the State Planning Policy (SPP) in Queensland. This resulted in the publication of the SPP Scientific Report and the Blueprint for Improving Waterway Management in 2020. These Reports found that the SMDOs could be improved by taking a whole of catchment viewpoint rather than just focusing on an active development front. In developing options to address this issue these reports both recommend the reintroduction of Integrated Water Planning (IWP) (also known as Total Water Cycle Management Planning) to empower local governments and regional planners. IWP aims to break down the silos between Water, Sewage, Stormwater and Flooding for the benefit of the economy, community, environment and especially the waterways. IWP is particularly relevant for waterway management as it can:

• Help us understand the catchment’s water and nutrient balance and understand the waterway’s thresholds and limits,
• Identify and mitigate risk hotspots and magnify our impact,
• Identify new opportunities and methodologies to limit pollution,
• Find efficiencies and synergies in our water systems via resource conservation and resource recovery,
• Defer expensive infrastructure upgrades such as desalination plants with cost savings reinvested in waterways,
• Improve water security via source diversification.

To help break down silos between various water streams, HLW has created an extension to the Strategic Waterways Tool called Integrated Waterways to enable water managers to understand and find the overlaps and synergies between Water, Sewage and Stormwater.