Value water in communities by prioritising a whole-of-water-cycle management approach and applying fit-for-purpose, fit-for-place and fit-for-people approaches.
- Community priorities
- Social benefits
- Liveable cities
- Connected regions
- Regionalised Australia
Key messages
The water sector is central to ensuring the liveability and resilience of Australia’s urban environments. Australians value water-dependent urban features, including parks, sporting fields and urban waterways. Integrating management of water infrastructure and incorporating water managers into urban planning helps ensure the benefits of water in urban environments can be maximised.
Quality water is essential to meet basic human needs, and is critical for strengthening Australians’ health and wellbeing, ensuring economic prosperity and supporting sustainable development.
All Australians have a right to safe, quality reliable water and wastewater services. The Australian Government recognises this right and the commitment in the 2020 National Agreement on Closing the Gap and in its pledge to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
What are the impacts?
Water management that incorporates the whole water cycle and considers a fit-for-purpose, fit-for-place and fit-for-people approach delivers many benefits to service users. The most significant is improved access to services. Whole-of-water-cycle management will improve access to water and wastewater services in remote communities, improve Closing the Gap targets and help meet United Nations Sustainability Development Goals.
It will also improve service quality, enhance health outcomes related to water quality, and strengthen the resilience and liveability of urban areas. In addition, the environmental sustainability of water services will be enhanced through whole-of-water-cycle management. Delivery of services that are fit for purpose, place and people is key to community sustainability.
How easy is it to implement?
Complete implementation of the reform will take up to 15 years. There will be short-term complexities in incorporating water planning into land-use planning and with creating a cost recovery mechanism for liveability projects.
The capacity of governments to integrate water management must be further improved. State and territory planning bodies can ease implementation challenges by clarifying the roles and responsibilities of utility providers and local government, as well as increasing the focus for industry involved in property development and urban renewal. Industry is well placed to deliver, as evidenced by delivering clean water to remote communities.
This reform will increase short-term costs. Delivering improved services to remote communities and delivering water-related liveability improvements requires investment. However, cost savings over the medium- to long-term, through efficiency improvements and better allocation of resources across the water cycle, will counter upfront investment.
How certain are the outcomes?
Unlike energy and transport services infrastructure, where affordability is the leading priority, communities prioritise water quality over affordability, so they are likely to accept this change.
There is also a high degree of confidence that benefits will be achieved. Small-scale projects that incorporate whole-of-water-cycle approaches have proved this approach, including South Creek in Western Sydney and project ‘Gilghi’ in the Northern Territory.
While state and territory governments control most of the resources to achieve this reform, the Australian Government has a greater role in articulating outcomes, delivering infrastructure and allocating resources.
| Access |
Safe water
|
| Quality |
Safe sanitation services
|
| Environmental |
Stormwater management framework
|
Read more about this recommendation in 6.2 Valuing water to create liveable communities in the 2021 Australian Infrastructure Plan.
Reform implementation pathway
This recommendation comprises of outcomes and activities, which form the reform's implementation pathway.
The implementation pathway is designed to guide change agents on the supporting activities necessary to achieve the overall reform.
For each outcome and activity, we propose change agents to act as:
- Proposed sponsor: facilitate, coordinate and champion the recommendation
- Proposed lead: deliver specific activities or lead related outcomes
- Support: share ownership, contributions or knowledge to enable the reform process.
Provide enhanced community benefits, including water security, public health, environmental health, and urban resilience by integrating management of water infrastructure throughout the whole water cycle.
10-15 years
Clarify roles and responsibilities by reviewing stormwater infrastructure management, including governance, regulatory, pricing, physical and operational constraints.
0-5 years
Establish a national stormwater management framework that includes:
- objectives and principles for total water cycle management, including urban amenity and community and waterway health
- guidelines on roles and responsibilities for planning, operation, and maintenance
- cost recovery mechanisms.
5-10 years
Assess existing stormwater infrastructure condition, capacity, location and management, and assess integration options.
5-10 years
Integrate potable water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure planning by assigning a single planner across the water cycle for greenfield development sites.
5-10 years
Formalise roles and responsibilities for integrated water cycle management in established urban areas in alignment with a national stormwater management framework.
10-15 years
Establish sustainable and community-driven recovery of efficient costs, such as value sharing or levies, for stormwater infrastructure management. This should include urban waterway enhancements and re-naturalisation in alignment with a national stormwater management framework.
10-15 years
Embed a whole-of-water cycle management approach into long-term, large scale (city or catchment – including both metropolitan and regional settings) urban planning by defining and implementing community driven outcomes for public health, environmental (including ecological), health, amenity and urban resilience:
- Define clear community-driven objectives for water cycle management over the long term.
- Align long-term growth planning to community objectives.
- Ensure long-term growth plans recognise the value of water within the entire water cycle and identify dependencies of urban growth on water by incorporating best available data and water modelling.
- Identify water security risks and growth opportunities by applying the national water security framework.
5-10 years
Embed whole-of-water cycle management at the commencement stage of local land use planning through formal arrangements between land use planners and the water cycle planner.
0-5 years
Deliver safe, high-quality, secure, sustainable and fit-for-purpose water and wastewater services to remote and isolated communities by partnering with communities and water utilities, developing a funding pathway and monitoring strategies.
10-15 years
Deliver secure, sustainable water and wastewater services to remote and isolated communities by implementing a funding pathway that considers whole-of-life-cycle infrastructure and whole-of-water-cycle services.
0-5 years
Develop a comprehensive understanding of community dynamics that relate to water consumption, including access, use and preferences, as well as an assessment of water and wastewater infrastructure performance and condition. This should be done by undertaking a whole-of-service assessment.
0-5 years
Deliver resilient and sustainable water and wastewater infrastructure that meets communities' needs by applying fit-for-purpose, fit-for-place and fit-for-people approaches that directly respond to whole-of-service assessments.
5-10 years
Improve community health outcomes and introduce a total water cycle approach, including fit-for-purpose water use, by including sewerage services alongside potable water as part of minimum service standards for settlements in Remote Areas.
10-15 years
Deliver co-designed, co-delivered water education and demand management strategies focusing on outdoor water use by partnering with community leaders and Aboriginal land councils. Education strategies should be delivered through schools and key community forums, incorporating preferred language and traditional knowledge.
5-10 years
Ensure community outcomes are being met consistently by implementing ongoing risk-based monitoring strategies.
10-15 years