Wai Māori / Water

This report explores the community-led restoration initiatives of jetties in small settlements around Te Pataka o Rakaihautū/Banks Peninsula. New Building Better-funded research shows that jetties are deeply valued by people in a variety of ways from the recreational, to the historical, to the aesthetic. Jetties are places of connection, with intergenerational value. . .

Irrigation development is an important way that rural communities can drive economic regeneration. However, it also creates a complex set of positive and negative social impacts. Their assessment and management has implications for net social wellbeing over time. The social licence for large-scale irrigation development requires commitment to strategic and project-level Social Impact. . .

This report complements ‘Activating Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) for healthy, resilient communities’ research that aims to enhance capability and to address current barriers to the uptake of WSUD. It explores how WSUD in Aotearoa New Zealand values, recognises, and provides for Te Ao Māori and how it could do better. It shares experiences and knowledge of the authors to help integrate Māori. . .

Water sensitive urban design (WSUD) is often perceived as an expensive option for stormwater management in both the long and short term. This research looks at the implications of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management on the costs of WSUD and explores drivers and misconceptions around cost and maintenance. It also investigates the cost burden across the full life cycle. . .

Australia has substantial experience in Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD), Melbourne is home to Australia’s Co-operative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC) as well as agencies that have world-leading experience in the implementation of WSUD. A team of three researchers visited Melbourne in November 2018. As well as meeting researchers and practitioners from. . .

Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) is an alternative to conventional forms of urban development, integrating urban planning and water management to better manage, for example, water supply security, water quality in natural waterbodies, flood risk, and amenity values of waterbodies. The ‘Activating WSUD for healthy, resilient communities’ research programme initially focused on a series of. . .

The potential benefits of water sensitive urban design (WSUD) usually include better hydrology and water quality and healthier aquatic ecosystems. However, assessments of the benefits of WSUD that focus solely on these water-related outcomes are incomplete in scope. WSUD has the potential to deliver a wide range of other environmental and social co-benefits. This paper suggests WSUD should be. . .

There are significant challenges in securing funds for stormwater managers to address the costs of operating and maintaining desired levels of service, and for planning future growth while meeting community aspirations for the quality of the environment. This report documents Aotearoa New Zealand and Australian case studies and also highlights commonalities and lessons learnt. . .

This report describes the More Than Water (MTW) assessment tool, developed for evaluating the benefits and costs of Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) projects. The name of the tool reflects the notion that WSUD can deliver multiple co-benefits and cost-related advantages, in addition to more familiar considerations associated with management of the hydrological and water quality effects. . .

Push a button or pull a chain, our toilet waste disappearing out of sight is the last time most of us ever think about what goes down our drains. But an intricate infrastructure system takes care of our wastewater. Civil engineers, town planners and wastewater treatment experts are busy maintaining pipes and plant, coping with increasing demand, and disposing of the end products. . .

This report describes the findings of Phase 1 of the ‘Activating Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) for healthy, resilient communities project’ and makes recommendations for research activities in Phase 2. The researchers find there is a need to review management of the urban water cycle in New Zealand. Specifically, the capacity of current approaches to meet the reasonably foreseeable future. . .