Executive Summary

The purpose of this report is to provide practical guidance on engaging communities in local water sensitive city transitions. It presents key principles for policymakers and practitioners, especially local and state government, water utilities and catchment management authorities. It was developed as part of the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities’ first integrated research project (IRP1) titled, Water sensitive city visions and transition strategies, which aimed to deliver a suite of participatory methods and tools for guiding cities and towns in accelerating their water sensitive transitions. The project delivered transition planning processes for six case studies across Australia: Perth, Adelaide, Bendigo, Sydney, Townsville and the Gold Coast.

Download the paper here.

The Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities has also issued new passive irrigation guidelines to cool our cities.

Self-watering street trees, garden beds and turfed areas are a high impact strategy for creating cooler, greener cities. These new guidelines help practitioners integrate these passive irrigation elements into different streetscapes and settings.