A Framework for Integrated Urban Water Planning and Management for NSW

This paper reports on the development of a multi-faceted framework for the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation to assist local government in the development of a 'next generation' integrated stormwater management planning (ISMP) mechanism. This approach has at its core the need to consider stormwater quality and quantity, ecosystem health, together with organisational and social values. In 1998 the NSW Environment Protection Authority (now Department of Environment and Conservation) initiated its stormwater management planning (SMP) process. This required councils across the state to prepare SMPs and implement strategies to improve urban stormwater quality. Guiding this process was the draft Managing Urban Stormwater: Council Handbook (EPA 1997). While this process delivered an important outcome in bringing stormwater quality into the minds of councils and their stakeholders, the process did not effectively integrate water quality with water quantity / flooding and stream health processes and management. To ascertain the direction in which councils are individually progressing urban stormwater management since this time, a survey was undertaken of councils in the Sydney Region regarding the inadequacies and constraints to integrating stormwater quality and quantity. The interviews confirmed that stormwater quality and quantity are generally managed by separate sections of Councils. Constraints to their integration include a lack of organisational support for integrated environmental management approaches and inter-departmental input, as well as the need for a water management planning framework that is linked to other activities of council. Significantly, the surveys showed that several councils are beginning to develop their own stormwater management planning process, focusing on integration of water quality, water quantity / flooding and stream health. Furthermore, councils are suggesting that the proper integration of the urban water cycle into council processes goes beyond stormwater management and needs to be underpinned by a well-defined series of management outcomes that reflect the principles of ecologically sustainable development. This paper focuses on the physical environment and environmental health assessment that forms one of the four core areas of information to be considered within the new integrated urban water planning and management framework.