Streamlining and Standardising Streetscape WSUD implementation in Moreland City Council

Moreland City Council is located in Melbourne, Australia. They are committed to creating an environmentally sustainable and liveable city by supporting and encouraging the implementation of triple–bottom line solutions to improve the local environment and thus contribute to solving global environmental issues. Best practice stormwater treatment is a central tenet of this commitment, which is partially achieved by encouraging the installation of WSUD elements throughout the municipality.

Council identified that some previous WSUD retrofit projects had been poorly implemented due to a lack of project understanding and inconsistency in WSUD elements. To improve the standard, consistency and maintainability of WSUD projects Moreland Council sought to prepare raingarden and tree pit standard drawings.

However, site constraints relating to existing factors, such as infrastructure, stormwater, and services, can impact the design of WSUD measures. Additionally, aesthetic and safety considerations will vary depending on the location of the asset with respect to busy pedestrian areas, main roads, etc. To tackle these issues GHD connected with Moreland Council’s engineers, planners and landscape architects to create a suite of standard design elements that could be combined on a project by project basis to form flexible WSUD designs.

The resulting design package consists of design procedure, illustrative catalogue of configurations and elements, AutoCAD library and documentation templates.The package allows Council to control the quality of design and construction, and develop predictable and consistent maintenance procedures. The flexibility of the design package allows application of the approach to constrained or irregular sites where standard drawings would not be applicable. This design package bolsters Council’s ability to achieve stormwater quality targets and provide cost-effective ongoing maintenance of assets.

Opportunities also exist for other local governments to tailor the package to their needs and improve the standards of WSUD projects within their own municipalities.