You want WSUD With That? Identifying and breaking barriers to uptake

Stormwater Conference

In September 2017, the Building Better Homes Towns and Cities National Science Challenge funded a research team to ‘Activate Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) for healthy, resilient communities’. The funding award reflected a recognition that, in the face of an impending residential building boom, New Zealand is at a critical point in the way urban development and stormwater management is implemented. We can either continue with conventional approaches, with a probable continued decline in the health of our urban streams and harbours, or follow a transformational pathway centred on the adoption of WSUD. Given the requirements of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) to maintain or improve water quality, WSUD appears to be the only realistic option. Getting it wrong and retrofitting later simply won’t work.

The value proposition of WSUD is that it has the potential to deliver:

  • Better environmental and ecosystem services outcomes, for instance through the provision of better water quality, flood resilience and moderating climate extremes;
  • Better social outcomes, noting that environmental quality features strongly in urban liveability indices, including through its influence on sense of place, connectedness with nature and amenity values; and
  • Better economic outcomes, through the avoidance of upfront infrastructure costs and avoided costs of environmental remediation associated with conventional development.

The research team contends that New Zealand is ideally placed to implement WSUD. We have a temperate climate, with generally well-distributed rainfall and moderate temperatures, enabling year-round plant growth and functioning of WSUD technologies. In addition, WSUD concepts align closely with ‘clean green’ kiwi culture and the kaitiaki values of iwi and a growing Māori development sector.

Conference Papers

3. You want WSUD With That Identifying and breaking barriers to uptake.pdf

pdf
167 KB
28 Jun 2018

1420 - Jonathan Moores - You want WDUS with that...pdf

pdf
2 MB
28 Jun 2018