A Tool for Evaluating Stormwater Management Outcomes Across the Four Wellbeings

A sustainable development approach to stormwater management involves taking into account the social, economic, and cultural wellbeing of people and communities as well as maintaining and enhancing the quality of the environment. In order to support this approach, a pilot decision support system (DSS) has been developed which evaluates stormwater management outcomes for receiving water bodies by predicting indicators for the four wellbeings. Inputs representing alternative catchment-scale stormwater management scenarios drive models which predict changes in water and sediment quality and indicators of ecosystem health in rivers and estuaries, providing a measure of environmental wellbeing. These environmental indicators are in turn used to evaluate effects on the ways in which people and communities interact with the water bodies, expressed as indicators of social wellbeing and the economic benefits arising from a given stormwater management scenario. These benefits are combined with the results of a costing model to give an assessment of changes in economic wellbeing. The development of a pilot DSS has involved assembling, linking and testing these various methods. Further research aims to extend the pilot DSS to include indicators of cultural well-being.