Piloting A New Approach to Asset Management: The Stormwater Story

In 2009, North Shore City Council opened the Albany Lakes and Civic Crescent projects (Albany Lakes Precinct (ALP)). The projects both adopted an integrated approach to their design. This is evident in a number of areas and more particularly in the area of stormwater management where the approach adopted is consistent with the principles of water sensitive urban design (WSUD). The ALP development therefore blurs the boundaries between public art and infrastructure, stormwater management and amenity, transportation assets and parks.

Whilst an integrated solution has been delivered, industry experience of WSUD based developments has frequently found that the subsequent maintenance does not adapt to situations where assets may have multiple functions, non-standard solutions, or green engineering. A project was therefore instigated to establish a new, integrated approach to asset management that progressed beyond „three waters‟ or other current „integrated asset management‟ approaches. The project aimed to enable the sustainable concepts behind the WSUD, to address implementation barriers, and to identify and optimise interface efficiencies.

This paper explores this development in infrastructure management by considering the approach from the perspective of stormwater asset management. It considers the functional drivers and outcomes sought within the context of a new operational approach.