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Presentation highlights from 2015 Stormwater Victoria Conference

Clearwater

Over 140 water professionals from a range of disciplines ventured to the Mornington Peninsula to attend this year's 2015 Stormwater Victoria Conference on Climate Change. This conference provided attendees with a fantastic opportunity to learn about the latest projects and innovations tackling climate change and build connections across the industry.

This year the Clearwater team attended and also chaired some of the sessions. We have selected a few presentations we thought would be of interest.

Keynote presentation: Rainfall in a changing climate

Karl Braganza from the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) delivered an extremely insightful and engaging presentation on Australia’s changing climate. He provided a historic overview of Australia’s climate and described future predictions of climate change without proper mitigation measure. He explained that in some parts of Australia the climate will be drier, that rainfall will be heavier when it does fall, and the impact of La Nina and El Nino events may become more pronounced.

Urban Water: Making the invisible visible

Kelly Hertzog from the City of Melbourne delivered a fantastic presentation on the City of Melbourne’s Urban Water project, a key communication tool that aims to increase the understanding of stormwater management in the urban environment. The Urban Water project consists of a new website with content suitable for general and technical users, including:

  • The ‘Story of Water’ content to explain the impacts of urbanisation and climate change on the water cycle and how IWM is working to mitigate these impacts
  • Detailed case studies of stormwater projects across the City of Melbourne including live data feed showing information on stormwater harvesting projects
  • Onsite interpretive signage at over 20 sites across the City with QR codes to facilitate self-guided tours
  • Interactive online maps, videos, infographics and other useful learning tools and much more

The good, bad and ugly of WSUD assets after construction in a growth area council

Phillip Thompson from the Hume City Council presented findings from their recent asset audit project which was initiated to assess the current condition of their assets. Results from this project were used to identify maintenance and rectification needs, priorities and costs.

Stormwater quality treatment: What role does the planning system play?

Esther Kay from Environment and Land provided an insightful presentation, starting with an overview of the planning system changes that followed publication of 1999 of the – “urban Stormwater: Best Practice Environment Management Guidelines”. She then explored the question of how a more integrated planning approach could be realised and add value through further changes to the planning system, and integrated in the Victorian Planning Provision objectives.

 A complete listing of presentations is available from the Conference website.