What was just a pipe dream in creating sustainable stormwater management systems is now becoming reality thanks to a long-standing Water by Design program that teams best practice research, community action, and proactive policy to tackle this wicked problem with innovative solutions.

Read more about the Living Waterways program and six cool projects being delivered right here in Queensland.

What is Living Waterways?

Sustainable stormwater management systems provide multiple benefits to the community and the environment. Living Waterways is a decision-making framework that is designed to help users create sustainable stormwater management systems that provide multiple benefits to the community and the environment.

It was developed in 2013 through Healthy Land & Water’s Water by Design initiative. Led by Dr Andrew O’Neill, the team worked in partnership with Meter, Bligh Tanner, and Landscapology to develop a quantitative tool that could be used to help guide discussion and decision-making around urban water management.

Together, they came up with Living Waterways, which is a scoring system that can be used to assess a project based on a set of themes that align traditional stormwater principles with place-making benefits.

Enshrined in policy

In a testament to its success, the Living Waterways approach has been recognised as a valid alternative to meeting the Stormwater Management Design Objects (SMDOs), a set of pollution load reduction targets that were introduced into the Queensland State Planning Policy in 2010.

To download the framework and explore Living Waterways in more detail, please visit www.waterbydesign.com.au. Water by Design has also developed a suite of freely available resources for Living Waterways, including an online learning module and supporting case studies.

Living Waterways in action

Over the past four years, Healthy Land & Water has delivered a series of on-ground projects in SEQ that embody the spirit of Living Waterways in every way.

The aim of these projects was to showcase how the framework can be used to achieve holistic, integrated design outcomes across a range of applications and local contexts and increase awareness and understanding of the value Living Waterways can bring to our urban spaces.

Case Study 1: Ready for take-off: Davidson Street | Newmarket

It all started with Davidson Street, which was where Healthy Land & Water first piloted the Living Waterways approach.

This project was launched in 2018, through funding from the Australian Government’s Improving Your Local Parks and Environment program.

The aim of this project was to restore an overgrown, eroded section of Enoggera Creek at the end of Davidson Street in Newmarket. The intent was to improve water quality outcomes whilst seeking opportunities to enhance the natural elements of this site and improve the amenity and accessibility of the creek for the benefit of the local community.

Water by Design worked in close partnership with Brisbane City Council, Save Our Waterways Now, CoDesign Studio (now Fourfold Studio), and the local Street Ambrose's Catholic Primary School to deliver the project, which included:

• Extensive weeding and revegetation with over 3,500 native trees, shrubs, and groundcovers to restore the original Three Mile Scrub ecosystem.
• An interpretative trail with interactive signage designed by Street Ambrose students leads to an integrated viewing platform that overlooks the creek.
• Integrated habitat features, including native beehives and nest boxes fitted with wildlife cameras.
• A dry creek bed provides an example of a historical ecological component of the site.
• Taking the stormwater offline to flow into a newly installed raingarden, helps to slow down and filter runoff before it enters the creek.

This highly successful, award-winning project was hugely embraced by the local community, who established their own bushcare group to care for the site. On the back of this work, Healthy Land & Water received funding to do another six waterway improvement projects through the Australian Government’s Environment Restoration Fund.

Read the Davidson Street case study
Visit the Davidson Street website

This project is supported by Healthy Land & Water, through funding from the Australian Government. Project partners include Brisbane City Council, the Queensland Department of Environment and Science, and Save Our Waterways Now.

Case Study 2: All's swale that ends well: Gizeh Street | Enoggera

Our Gizeh Street project was the first of six interventions to be delivered in the Lower Brisbane catchment.

Ferguson Park in Gizeh Street is a busy, much-loved park that sits beside Sandy Creek, which feeds directly into Kedron Brook. The park lies in a flood-impacted area that experiences high levels of runoff after rain, and local residents were very concerned about the amount of erosion that was impacting the creek.

Based on this intelligence, the team decided that this site would be an ideal opportunity to demonstrate the functionality of a swale in a park system.

Swales are shallow channels lined with grass and plants that help to slow down runoff and filter out nutrients and other pollutants before they reach our waterways.

Our engineers worked together with CUSP Landscape Architects and Brisbane City Council to identify where the swale would sit in the landscape and used stormwater modelling to quantify the water quality improvements the intervention could deliver in terms of runoff, sediment, and nutrient reduction.

CUSP provided the concept design and Oxley Creek Catchment Association (OCCA) delivered the on-ground works to install the swale, which was completed in July 2020.
Works also included weeding and revegetation of a 1,700 m² area adjacent to the swale.

To ensure long-term success, a subgroup of the Kedron Brook Catchment Association was stood up to take over stewardship of the site into the future.

This project is supported by Healthy Land & Water, through funding from the Australian Government’s Environment Restoration Fund. Project partners include Brisbane City Council and the Kedron Brook  Catchment Association.

Case Study 3: A mulch appreciated solution: Northey Street | Windsor

This highly specialised project gave us a unique opportunity to showcase the utility and flexibility of the Living Waterways approach.

Northey Street is home to Northey Street City Farm, a not-for-profit community-based urban permaculture farm that promotes and educates for sustainability.

But the farm was facing a problem. They were regularly receiving truckloads of mulch for use on the farm and were running out of places to put it. It also regularly floods in this area, so time was ticking for us to intervene before the next big rain event.

In partnership with Brisbane City Council, CUSP and OCCA, Healthy Land & Water led the design and installation of a large mulch bay on site to store the stockpiles of mulch and reduce the leaching of nutrients and other pollutants to the nearby Enoggera Creek. The bay is also surrounded by a vegetated swale, which further helps to capture and filter out excess nutrients.

This project is supported by Healthy Land & Water, through funding from the Australian Government’s Environment Restoration Fund. Project partners include Brisbane City Council and Northey Street City Farm.

Case Study 4: Getting wise about street trees: Hedley Avenue | Nundah

Did you know that water wise street trees can have double the growth rate, many times the canopy size, and live longer than standard street trees?

This is because they are self-watering – they use passive irrigation technology to harvest stormwater from the gutter before it reaches the drain. Harnessing the power of gravity, they direct runoff into an inlet (usually a pipe or kerb cutout) which takes that water right to the roots of the growing tree.

This process also captures and filters out nutrients and sediment, so not only are we able to reduce the amount of potable (i.e. drinkable) water the tree needs to establish and grow, but we also reduce the amount of runoff and pollutants reaching our waterways.

Hedley Avenue in Nundah was the perfect place to demonstrate this technology, as the road runs off directly into the Kedron Brook and is adjacent to a highly used open public space with lots of foot traffic and not much shade cover. Another big win for the environment and the community!

This project is supported by Healthy Land & Water, through funding from the Australian Government’s Environment Restoration Fund. Project partners include Brisbane City Council.

Case Study 5: Bringing it home for our furry (and not so furry) friends: Cicada Park | Chapel Hill

This site was identified during strategic sessions with Brisbane City Council and the local catchment group, Cubberla-Witton Catchments Network (CWCN).

Cubberla Creek runs through the length of Cicada Park and is known to be a core movement corridor for wildlife between Mt Coo-tha and the Brisbane River, which it feeds directly into.

Unfortunately, this section of the creek had not been looked after for some time and was so weedy and overgrown that in many places you couldn’t even really see the waterway was there.

Thus, the aim of this project was to restore the natural values and improve the amenity and accessibility of the creek and surrounding area to reduce waterway pollution, boost local biodiversity, and build stronger community connections.

The work was undertaken in multiple stages and included lots of weeding, minor earthworks to flatten out steep areas of the bank, installing coir logs and biodegradable matting to stabilise the soil and prevent weeds, and revegetating the entire area with local, native species.

We also took the opportunity to formalise the existing creek crossing and bush track with stone steppers and installed some community activation elements including sandstone seating blocks to overlook the creek and balancing logs and rocks that weave their way through the bushland.

To celebrate each stage of work, we held a series of very well-received community events in collaboration with CWCN and The Hut Environmental and Community Association (THECA). This included two planting days during which attendees collectively planted and watered over 2,000 native plants, shrubs, and groundcovers and a bushcare 101 workshop which featured captivating wildlife meet and greet.

A subgroup of THECA also stood up as stewards for this site. This superstar bushcare group meets on the last Sunday of every month to do weeding and watering, and thanks to their efforts, the site continues to thrive.

This project is supported by Healthy Land & Water, through funding from the Australian Government’s Environment Restoration Fund. Project partners include Brisbane City Council, Cubberla-Witton Catchments Network, and The Hut Environmental and Community Association.

Case Study 6: A new horizon for Living Waterways

You heard it here first – Living Waterways is expanding to the reef region!

We have two exciting new demonstration projects in Yeppoon and Mackay, thanks to the ongoing support of the Queensland Department of Environment and Science and our Reef Urban Stormwater Management Group. These projects have just been approved by the federal government, so stay tuned for more updates.

These projects came about on the back of the pilot at Davidson Street and will be delivered through the Australian Government Urban Rivers and Catchments Program.

Next step, the world!