As the importance of capacity building in the water industry continues to grow, Healthy Land & Water’s Water by Design initiative serves as a blueprint for other regions and nations seeking effective solutions for sustainable urban water management.

		Capacity building leader Since 2005, Water by Design has been leading the charge in sustainable urban water capacity building.
		Addressing challenges collaboratively Water by Design collaborates with all levels of government and industry to drive implementation of best practice sustainable urban water management.
		On-ground action Our suite of on-ground demonstration projects aims to improve water quality, restore waterway health and strengthen social connections to build more resilient communities.

Water is a precious resource, and with ever increasing pressures from population growth and climate change, the need for sustainable urban water management has never been more crucial.

Recognising this, Healthy Land & Water has been at the forefront of driving positive change through its Water by Design initiative since 2005.

Water by Design plays a pivotal role in building the capacity of diverse stakeholder organisations and groups to ensure the delivery of world-class sustainable urban water management solutions. This past financial year has been no exception, with the team continuing to deliver strong results across all of our programs.

This successful program improves community flood resilience, reduces the risk to agricultural assets and improves water quality. Reducing sediment and nutrient runoff from entering our region’s waterways also helps to decrease potential harm to a host of local ecosystems.

All time high engagement

In what was a huge year for engagement, from July 2023 to June 2024, our capacity building activities alone attracted over 1,065 practitioners from across Queensland and Australia, representing over 345 organisations.

Over the last 12 months, the team has supported the delivery of a massive 37 capacity building events and activities (that’s over three a month!), including six training workshops/ webinars, five field days, six Community of Practice (CoP) workshops, seven Council embedments, 10 joint site inspections and three Urban Water Stewardship Framework (UWSF) workshops.

Some of the event highlights included:

• Queensland Urban Water Stewardship (USW) and Erosion and Sediment Control (ESC) Community of Practice workshop, which brought together stakeholders from across the state to discuss policy, practices, issues and ideas.
• ESC demonstration field days at the Sunshine Coast RESET site.
• WSUD Whole of Asset Lifecycle training.
• ESC Legals training.
• ESC Decision Support Tools webinars.
• USW Community of Practice on Total Annual Loads.
• Embedding with Great Barrier Reef (GBR) local governments to conduct ESC Management Systems Reviews.
• ESC Compliance Officer swap in SEQ to enable local governments to connect and share compliance techniques.

Participant feedback from these events has been overwhelmingly positive, with many respondents highlighting that, alongside gaining or refreshing relevant skills and knowledge, they most valued being able to network with and learn from other Councils and practitioners from across the region.

More new resources

One of Water by Design’s core services is to provide freely available resources that enable the uptake and implementation of best practices in sustainable urban water management.

In FY 2023/24, we released two new Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) resources: Specifications for bioretention filter media and a companion literature review, Improving the biology of bioretention systems.

The new specifications provide a recommended alternative option to the existing specifications for filter media as well as advice to improve and maintain healthy plants in bioretention systems, while the review synthesises over a decade’s worth of knowledge and research to address deficiencies in filter media that may be responsible for unsuccessful establishment and plant dieback.

We also developed four new Erosion and Sediment Control (ESC) resources (still to be published), including:

• Version 2.0 of our Erosion and Sediment Control Decision Support Tools for Local Government featuring a new ESC Environmental Enforcement Order template.
• ESC Fundamentals factsheet.
• Erosion and Sediment Control for Small Construction Sites <2500 m2 factsheet.
• Erosion and Sediment Control Measures for Development Sites video.

These new resources are scheduled for launch on the Water by Design and Healthy Land & Water website in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned for more updates!

Of course, none of this would be possible without the support of our funders, including the Queensland Government Department of Environment, Science and Innovation (DESI) and our South East Queensland (SEQ) local government partners.

We also would like to acknowledge all others who contributed to the development of these documents through consultation or feedback – your input allows us to capture the best available industry knowledge and end user experience to create resources that are robust, fit for purpose, and address the needs of our diverse stakeholders.

Strengthening our network

Water by Design formally engages with stakeholders through our SEQ Steering Committee and Reef Urban Stormwater Management Group (RUSMG). These committees have been instrumental in maintaining networks between stakeholders, driving change within organisations, advocating for policy change, enabling the sharing of ideas and building the capacity of participating individuals and organisations.

Between these committees, Water by Design formally engages with 30 local governments across Queensland, as well as several Queensland and Australian Government departments, water utilities, NRM bodies and other relevant stakeholders and organisations (over 40 in total).

Each year, we hold four SEQ Steering Committee meetings and two RUSMG meetings. The purpose of these meetings is to bring together our members from across the SEQ and GBR regions to help inform and direct our programs and activities and discuss matters relating to urban stormwater and ESC, including common issues and opportunities, barriers to implementation, and emerging research and innovation.

One of the highlights from this past financial year was our SEQ Steering Committee field trips which took place during our October and March in-person meetings. Members had the opportunity to visit other Councils, tour nearby project sites and hear directly from the delivery team about their methodology, challenges, learnings and outcomes. Thanks again to City of Moreton Bay and Redland City Council who graciously hosted us for these outings – we look forward to the next ones!

Water by Design has also built strong relationships with industry and research bodies, including the former CRC for Water Sensitive Cities, the International Erosion Control Association (IECA), the Master Builders Association and Stormwater Queensland. This past financial year we have continued our outreach activities to strengthen these relationships and look for opportunities for collaboration through participation in a range of joint meetings and workshops with industry bodies. Water by Design also attended and presented at the IECA Australasia and Stormwater Queensland National Conference last November.

What's next

With EOFY all wrapped up, we have hit the ground running to begin delivery of another ambitious schedule of activities for the coming financial year.

Here’s a sneak peek of FY 2024/25:

• More of our most popular and in-demand ESC and WSUD training workshops and field days.
• More embedments, joint site inspections, UWSF workshops and officer swaps with local governments.
• More Community of Practice workshops (including a national webinar!).
• More resources and educational materials aimed at addressing the needs and gaps identified by our stakeholders.

We also recently undertook a full program review of the Water by Design initiative since inception, taking an in-depth look across our nearly 20-year history to reflect on key achievements, identify program strengths and gaps, and provide recommendations for the future. This financial year, we’ll be looking to action some of the recommendations that came out of this process.

In case that wasn’t enough, we have just formally kicked off three new Living Waterways projects, including our first projects in the Great Barrier Reef region under the program. These projects were funded through Round One of the Australian Government Urban Rivers and Catchments Program and will see us delivering waterway naturalisation and riparian restoration projects in Yeppoon, Mackay and the Lower Brisbane, including Stage Three of our Cicada Park project (Chapel Hill) in collaboration with Cubberla-Witton Catchments Network.

For more information on Water by Design visit the website.

Healthy Land & Water gratefully acknowledges the support of our funders and partners, including the Queensland Government Department of Environment, Science and Innovation, Australian Government, and local governments of the South East Queensland and Great Barrier Reef region.