Water by Design is one of the leading capacity building initiatives in Australia.

Improving water quality is critical for the health of urban waterways and their receiving waters. In Queensland, water quality decline from urban runoff has significant impacts on local waterways and downstream marine environments, including the internationally recognised Moreton Bay Ramsar Wetland and iconic Great Barrier Reef.

To improve urban water quality, better implementation of best practice ESC and USW management is needed. The Water by Design team works with government, industry, and communities to improve awareness and uptake of leading urban water management policy and practice.

To support this aim, Water by Design delivers a range of capacity building resources and activities, including training and field day events, partial embeds and joint site inspections with local governments, guidelines, decision support tools, technical reports, discussion papers, and much, much more.

Through our capacity building program we strive to:

• Improve the capacity of local government and industry to implement best practice ESC on all building, construction, and land development sites and USW design, operation, and maintenance.
• Raise local government, industry, and community awareness of best practice ESC and USW.
• Support ESC and USW management, policy, and legislation with leading research, innovation, and best practice design to advance continual improvement.
• Work with local governments and other stakeholders to ensure USW planning is integrated within catchment management to deliver cost-effective water cycle investments that improve local or regional water quality.
• Increase government and industry compliance of building, construction, and land development sites to meet best practice and protect local waterways.
• Protect and enhance urban waterways whilst enabling the sustainable use of waterways and water resources.

By building the knowledge and skills of government, industry and the general public, Water by Design is helping to achieve better urban water quality management outcomes for our urban waterways and communities.