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Message from the President - Alice Lisitsa
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Welcome back Stormies! And welcome to another sitting committee year for our hard-working team on the Stormwater Victoria Committee. While we are sad to see some of our team leave us for other ventures, this year we are welcoming a new group of enthusiastic committee members…..and with good timing!
We are well underway with our conference planning for June 2024 along with many more technical and networking events planned for this coming year. We have also been busy within our policy space, progressing our VUDM planning, addressing challenges within the SQIDEP and strengthening our relationships and our reach within the industry both in Victoria and across the country to service our stormwater industry and all of you dedicated advocates.
As the new president of Stormwater Victoria, my goal is to support our committee in continuing the great work that has been steered by those who have preceded. And with that said I would like to say a big THANK YOU to our immediate past president Sarah Watkins whose efforts and dedications have been tireless over the past two years as president (not to mention the many years prior in other roles on the committee).
It should go without saying (though I’ll say it anyway) that her diligence and support has been much of the driver in our numerous achievements over the past couple of years. We are eternally grateful for all of it, and I can only hope to fill those great big shoes that she has left me!
So, strap in and let’s get into another year! There is so much happening in this space. Make sure you’re connected with us on linked in and you’re reading the newsletter so you are abreast of all of the goings on. And come and see us at our upcoming events to say hi and to let us know where you’d like to see us take Stormwater Victoria into the future. It’s you’re committee so make sure you get involved and make the most of it!
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Stormwater Victoria Conference 2023 Recap
The Stormwater Victoria 2023 Conference focused on the theme 'Driving Change and Embracing the Challenges'. It took place at the Mercure Ballarat Hotel and Convention Centre on the 6th and 7th of June 2023 with the Technical Tour day occurring on the 8th June. The conference brought together over 200 attendees including professionals, researchers, policymakers, and industry leaders for insightful discussions and networking.
The event featured inspiring keynote sessions including Future Crunch’s session on 'The Optimistic Leader', Tony McAlister’s case study presentation on 'Stormwater Management at Aura' and Cheryl Batagol’s presentation on 'Stormwater as a Critical Barrier to Achieving Healthy Waterways'. The second day also featured a panel session on the industry’s progress towards the Stormwater Ministerial Advisory Committee’s 18 recommendations covering planning reform, future policy directions and supporting tools and practices 5 years from the committee being convened in 2018.
The conference concluded with participants leaving equipped with new knowledge, connections and ready to tackle the complexities ahead to drive together a change for sustainable water management. Thanks to all conference attendees, sponsors and organisers for the successful turnout. The committee has already begun preparations for the next state conference in 2024 – if you are interested in becoming involved, join us with committee nominations occurring next month, so watch this space!
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Stormwater Victoria AGM
Stormwater Victoria held our AGM on Tuesday the 22nd of August and we are now getting under way with a new sitting committee. We are hitting the ground running with business plans and strategies to build upon the work we have been doing and to implement the recommendations from our feedback session held with our members at our conference this year.
Unfortunately, as is inevitable, we have had to say goodbye to a few of our valued committee members from last year, some of whom have been with us for many years. Thank you to Jess Ward, Bresson Li, Damian Egen, Alex Raven, John Phillips and Sarah Hollis, who have chosen to take a break from all their valuable work on SV to pursue other adventures. Thank you for all your support and commitment!
On another note, I would like to introduce you to your 2023/2024 Stormwater Victoria Committee:
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PRESIDENT
Alice Lisitsa
WSP
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Charlotte Beresford
Melbourne Water
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Celine Marchenay
Water Technology
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Sarah Watkins
Melbourne Water
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Aaron Dowling
E2Designlab
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Alison Rickard
Melbourne Water
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Lily Dorrai
Ocean Protect
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Nausheen Obaid
City of Casey
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Tom Stephanou
Greater Western Water
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Urban Planning & Development Strategic Collaboration Group (UPDSCG) | |
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Stormwater Victoria has been active in contributing to the new Melbourne Water-led stakeholder collaboration group: the Urban Planning & Development Strategic Collaboration Group (UPDSCG).
This group has been formed as a spiritual successor to the Urban Development Water Advisory Group (UDWAG) to bring together authorities and industry associations to collaborate on strategic improvements to the way development is administered in the Greater Melbourne region.
While it is still early days – the group is still clarifying how we will work together – we see our involvement as an important strategic opportunity to represent our members interests and perspectives in a broad industry forum. If you have any questions or contributions that you would like raised in this forum, please feel free to get in touch at office@stormwatervictoria.com.au
We will keep members updated on topics of discussion, issues raised and planned actions arising from the UPDSCG. By working collaboratively with our partners and colleagues across the development industry, we can deliver improved experiences and outcomes for our members, the community and the environment.
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2022 Flood Enquiry Submission | |
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The Legislative Council Environment and Planning Committee investigated Victoria’s preparedness for, and response to Victoria’s major flooding event of October 2022.Thank you to all our Stormies who attended in the Members Only Session on the 20th April of this year and made possible Stormwater Victoria’s submission to express the views of members. The submission can be found at https://www.stormwatervictoria.com.au/about-us/publications/186-flood-inquiry-submission.
The key themes identified by members included:
1. Flood Event Causes, Consequences and Current Response Review
- Combination of complex natural and human-based causes and effects
- Detrimental messaging in media and misguided optimism bias
- Review of Early Warning Systems and recommendations for improved user-focused information systems
- Effectiveness of flood mitigation strategies
2. State-based Accountability and Review of Flood Mitigation Prioritisation Framework
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State Government to support regional and local floodplain and stormwater managers through transparent funding and legislative means;
- The tendency to criticise local agencies without state commitment in historic flood inquiries is considered counterproductive;
- Recommend a review of stormwater institutional arrangements, and Councils as sole responsibility for stormwater management issues;
- The need to address the direct conflict in seeking dual outcomes for development outcomes whilst achieving planning commitments, and the challenges this creates for approval agencies; and
- Recommend establishing a flooding and stormwater State Authority and empowering the existing DEECA body to support CMAs and Councils more intentionally.
3. Funding Mechanism Review and Resilience Prioritisation
- Funding distribution should recognise the importance of proactive flood preparedness and resilience programs, where flood recovery funding is currently reactive and disproportionate to community benefit; and
- State Government to investigate and implement an appropriate cost-recovery mechanism/s for all aspects of stormwater
4. Education and Community Exercise
- Increased effort to develop flood resilient communities, through incorporating flood resilience, preparedness, integrated water principles and climate change as part of education curriculums and
- State-wide emergency preparedness exercises are encouraged to be held to empower communities in a crisis and address key human behaviour factors;
5. Proposed Review of the Victorian Planning Framework
- Development controls in the Victorian Planning Framework should see a major revision to incorporate consideration of climate change in flood overlays and impact assessments, acknowledging the complexity in equitable treatment of legacy applications and scientific uncertainty, (considered concurrently with 3.b. above)
- Incorporate consideration for access to properties and safe egress to neighbourhood emergency meeting points in addition to current hazard (VxD) controls and raising of floor levels;
- Greater flexibility in achievement of requirements while simultaneously empowering approval bodies with greater technical and funding capacity
- Review flood impact assessment approaches such as:
- When is a flood impact assessment actually required; and
- Does cut and fill balance to calculate floodplain storage loss adequately demonstrate no adverse flooding impacts;
6. Proposed Review of the 2016 Victorian Floodplain Management Strategy
- The Strategy should be updated to a more holistic strategy that incorporate stormwater flooding and integrated water management principles; and
- The Strategy should be reviewed in light of the above, with particular consideration to 2.d, 3.a, and 3.b.
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Meet The Speaker - Dr Kathy Russel
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For those of you that are OG readers of The Outlet, you may remember our classic Meet The Speaker piece that was a staple of our earlier editions. Well…its back!
Stormwater Victoria recently hosted a Webinar on Erosion and Sediment Control presented by Dr Kathy Russel, Malcolm Eadie and Butch Uechtritz. It was a very informative and engaging event, guiding us through the relevant research, policy recommendations and practical applications targeted at best practice management of sediment control. With 600+ registrations for this event, there was a clear thirst for this guidance in the industry.
Our first speaker, Kathy, provided the foundational research in this field that she has been engaged in as a Research Fellow at The University of Melbourne and has also been kind enough to answer some of our questions about her research and background here.
Q: What was your educational/career path that has led you to working as a Research Fellow in Erosion and Sediment Control?
A: I did a Bachelor of Environmental Engineering and Science and then worked as a consultant in mainly flood modelling for 5 years, then I did a PhD on urbanisation impacts on stream geomorphic processes. I was given the opportunity of a postdoc in the same group (the Waterway Ecosystem Research Group at the University of Melbourne), working on sediment supply from peri-urban areas and geomorphology of urban streams.
Q: What is your favourite aspect of working in academia?
A: The freedom! I always enjoyed going down rabbit holes to investigate some phenomenon and now I get to do it for a living.
Q: What is the most challenging aspect of working in academia?
A: The freedom! Or perhaps more accurately the uncertainty. It is challenging to start something when you don’t have a clear question or approach. Identifying questions that are novel and exciting but also feasible and likely to lead to something useful – then having the discipline and confidence to develop them into fully fledged ideas – these are skills I think I’ll be working on forever!
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Q: What is the most important learning from your research that you think the stormwater industry needs to understand?
A: From my work on construction sediment pollution, I’d like to see recognition that even though urban construction is a short-lived process, the land disturbance involved is so intensive that mitigating construction impacts (specifically erosion and sediment impacts from my work, but also pollutants and litter) should be treated with similar weight and rigour to the final WSUD design.
I’d also like to touch on another aspect of my research that I didn’t present in the webinar – the importance of stormwater quantity as a controlling factor for stream geomorphology and physical processes. This starts during construction when increased runoff and drainage connectivity enable greater sediment delivery and continues as the urban landscape is built-out, producing greater sediment transport and erosion potential in streams.
So we need to be doing all we can to mimic a more natural water balance in urban development, for example by implementing stormwater infiltration and harvesting targets. As an industry I think we can do more to develop a shared vision of how we will design the suburbs of the future to meet those targets and be truly sensitive to waterways and receiving waters.
Q: How do you see your area of research evolving?
A: I see even greater prospect for interdisciplinary work with ecologists and social scientists as we try to better understand the linkages between stream physical form and conditions and the values (biological and social) of healthy waterways.
Q: What is your favourite stormwater feature / recreational spot you like to visit?
A: I’m going to say Merri Creek, which does receive a lot of stormwater but I wish it didn’t! I’m living back on Merri Creek after growing up nearby, and there’s been an amazing transformation of the riparian zone since I was a kid. Its instream environment is still not in good shape but it is a great place to visit and an asset for the community.
It’s a great example of what can be done in a highly degraded stream to bring back some natural values and connect people with nature.
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Stormwater Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) Report Review | |
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An inaugural panel session was held at the June 2023 Stormwater Victoria Conference in Ballarat this year. The panel was facilitated by Stormwater Victoria committee member, Sumari Smith (Veal) and attended by esteemed Victorian policy-influencers, Chris Chesterfield (Monash University), Cheryl Batagol PSM (Independent Chair to Healthy Waterways Strategy), Craig Muse (Frasers Property Australia) and Jeremy Cheesman (Marsden Jacob Associates). The panel convened to discuss the 18 recommendations made by the MAC Report in 2018 relating to planning reforms, future policy directions and supporting actions. The attendees were steered through a reflection of stormwater management over the last 20+ years and the extensive groundwork that has been laid by preceding stormwater managers. The panel reflected on the immediate implementation of the recommendations to expand the Victorian Planning Provisions to commercial, multi-dwelling, single dwellings over 50m2 and industrial developments, as well as the insertion of an IWM clause into the Planning Policy Framework for all development.
An assessment of each of the remaining recommendations was undertaken with special reference to the need for further strengthening of compliance in relation to ultimate and interim stormwater and erosion management. There were many enquiries related to the topic of Stormwater Offset Schemes; the policy avenues and the legal implications which will be further delved in to in upcoming Stormwater Victoria events. An astute comment by Chris Chesterfield was that the rules which are currently in place are not necessarily those being used and highlighted the need for implementation planning to couple policy changes. This remains particularly topical in the current shifting stormwater space in the wake of the updated Environment Protection Act 2017 that came into effect on 1 July 2021.
A white paper is currently being prepared by the Policy and Advocacy Committee and we invite all members to express interest for contribution. Thank you to those who already have expressed an interest. Communications will be distributed in October to continue this process. Thank you also to those attendees who submitted Slido comments or questions during the panel. These will be followed up in the white paper or in future event series.
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Your Waterways, Your Say Survey | |
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The Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action is developing a new Victorian Waterway Management Strategy and we encourage Stormwater Victoria members to submit their vision for the management of Victoria's waterways by 1st September 2023: https://engage.vic.gov.au/victorians-priorities-and-vision-for-the-future-of-our-waterways
Healthy waterways underpin the wellbeing of us all and are of critical environmental, cultural, recreational, social and economic importance. The Strategy update was informed by the Independent Review and the 2022 'My Victorian Waterway Survey' to reflect changes in government policy and legislation since the existing Strategy.
It proposes to have a continued focus on the health of Victoria’s waterways, including how we will adapt to Climate Change, increase Traditional Owner decision-making in waterway management, promote community stewardship, guide the development of regional waterway strategies (to the satisfaction of the Water Act 1989) and consider any other areas or opportunities identified from public consultation and scoping work. Your contributions are valued and encouraged.
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Stormwater Victoria Corporate Sponsorship Prospectus
Are you interested in becoming a corporate sponsor? Stormwater Victoria has over 230 members and our mailing list and social media connections extends to well over 3,500!
We reach:
- All levels of government across a breadth of disciplines
- Civil and consulting engineers
- Surveyors and urban planners
- Academics and students
- Manufacturers and suppliers
Sponsorship packages have been designed to provide flexible options and maximum exposure to our membership and industry stakeholders. Whether you want to sponsor one of our webinars, our newsletter or our upcoming conference, there are several packages to choose from.
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Stormwater Victoria Major Sponsor: | | | | |
