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Monash sponsors debate on sustainable cities

4 March 2009

Monash University's frontline water and climatology experts have helped shape the future direction of urban water management in Australia through a series of workshops that were held across the country during February.

Creating Water Sensitive Australian Cities discussed ways to address the nation's dwindling urban water supplies and degraded urban streams and river systems caused by climate change, rapid population growth and environmental degradation.

The latest scientific thinking in policy, organisational and societal change, in addition to the latest scientific developments in urban design, technology and micro-climate sciences for building water sensitive cities, were discussed.

Associate Professor Rebekah Brown from the School of Geography and Environmental Science said a business-as-usual approach wasn't enough to address the future urban water management needs of our cities.

"The community wants a set of key values to be restored in order to protect our urban water environments," Associate Professor Brown said.

"These values include assuring the security of traditional water supply, public health protection, flood protection, as well as improvements to waterway health, recreation and amenity, and water-use efficiency.

"These workshops were designed to integrate the scientific knowledge of front-line practitioners and leading researchers to develop a new governance agenda," she said.

The outcomes will be presented to the National Water Commission in Canberra in April.

For more information visit the Water Sensitive Futures website.