- Title
- Implementing water sensitive urban design: the context of changing urban stormwater technologies in Australia
- Creator
- Gardiner, Anne
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2007
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- This thesis is concerned with the problem of implementing new sustainable practices in urban environments through an analysis of the response to and reworking of a proposed urban design strategy over two decades in Australia, from the early 1990's until the mid 2000's. The analysis fits within a Science Technology and Society (STS) perspective but also draws on urban studies, theories of socio-technical change, and the exercise of agency by professional groups. The term Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) originated in Perth in the later 1980's and has been rapidly adopted into environmental engineering and development planning. The meaning of the term is variable, but it typically implies the use of source control and natural surface strategies for the management of stormwater for both its resource value and to improve the environmental impacts on receiving waters. However, it can incorporate broader aims, integrating the management of water into a consideration of the urban water cycle and the whole urban landscape. Implementation depends on the technical credentials of the new methods, but also receptive governance, engineering and development communities. This thesis addresses the position of engineers, developers, and governance bodies within their political and social context to elucidate the effects of each group on shaping the eventual outcome; redefining and constraining the integrated intentions of WSUD to make it compatible with the commercial process of land development, the constraints of local and state government and the ecological modernisation perspectives of the federal government. The hosting of WSUD by the water engineering community is juxtaposed against the lack of intellectual debate amongst planners. The influence of different tiers of government is described in terms of the mechanisms used to express their power and direct changing priorities in light of political intentions and drought. While great progress has been made in mediating environmental impacts and capturing rainwater for useful outcomes, little progress has been made in integrating water management into a consideration of other aspects of a desirable urban form. The current political climate promotes strengthened accountability and project managed responses to resource and environmental problems. This is no conducive to nurturing the integrated planning aspects of WSUD or encouraging debate over the form of urban stormwater management that is desirable in the long term.
- Subject
- stormwater technologies; water; Australia; sustainability; urban environments
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1312562
- Identifier
- uon:22428
- Rights
- Copyright 2007 Anne Gardiner
- Language
- eng
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