Managing Stormwater at the Catchment Level
Discover how the scientific and practical insights from the Little Stringybark Creek (LSC) and Dobsons Creek projects can help guide the planning and delivery of future waterways management projects for improved stream health.
The Little Stringybark Creek (LSC) and Dobsons Creek projects were long-term catchment-scale experiments designed to test if Stormwater Control Measures (SCMs), primarily rainwater tanks, raingardens and infiltration systems, applied across an urban catchment can help restore stream condition.
Commencing in 2008, the projects were led by The University of Melbourne and Melbourne Water, in collaboration with local government, industry, and property owners.
The projects monitored changes to stream water quality, hydrology, and ecology, and also assessed techniques for local government collaboration, community engagement, as well as SCM design, performance and maintenance.
Ten fact sheets, touching on each of the above aspects, were developed by the project team to disseminate the key findings. These fact sheets include:
Managing stormwater at the catchment scale - strategies involve treating stormwater at the source, meeting hydrologic targets by intervening at multiple scales, retrofitting a catchment (a significant but worthwhile investment), monitoring changes in the catchment's impervious surfaces. It is shown that stormwater treatment can lead to stream restoration and that there is more than one way to achieve catchment-scale disconnection.
Collaborative stormwater management - focuses on the lessons learned about planning and implementing complex, collaborative projects with multiple stakeholders, that the project team believe to be important for successful delivery. In addition to drawing on the experiences of Little Stringybark and Dobsons Creek Projects, this fact sheet also reflects on lessons from a more recent project, the Monbulk Creek Smart Water Network (MCSWN).
Local Government engagement - Local government staff contributed to the projects in a variety of ways, including providing technical advice on the design and construction of SCMs, providing contractual oversight for the construction of the larger SCMs on public land, supporting the education and recruitment of local residents, establishing supportive local planning controls, and maintaining public SCMs post construction.
Local Government planning schemes - The LSC Environmental Significance Overlay (ESO) is a planning control in the Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme (Clause 42.01 – Schedule 2) that places stormwater treatment requirements on developments in the Little Stringybark Creek catchment in Mount Evelyn, Victoria. This fact sheet focuses on the lessons learnt on how to establish an efficient ESO process.
Community engagement - lessons learnt from engagement through a combination of education and incentive programs, not limited to raingarden open days, community forums, newsletters.
SCM design - lessons learnt from close to 1,000 SCM installations, including rainwater tanks, raingardens, vegetated infiltration basins, swales and membrane filters.
SCM maintenance - lessons pertaining to the operation and maintenance of SCMs learnt from close to 1,000 SCM installations, including rainwater tanks, raingardens, vegetated infiltration basins, swales and membrane filters.
Stormwater metric - a new measure, effective imperviousness with SCMs, Effective Imperviousness (EI), was introduced to account for the treatment effect of SCMs in a catchment. EIs provide a consistent, comparable metric for SCM performance across catchments and a stronger basis for predicting in-stream benefits.
Monitoring - draws on recent studies to provide up-to-date perspectives on waterways and SCM monitoring.
Stream Health Response - lessons learnt for assessing stream health response to catchment-scale stormwater interventions. This study used a before-after-control-reference-impact (BACRI) design for this purpose. This involved monitoring two urban control streams (nearby urban catchments where no SCM works occurred), six impact streams (LSC and Dobsons Creek catchments, where SCMs were installed) and three reference streams (nearby forested catchments free from urban impacts).
The fact sheets are now available for download.
