Landscapology led a consultancy team of town planners, social planners and engineers to deliver this project for the Water by Design programme at Healthy Waterways.

Living Waterways is a best practice environmental management approach that assists practitioners and government to deliver enduring and affordable outdoor spaces which engage the surrounding communities.

The Living Waterways approach has been developed to support implementation of water sensitive urban design by encouraging and incentivising design solutions that embody the natural, historical and cultural elements of a site. They promote interaction with water to inspire, promote adventure and discovery, and to educate visitors about the delicacy of our ecosystems.

The Living Waterways approach is site-driven and aligns traditional stormwater principles with place-making benefits based around the four key themes:

1. Living Water
2. Living Places
3. Living Communities
4. Living Local Economies.

A scoring system encourages innovation and improved design outcomes, while being flexible enough to cater for a variety of development types within the community.

The project was a finalist in the 2014 Premier's Sustainability Awards.

We subsequently provided input into an update of the original voluntary framework, which now includes modules for resilience, catchment condition and diagnosis and treatment. A new strategic planning module provided additional benefits by allowing Councils to easily align State-mandated requirements with local waterway priorities.

More information is available on the Healthy Land and Water website.