IRP3 Guiding Integrated and Urban Water Planning

IRP3 seeks to guide integrated urban and water planning at a range of scales up to city/metropolitan scale, in different contexts to better enable urban growth and renewal to achieve water sensitive outcomes. At a high level, this project will consider the full breadth of the urban planning process (e.g. from policy and regional planning, through to planning controls and decisions) as it relates to water planning. A review of the literature and stakeholder consultation has revealed a need for catchment or ‘system’ scale planning for water services in greenfield and existing urban areas, which by necessity entails considerations of planning processes at smaller scales. Additionally, this project recognises that urban planning considers a broad range of services (such as transport, energy, biodiversity, community infrastructure etc.), and seeks to facilitate greater linkages between water planning and other service/infrastructure planning (where relevant).

The project aims to achieve this through an action research approach, working with industry stakeholders on real-world projects, in real-time, to answer the overarching research question “How can different types of urban development be deliberately guided, at a range of planning scales, to achieve water sensitive outcomes?”. This project builds on the findings of research projects from CRCWSC's Tranche 1, including research on collaborative planning, governance, regulatory frameworks, statutory planning and others.