About the ProjectProject Overview
The project aims to develop a suite of national resources and tools to assist those involved with urban water service provision to investigate how much water is used in their region, how much is available and having established the supply-demand gap how they can best provide water services in the future.
The project will expand and enhance a balance of existing resources and tools developed for the Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA) and develop additional new resources that can be used by a broad national water industry audience. These resources and tools, focusing on supply-demand planning, will include new resources that deal with emerging issues such as climate change.
The project will also investigate and document two new case studies for Wagga Wagga and Brisbane.
To ensure maximum national water industry integration and benefit from the resources and tools developed the project has a strong focus on knowledge sharing and capacity building facilitated through this website, workshops, practitioners meetings and conferences.
Existing resources
The project will build on a body of work developed by the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) and individuals within the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) for the Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA). The three key resources include:
• the Guide to Demand Management - a step-by-step guide to demand management in the broader context of urban water planning
• the integrated supply demand planning (iSDP) model - a water demand forecasting and options model, currently used by a number of large utilities across Australia to aid in supply-demand planning, and
• the End Use and Demand Management Training Package - training material on the iSDP model and broader best practice water planning
These three resources are all based on the internationally recognised best practice water planning framework of “Integrated Resource Planning” (IRP). To find out more about IRP please refer to the the page on Integrated Resource Planning.
New resources
The IRPFUW research will develop three key resource papers on:
• demand forecasting
• climate change
• sustainability
These will be created through a process of development of a scoping paper informed by current literature, involvement of key practitioners in an industry workshop and subsequent development of the resource paper which will be peer reviewed by the project Technical Working Group.
Three additional smaller resource papers will be developed on:
• Monitoring and evaluation of implemented programs
• Best practice assessment of non revenue water
• Program evaluation and benchmarking of IRP processes to provide support for utilities and agencies in determining an entry point into the planning process
These six resource papers will inform minor revision of the Guide to Demand Management and be published as separate resource papers on each specific topic.
Case studies
Two key studies will be undertaken:
• Wagga Wagga – This case study will trial the application of IRP in a major inland city dealing with a range of inland city issues such as river allocations, limited groundwater sources, groundwater salinity and receiving water nutrient limitations.
• Brisbane – This case study will develop and trial a public benefits assessment (PBA) framework for urban catchments and its application in assessment of sustainable urban water management options as part of the IRP framework.
Models and tools
This work will focus on upgrading and expansion of the existing integrated supply demand planning (iSDP) model, the associated user guide and training material which has been used by many of the large water utilities across Australia. Improvements will be discussed with current users but are likely to model interfaces, adding modules for pricing, additional sustainability criteria and water quality linkages; testing of uncertainty, sensitivity analysis and risk; as well as dealing with issues such as double counting of savings in options.
Knowledge sharing and capacity building
Knowledge transfer and capacity building are essential to the water industry as we begin to tackle new and emerging issues. This project aims to fulfill some of these needs by:
• Creation of this website which will enable the water industry to access the resources and tools developed as part of this project as they become available.
• Facilitation and co-ordination of workshops and practitioners meetings dealing with key IRP issues.
• Collation of the most up-to-date literature and resources on key issues facing the water industry that will be fully referenced in the resource papers developed.
• Linkage with key local and international conferences such as the International Water Association’s Specialist Conference Efficient2009 on the Efficient Use and Management of Urban Water. This conference will be held in Sydney in October 2009. Visit www.efficient2009.com for details.
• Other knowledge sharing and capacity building opportunities as they become available during the course of the project.
