Achieving sustainable urban development through green and blue infrastructure
This co-authored paper was submitted coursework for Sustainable Development and the Urban Environment at UNSW in 2019. Thank you to my cowriters Mitchell Parker, Yan Deng, Dawn Vassel, and Tao Liu.
Introduction
Sustainable urban planning has been recognised as the one of the key means to achieve social, economic, and environmental sustainability (Westerhoff 2016, p. 16). Historically, the governance of these domains has been the responsibility of separate government departments (Tyrrell, NSW Government Architect, 2015). This stratification has enabled efficient and expert management of seemingly distinct elements such as parks, water, and trees. Yet, as the climate changes, the holistic management of ecosystem services will become even more crucial to maintaining the liveability of our cities and building our resilience and adaptive capacity to deal with climate change.
This paper aims to compare Vancouver and Blacktown’s adaptation to climate change within a complex governance system. Blue and Green Infrastructure (BGI) has been used to explore the impact of institutional fragmentation on the progress of each city toward its stated sustainable development goals. We will explore the effects of fragmentation and how each city approaches sustainability by focusing on the use of BGI.
We have used two case studies of BGI from each city to illustrate the practical application and impact of sustainable development policies. Both of the case studies have been evaluated using the three pillars of sustainable urbanism: environmental, social and economic.
We will demonstrate that both cities are rising to the challenge, and are implementing practical solutions to climate change through the use of green and blue infrastructure, all within a fractured systems of governance.
Various research methods have used to assist with the comparison of the cities of Blacktown and Vancouver. These methods include field trips, interviews with council employees, empirical research using text, and online resources from different institutions. These methods were used to gain a broad and in-depth view of sustainability adaptation methods in the chosen cities and to avoid any biases that might be inherent in the documentation of the related institutions.
Telephone interviews were conducted with Blacktown Council’s Catchment Project Officer and Waverley Council’s Sustainability Manager. These interviews assisted in gaining insight around the Australian context of BGI as well as the complexity of governance surrounding its successful implementation. It was useful to compare the methods of these two councils as they have significant differences in revenue sources which impacts the ability to fund BGI.
Short questionnaires were also sent to various representatives of Vancouver Council and the organisations responsible for design and construction of the case study location Hinge Park. A response from the landscape architects responsible for the design has assisted with our investigations into the successes and lessons from Canada.
Greater insight could have been gained through interviews with Vancouver City Council representatives, and more interviews with Blacktown Council employees, but it was challenging to access these people.
A field trip to Blacktown’s International Sports Park assisted in developing a deeper understanding of the contextual factors for one of the case studies. Photographs from this field trip are found throughout this report and in the Appendix.
Analysis of documentation included a range of official reports and web pages from each of the cities across a range of subject matter related to BGI, sustainability, and climate change. In addition, journal articles, media articles, and more general government reports were studied to bring an objective lense to the material published by each city.
2. Climate risks for each city
Vancouver and Blacktown are both set to experience their own challenges in the face of climate change over the coming decades. This section explores the predicted climate challenges and how each city plans to adapt to them.
Topography of the cities
Vancouver and Blacktown differ greatly in terms of their topography and their resulting exposure to various climatic elements. Vancouver’s city centre is on a peninsula surrounded by the water of the Burrard Inlet. To the south of the city the Fraser River flows from east to west, emptying into the Georgia Straight, that separates mainland Canada from Vancouver Island. Rising behind the city, are the North Shore Mountains which are topped by snow for much of the year.
Conversely, Blacktown is landlocked and situated on the flat Cumberland Plain, an ecologically sensitive zone stretching from the Wollondilly region in the south to the Hawkesbury region in the north (NSW Government, Office of Environment and Heritage, 2013). The zone is host to the Cumberland Plain Woodlands, an endangered ecosystem that has been reduced by an estimated 50% since European settlement, and is likely to experience further reductions due to the growth in medium density housing linked to the North West Growth Area (NSW Government, 2016).
Despite being one of the driest areas of Sydney — receiving less than 800 mm annually — Blacktown is subject to high risk of flash and local flooding due to its location within the primary floodplain of the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley (State Emergency Service, 2015; Tyrrell, NSW Government Architect, 2015).
Climate change impacts — Vancouver
Vancouver winters are expected to become shorter and warmer with an predicted increase in the number of days with temperatures above 25 degrees celsius (City of Vancouver, 2012). As a result of this warming the city predicts that by 2050 the mountains will have 58% less snowpack annually (City of Vancouver, Climate Change Infographics, page 4). This in turn will lead to an increased risk for summer drought and less meltwater entering the city’s system of potable water reservoirs.
The predicted decrease in snowfall also has the potential to have a negative economic impact (Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium, 2012). Grouse Mountain and Mount Cypress both host an array of outdoor pursuits in the winter, such as skiing and snowboarding.
A decrease in snowpack could lessen or eliminate the opportunity for these types of recreation. Naturally this would have a flow on to the seasonal recreational revenue and tourism employment opportunities that the presence of snow provides.
A small silver lining is that warmer winters may lower the costs of heating by around 29% (City of Vancouver, Climate Change Infographic, page 4). Additionally, with earlier snow melt, there would be 72% decrease in frost days, thereby increasing the duration of the growing season by 15% (City of Vancouver, Climate Change Infographic, page 1). This may provide urban gardeners with a more favourable climate to grow and obtain more local produce than at present.
It is predicted that there will be an increase in extreme weather events in Vancouver, including destructive rain storms (City of Vancouver, 2012, p.30). This will place increased stress on stormwater systems as, rather than managing consistent water flows, the infrastructure will need to cope with higher volumes in more sporadic patterns. This has prompted the city to reconsider the way it handles stormwater as a potential resource.
Vancouver’s coastline will also bear the impacts of climate change, with the city predicting a half a metre rise in sea levels by 2050 (City of Vancouver, Climate Change Infographics, p.5). This will affect many private properties built along the shore, as well as city owned infrastructure.
Climate change impacts — Blacktown
A location far away from the coast has its advantages and disadvantages. Unlike Vancouver, Blacktown will not experience the damage and loss to private and public property through sea level rise and coastal inundation or erosion, but will see increased risk to property from flooding (State Emergency Service, 2015).
Being cut off from the cooling seabreezes is a distinct disadvantage for Blacktown. On average, Western Sydney currently experiences about 10 to 20 days with a maximum temperature above 35 degrees, and it is predicted that in the period 2020–2039 that this area will have up to 10 more hot days each year (Blacktown City Council, 2009). These higher temperatures will increase the ‘urban heat island effect’, keeping the city warmer during the day as well overnight. This may see increased bushfires, and increase the negative impacts of heat on human health, as well as affecting biodiversity (Blacktown City Council, 2009; Santamouris, M. 2014).
Many of the key issues that Blacktown will face with climate change involve water: be it a lack of it, or a sudden oversupply. These impacts include:
- More dry weather, stressing vegetation, drying out sport fields and adversely affecting biodiversity;
- When it rains, there will be more intense floods, with the potential to disrupt power supplies, contamination of water sources, and displacement of residents;
- Increased road and asset damage due to higher temperatures cracking materials like bitumen, and increased flooding resulting in more strain on infrastructure as well as a strain on council finance; and
- Risks to insurance affordability, as extreme weather events raise the cost of premiums (Blacktown City Council, 2018b, p.12).
3. Addressing the impacts of climate change
There are two broad approaches to addressing climate change: adaptation and mitigation. Adaptation accepts that climate change is inevitable and looks at how specific action may be taken to allow humans and the environment to continue to thrive (Laukkonen et al., 2009). Mitigation, on the other hand, seeks to reduce the impacts of climate change through energy efficiency and emissions reductions methodologies and technologies (Laukkonen et al., 2009; NASA, 2019). With the climate already warming (Bureau of Meteorology, 2019),
it would seem the most sensible approach is through a combination of mitigation and adaptation strategies, as it seeks to build resilience of our cities at the same time as attempting to reduce the most harmful impacts of climate change.
In this section we will demonstrate how the cities of Blacktown and Vancouver have begun to address the impacts of climate change through a combination of adaptation and mitigation strategies.
In 1997 the Kyoto Protocol identified the sectors which have the greatest impact on climate change — energy, industrial processes, solvents, agriculture and waste. The impact of cities as a whole was not referenced (UNFCCC, 1997). Hebbert and Jankovic propose this was due to ‘sectoral logic’, that is, approaching greenhouse gas calculations from the perspective of a government department or minister’s portfolio rather than as an integrated view (Hebbert, Jankovic, 2013). It is now generally acknowledged that the most effective action on climate change will be taken holistically at the city level and that a combination of mitigation and adaptation strategies are required (Laukkonen et al., 2009; Lehmann, 2015).
Rather than waiting for national governments to act, cities around the world have been drafting and implementing policy aimed at addressing climate change. This local response is what the OECD calls a new ‘north star’ for cities, enabling them to achieve local resilience and sustainability (OECD, 2001).
For example, as members of the C40 group of cities, Sydney and Vancouver are beginning to use a consumption-based and adaptive approach to climate change that focuses on the sectors that cities control. This includes the management of utilities, transportation, food, and government services (C40 Cities, Arup, 2016) .
Locally-controlled projects in these cities include sustainable management of council assets, water use reduction, planting to control urban heat, and encouraging citizens to take action in their homes (City of Vancouver, 2012; Blacktown City Council, 2009). Individual sustainable infrastructure projects are explored in the case studies and also listed in the Appendix.
In 2012 Vancouver released their ‘Climate Change Adaptation Strategy’ which was aimed at ensuring that Vancouver would remain a highly liveable and desirable city despite the onset of climate change (City of Vancouver, 2012). The city identified the following strategies as their key priorities:
- Completing a comprehensive Integrated Stormwater Management Plan
and continuing with sewer separation; - Completing a coastal flood risk assessment and amending flood proofing policies
- Completing an urban forest management plan;
- Including climate change adaptation measures in planning instruments;
- Developing a back-up power policy; and
- Implementing water conservation actions.
The city has regularly updated their process against these strategies, having initially created a specific set of measurable objectives (City of Vancouver, 2018b).
Blacktown has proposed a similar set of measures that include a number of strategies aimed at reducing the Council’s own impact on the environment, as well as adaptation strategies that continue to be rolled out across the city (Blacktown City Council, 2009; Blacktown City Council, 2016). These strategies include:
- Increased vegetation and tree canopy cover in the city to create places that residents and wildlife can take refuge from heat;
- Utilisation of water sensitive urban design, including through developmental controls;
- Reduction of Council emissions (net-zero by 2030) and lessening of potable water use in Council operations;
- Ensuring that new council buildings do not contribute to increasing urban heat; and
- Assist the wider community to reduce their emissions and build resilience.
The use of blue and green infrastructure to cope with climate change
The climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies employed by both cities include a high degree of what is known as Blue and Green Infrastructure. Blue and Green infrastructure (BGI) perform many functions in the city, from improving quality of life for residents, helping reduce the urban heat island effect, managing stormwater to cope with increased storms, assisting with drought adaptations, and maintaining air quality (Kanniah, Sheikhi, & Kang, 2014; Perini, K., & Sabbion, P. 2017).
BGI is defined as ‘soft infrastructure’, that is, areas of natural, semi-natural or artificial ecological that form a network in or to serve urban areas (Perini & Sabbion, 2017). Cities that utilise BGI are generally seeking to support and enhance natural processes through the linking of vegetation and soil with the water supply, as well as delivering multi purpose benefits and amenity value to the areas they serve (Adel Hagekhalil et al., 2017).
As part of a network, BGI can take a multitude of forms from small elements such as street trees, green roofs, green walls, small gardens, and biofiltration swales, or larger elements such as parks, sports grounds, urban agriculture, green corridors, forests, ponds, wetlands, waterways and lakes (Adel Hagekhalil et al., 2017; Naumann et al., 2011; Tyrrell, NSW Government Architect, 2017; Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Victoria, 2017).
The use of blue and green infrastructure to enhance social equity
While assisting in mitigating the impacts of climate change and other environmental issues, BGI has many other positive impacts such as: providing social spaces and increasing community cohesion; having a positive economic impact on an area; improving health and increasing quality of life (Wolch, Byrne, & Newell, 2014).
Despite the knowledge of these benefits, areas with lower socioeconomic status in many cities typically have less access to green spaces, or these green spaces are of a lesser quality to those in wealthier areas (Hoffmann, Barros, & Ribeiro, 2017; Dai, 2011). This adds to the inequity facing these communities, as it is more difficult for them to access the health and social benefits that these green spaces provide (Maas, Verheij, Groenewegen, Vries, & Spreeuwenberg, 2006).
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals state the importance of ensuring that everyone has a right to human settlements that are safe, healthy, inclusive and resilient (United Nations, 2018). For example, it has been shown that open, green spaces enhance a sense of safety, as well as potentially reducing crime rates (Maas, Verheij, Groenewegen, Vries, & Spreeuwenberg, 2006).
BGI adds to the liveability of our cities. Research has found that people are three times more likely to walk along landscaped routes and to choose to undertake outdoor activity in areas which have mature tree cover, not the least because of the reduction in temperature that tree canopies afford (Farr, 2012). The insertion of visible nature within cities also contributes to people’s willingness to engage in sustainable behaviours, as a connection with nature allows them to experience the resource flows of nature and therefore understand the impact that their actions have on the environment (Farr, 2012).
The addition of green and blue infrastructure to areas that have low socioeconomic status benefits the population of cities as a whole (Dorling, 2017). Research has demonstrated a high correlation between access to green spaces and reduced mortality. Mortality has been shown to be reduced through the improvements that green space offers through increased physical activity, reduced mental health issues and reduction of heat related diseases (Gascon, Triguero-Mas, Martínez, Dadvand, Rojas-Rueda, Plasència, & Nieuwenhuijsen, 2016; Kihal-Talantikite, Padilla, Lalloué, Gelormini, Zmirou-Navier, & Deguen, 2013; McEachan, Prady, Smith, Fairley, Cabieses, Gidlow, Wright, Dadvand, van Gen, 2016; Nutsford, Pearson, Kingham, 2013; Takano, T., Nakamura, K. & Watanabe, M. 2002).
4. Case studies
The following case studies indicate how Blacktown and Vancouver are addressing climate change through blue and green infrastructure measures. These case studies were chosen as they are both examples of water sensitive urban design (WSUD).
WSUD is the management of urban planning and urban water cycles, protecting water resources to ensure that urban management is sensitive to natural hydrology and ecological processes (Blacktown City Council, 2018a). WSUD replicates natural processes within the water treatment of the built environment. This has the advantage of reducing the runoff of rainwater and improving the quality of the rainwater. At the same time, WSUD can also protect and restore small rivers and improve the habitat of local wildlife (Reardon, T. and Kanofski, K., 2017).
Both of the case studies have been evaluated using the three pillars of sustainable urbanism: environmental, social and economic. Although we have addressed each of these pillars separately in our analysis, we recognise that the integration of all three pillars is of key importance in the creation of equitable, resilient and viable sustainable development projects (Tezangi, 2014). As such the exclusion or underutilisation of any of the pillars, or the lack of interchange between those operating in each of the pillars, is highly detrimental to projects as a whole in the long term (Gibson, 2006). This has been taken into account in our analysis and is a key element in our appraisal of their effects and benefits.
Note: the case studies have been edited for this publication.
CASE STUDY 1
Angus Creek Stormwater Harvesting Scheme — Blacktown
Angus Creek is a tributary of Eastern Creek located within the Western City Parklands, an important green corridor in the west of Sydney. The catchment of Angus Creek produces around two billion litres of stormwater each year (Blacktown City Council, 2017).
The Blacktown Sportspark in Sydney is an international sporting facility adjacent to Angus Creek. Since opening in 2017 the park’s annual visitor traffic has gradually increased (CRC for Water sensitive cities, 2018) to more than 750,000, and it has hosted more than 5,000 events (Blacktown City Council, 2017).
A large amount of water is needed to irrigate the sports fields. The Angus Creek Stormwater Harvesting and Reuse Scheme (the scheme) has been designed to extract excess stormwater from Angus Creek and use this runoff for irrigation of the sportspark (CRC for Water Sensitive Cities, 2018; Bush, C & Liebman, M. 2015).
The rapid development of cities (including Blacktown) has increased demand for water, often resulting in insufficient water supply, poor water quality, and negative changes to the flow of urban waterways (Blacktown City Council, 2014). Water sensitive urban design (WSUD) like that of this scheme can help to ensure that current and future developments nearby in north west of Sydney do not negatively affect future generations.
CASE STUDY 2
Hinge Park — Vancouver
Sustainable urban planning and design has been recognised as the one of the key means to achieve social, economic, and environmental sustainability (Westerhoff 2016, p. 16).
Vancouver’s Hinge Park is a good example of sustainable urban planning (Wheeler and Beatley 2014, p. 20). Hinge Park sits on 2.3 acres of land and adjoins Habitat Island, which occupies an area of about 1.5 acres. The park consists of multi-purpose areas, combining the history of the former industrial site with recreational and habitat creation components.
The story of Hinge Park begins with the 2010 Winter Olympics where it was one of the amenities for athletes. The main goal of the design was to transform what was then an industrial site into a vibrant park, so that people could experience first-hand the positive environmental effects of blue and green infrastructure (Chiesura 2004, p. 131; Luker, 2017).
The site has been utilised to create a natural wetland environment to manage the stormwater runoff of surrounding communities. The park also provides a natural habitat for fauna and flora, terrestrial and aquatic (Anna Ingebrigtsen & Ann Jackson, 2006). Additionally, there are social and recreational areas, as well as walking and cycling paths, art installations, exhibition centre, picnic tables, and a children’s playground (Dempsey, Bramley, Power, and Brown 2011, p. 293).
5. Balancing the social, environmental, and economic aspects of sustainable urban development
Following the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012, the United Nations acknowledged the role of effective and coordinated governance to achieve sustainable development (United Nations, 2012):
“We acknowledge that democracy, good governance and the rule of law, at the national and international levels, as well as an enabling environment, are essential for sustainable development, including sustained and inclusive economic growth, social development, environmental protection and the eradication of poverty and hunger. We reaffirm that, to achieve our sustainable development goals, we need institutions at all levels that are effective, transparent, accountable and democratic.”
(United Nations, 2012).
This section will look at how a fragmented approach to governance has negatively impacted sustainable urban development in each city.
Historically, governance of the infrastructure elements of our urban centres has been the domain of separate government departments (Tyrrell, NSW Government Architect, 2015). This stratification has enabled efficient and expert management of seemingly distinct elements such as parks, water, and trees.
Lundqvist proposes that such compartmentalised management of urban planning has resulted in a contradiction between the outward sustainability goals of government — to meet the needs of future generations — and the objectives of urban planning which seek to enable the growth of cities (Lundqvist, 2007). One might categorise this as a competition between short-term monetary gain and long-term sustainability; or a competition between pillars of sustainable urban development.
Fragmented management of blue and green infrastructure
Research conducted by Byrnes describes how reforms of the Australian water sector in the 1990s aimed at increasing competition led to an increased number of stakeholders responsible for water management (Byrnes, 2013). In Canada, a similar situation exists with some 20 federal departments with policy and regulatory oversight for water (Bakker, Cook, 2011. p. 280). Within each Canadian province, the management of water as a resource is the responsibility of multiple ministries — with different mandates related to biodiversity, flood management, and other natural resource elements.
The water governance at the state and city level could also be characterised as fragmented in both cities, with multiple agencies and authorities taking responsibility for a diverse set of management, monitoring, operating, and regulating activities (Bakker, Cook, 2011; Floyd et al., 2014). In Vancouver, water catchment is managed by Metro Vancouver and the supply of drinking water and management of stormwater is managed by the City of Vancouver
(Metro Vancouver, 2018). In Sydney, raw water is supplied by WaterNSW and filtered at plants operated by Sydney Water (for the most part) and then supplied to local councils
who provide residents with drinking water and manage stormwater (WaterNSW, 2019). Water policy and regulation is managed by a variety of state government actors including
the NSW Office of Water, the NSW Office of Environment, the Environmental Protection Authority, and the NSW Department of Industry (WaterNSW, 2018).
The emergence of the Greater Sydney Commission as a coordinating authority is a positive according to some non-government actors who stress the importance of coordinated urban planning to address issues related to climate change including increasing heat, habitat loss, and drought (Hammer et al., 2018; WSROC, 2018).
The impact of fragmented governance on the natural environment
Overlapping responsibilities increase the likelihood of competing mandates causing problems. This can impact the ability of authorities to sustainably manage their natural and infrastructure resources (Bakker, Cook, 2011; Kazmierczak, Carter, 2010). In addition, the influence of party politics can disrupt the wider sustainability aims of the public service. In NSW, for example, there is no specific mention of the environment in the key focus areas of the Premier, save the need to reduce littering (NSW Government, 2015).
The collapse of the Murray-Darling river system is a stark example of the failure of both state and federal governments to coordinate their approach to water resource management. The selling of water licenses to large agribusinesses has been credited with the massive reductions in water flow and quality, and something which has not been managed effectively by governments at any level (Government of South Australia, 2019).
Closer to Sydney we can see a similar inability for governments to sustainably manage their assets. The Western Sydney Parklands in the Blacktown local government area were set aside in the 1990s by former premier Bob Carr to be the “the lungs of western Sydney, open space never to be developed” (Hannam, 2019; Tyrrell, NSW Government Architect, 2015). Yet in early 2019, the NSW government announced that they could see no environmental risk in allowing some of this parkland to be developed as an industrial estate (Hannam, 2019). This development puts at risk both the vision of the former Premier and a priority set by the Greater Sydney Commission — that is “to develop greater permeability associated with the edges of Western Sydney Parklands” (Greater Sydney Commission, 2018).
In Canada, natural resource management has often been impacted by the desire of various levels of governments to acquire economic benefit from the exploitation of these resources. For example, in 2018 the federal government of Canada bought the Trans Mountain oil pipeline (Murphy, 2018). The City of Vancouver is expecting that this purchase will impact their ability to combat climate change because of the subsequent increase in oil tanker traffic to the city (City of Vancouver, 2018a). This demonstrates how the will of one level of government can very easily put the sustainable aims of another at risk.
The impact of fragmented governance on Blacktown and Vancouver’s blue and green infrastructure
Unlike the natural systems it seeks to replicate, blue and green infrastructure (BGI) initiatives require ongoing maintenance — without which it can be a challenge to effectively manage infrastructure such as that related to stormwater (Bush, C. 2019; Luker, 2017).
Although Vancouver has recently set policy which includes guidelines for ongoing maintenance (City of Vancouver, 2016), when Hinge Park was first conceived, it was not sufficiently considered (Luker, 2017).
This is in contrast to Angus Creek in Blacktown where it was always part of future planning. In an interview with the Catchments Project Officer at Blacktown City Council the importance of ongoing maintenance was stressed. He has spoken to other councils who have implemented similar schemes. Without the ongoing funding for maintenance, when their infrastructure fails and assets are compromised, the scheme’s feasibility can be questioned. In Blacktown, reinvesting savings into the scheme has meant that it is operational for the long-term (Bush, C. 2019).
Although Vancouver’s recent policies may better enhance the longevity of their BGI projects, it may be difficult, for Vancouver to match the holistic levels of blue green infrastructure planning that Blacktown has achieved. Primarily this is because of the capacity for future development in each city. Blacktown is undergoing rapid change from primarily agricultural land to an area characterised by medium density development (NSW Government, 2017). In established urban centres (such as Vancouver) this type of master planning is difficult: resulting in more piecemeal approaches to green-blue infrastructure (McGuiness, S. 2019; Adel Hagekhalil et al., 2017).
Blacktown City Council has been able to leverage planning instruments related to new developments. Through the ‘Precinct Scale Water Quality Offset Scheme’, developers pay a fee in lieu of undertaking on-site treatment works. This reduces their overall expenditure and capital offset for stormwater and any costs for ongoing maintenance (Blacktown City Council, 2018a; Bush, C. 2019). Council uses this revenue to fund stormwater facilities across the council area — all of which will benefit the community and the environment. This is similar to that of London where a Community Infrastructure Levy for developers funds and facilitates the collaborative working of adjacent London boroughs on strategic green infrastructure projects (Jones & Somper, 2014).
8. Conclusion and lessons for the future
With the additional stresses of climate change and population growth there is a pressing need to increase the coordination and collaborative capacities of governments (Byrnes, 2013). A complex governance structure can only manage resources effectively if there is efficient, transparent, and timely coordination between stakeholders. As Winograd and Flores propose, “[i]n situations where many people must act together, the problem of coordination becomes a crucial one” (Winograd & Flores, 1993).
As has been demonstrated in this paper, in lieu of coordinated action from higher levels of government, the cities of Blacktown and Vancouver have taken climate action into their own hands through blue and green infrastructure projects such as the Angus Creek Stormwater Harvesting Scheme and Hinge Park.
The success of these individual projects may have little chance of replication without integration of policy and approach from all levels of government including state and federal. It is our view, therefore, that a systems thinking approach is required to enhance future sustainable urban development.
A system’s view would strive for a more holistic governance of sustainable urban design projects through the following:
Orchestration of the the planning instruments related to urban development. In order to address the unpredictability of climate change and combat the complexity of governance, Roggema proposes a radical redesign of planning instruments including those related to land use (Roggema, 2016). This redesign would seek to put back into balance the social, environmental, and economic aspects of sustainable urban development, and would place the onus on all levels of government to coordinate their planning more effectively and for greater impact.
More effective coordination between all levels of government and designated authorities in the management of the environment. In Canada, the Auditor General has set out principles of effective partnership which specified the role of local, state, and federal jurisdictions (Auditor General of Canada, 1993). These are:
- Partnerships between jurisdictions should be set up early so that all stakeholders have a role in setting objectives and rules of engagement.
- There should be a single authority responsible for the overall coordination of parties.
- The federal authority should provide an overall, high-level plan which sets the vision.
- Public participation is essential to overall success.
The ‘Central City District Plan’ from the Greater Sydney Commission and the ‘Sydney Green Grid’ policy from the NSW Government Architect Office are complementary policies which set out objectives for preservation and enhancement of green corridors (Greater Sydney Commission, 2018; Tyrrell, NSW Government Architect, 2017).
Write climate change into legislation. The Environmental Defenders Office points out that whilst some councils in NSW have references to climate change adaptation in their plans, none of these are legally enforceable, nor do they contain actionable or measurable objectives for resource management or biodiversity conservation (Environmental Defenders Office, 2019). A lack of climate legislation in NSW is particularly unfortunate given the recent changes to the ‘NSW Environmental Planning & Assessment Act’. These could have directly addressed climate change legislation.
In contrast, the City of Vancouver has implemented climate change legislation for large-scale developments (City of Vancouver, 2014), and London has implemented similar schemes effectively (Jones, Somper, 2014).
Fund ongoing maintenance of blue and green infrastructure. Of the lessons learned from comparing the case studies of Blacktown and Vancouver, the most significant was that insufficient economic governance can greatly affect the ongoing success of any natural systems infrastructure. Without a means to find operational costs of BGI it will be hard for cities to argue for future projects (City of Vancouver, 2016; Bush, C. 2019; Jin, 2016).
With these measures, and a cooperative polity, we may have some chance of building resilience within our cities to adapt and mitigate the worst effects of climate change. City councils such as Blacktown and Vancouver are showing that through local action, climate adaptation is possible.
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