Rethinking Water Planning

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Why is the project relevant to you?

Water, both water supply and wastewater, is becoming a bigger challenge, slowing down the development of commercial and residential buildings. In the future, developers will likely need to show how their projects impact the water system and what designs they have included to reduce strain on it. Although this project focuses on high-level catchment plans, it's important for everyone to understand the benefits of integrated thinking and the cumulative impacts of small decisions.

Key messages for Developers and infrastructure providers

Participatory mapping is an easy and visual way to analyse the impact of decisions and priorities across a system. This project showed how it works at a catchment level, but it can also be used at a site level.

Call to action

The statutory water planning process highlights many investment opportunities and environmental needs. However, many nature-based solutions are often excluded early in the planning process. Some of these measures could be implemented as part of Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) requirements.

Call to action

It's highly recommended to consider water management catchment areas when planning any land use changes. Actions on your site and nearby can have positive effects further along the river catchments.

Call to action

Using integrated modelling or systems mapping will help you understand how proposals affect the water environment and identify opportunities to improve it.

Call to action