Stormwater Management Planning Guidelines Review

Stormwater Management Planning Guidelines Review

Consultation Paper

Purpose

This consultation paper has been prepared to facilitate feedback from councils, industry and others on opportunities to enhance the Stormwater Management Authority’s(SMA) Stormwater Management Planning Guidelines. The paper:

• Providesthe background for the review.
• Outlines the review process.
• Outlineskey principles for the review process.
• Details key issues and questions for feedback.

Feedback to the issues and questions outlined in this paper should be emailed by close of business onFriday,
30 September 2016.

Electronic copies of this paper are available to download from the SMA’s website at:

The feedback received will be used to prepare a draft revised guideline document for consultation in late 2016.

Introduction

TheState and Local Government Stormwater Management Agreement(2013) establishes along-term strategic direction formanaging stormwater in South Australiaso as to maximise economic, social and environmental benefits.

The Agreement places responsibility with the SMA, as a joint State and local government body, to facilitate multi-objective stormwater management planning across the State.

In accordance with the 2013Agreement, in 2015the SMA released its Strategic Plan for the period 2015 to 2025.

The Strategic Plan outlines the SMA’s vision to drive a strategic and long-term approach to stormwater management across South Australia, in collaboration with key stakeholders, which maximises social, environmental and economic outcomes and leads to a more integrated approach to urban stormwater management and planning.

The Strategic Plan details specific actions that the SMA will pursue to deliver on its vision and goals. Among them, is an action toreview the current stormwater management planning guidelines so as to ensure their ongoing rigour and to encourage greater consideration of multi-criteria stormwater management objectives in new stormwater management plans (SMPs).

The current Stormwater Management Planning Guidelines were issued in July 2007[1]. Since that time there have been a number of key developments nationally and in South Australia relevant to best practice stormwater management. These include:

• Experience with the Millennium Drought, which drew stronger community recognition of the resource value of stormwater for watering parks and reserves.
• The development of national flood guidance, following major flood events in eastern Australia.
• A finding of the Adelaide Coastal Waters Study that polluted stormwater run-off is a major factor to the long-term degradation of Adelaide’s coastal marine environment.
• The development and release of South Australia’s water sensitive urban design (WSUD) policy, which sets key performance targets for stormwater management.

Additionally, user experience of the current guidelines has grown considerably since 2007, so there is significant scope to assess the experience of practitionerswho have been involved in the SMP development process to consider what has worked well andareas for improvement.

Review Process

To guide the review, the SMA asked the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources (DEWNR)to establish a working group from the following:

• Local Government Association (LGA)
• DEWNR (urban water policy and flood hazard leader areas)
• SMA’s technical adviser within the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (DPTI)
• Natural Resources Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges
• Environment Protection Authority (EPA)

Input from thesestakeholders has been used toinform the issues and questions presented in this paper.

Key Principles for the Review

To provide overall guidance to the review process, a number of key principles have been initially identified:

• Transparency –the process by which SMPs are developed, options assessed and key decisions madeis transparent, and information is appropriately transmitted to all relevant stakeholders, including the community.
• Comprehensive assessment – risks, benefits and proposed solutions are assessedrigorouslyfrom both a technical and socio-economic perspective.
• Maximising benefits over costs –a broadrange of options should be considered, including structural, non-structural and combinations of these, so as to assess the best overall solutions. In some cases, it may well be that non-structural measures provide significant benefits for much lower cost, and greater adaptive flexibility, than structural options.
• Alignment with national approaches –where they exist, national guidelines (for example, best practice flood management guidance)should be applied.
• Consultation – strong efforts are made to engage all stakeholders who are likely to have an interest in the SMP.
• Sustainable solutions – the SMP should consider solutions that will be sustainable in the long term.
• Common methodology – to the maximumpossible extent, common methodologies should be applied so as to enable comparison across catchments of expected costs and benefits and to assist investment decisions.

Issues/Questions

The following table lists a number of issues raised by members of a working group established to help identify possible opportunities to enhance the guidelines. Please email responses to by close of business on Friday, 30 September 2016.

1. The guidelines need to reflect the broad variety of circumstances that may give rise to councils undertaking stormwater management plans.

• Do you have any views as to how the guidelines balance requirements for offering detailed guidance vs need to ensure they are flexible/adaptive to specific circumstances?
• Are there significant differences between metropolitan/rural councils and/or large/small catchments that might merit different approaches to stormwater management planning? If so, what are the key issues?

1. Guidelines should ensure Stormwater Management Plans (SMPs) address other issues in addition to flood risk/mitigation.

• Do you have any views as to how the guidelines might be enhanced to strengthen the expectation that SMPs identify opportunities to manage stormwater for multiple objectives (e.g. flood management, water quality improvement, harvesting, and amenity)?
• Are you aware of any particularly good examples of multi-objective (i.e. best practice) stormwater management in existing SMPs? If so, which SMPs and why are they good examples?

1. Greater emphasis/guidance on non-structural options and ensuring SMPs provide for sub-catchment level, multi-objective strategies.

1. Guidelines might provide more detail on the meaning of multi-objective stormwater management – more detail and examples.

1. There is an opportunity for the guidelines to better utilise planning mechanisms to minimise need for future works upgrades.

• Should the guidelines require all SMPs to consider planning mechanisms? If so, how might the guidelines address this issue?
• What types of non-structural approaches should the guidelines expect will be considered?

1. More emphasis on non-structural flood mitigation options – major structural elements only where necessary.

1. There is opportunity for the guidelines to place greater emphasis on measures that will minimise need for future works upgrades.

1. The project brief is a critical aspect of the SMP as it will ultimately define the scope of work. The guidelines could strengthen stakeholders’ involvement in this process (e.g. in addition to local council/s, potentially others such as the regional Natural Resources Management Board).

• Is there merit in the SMP development process explicitly requiring a multi-stakeholder Steering Committee be established to develop the project brief? If so, who should be involved in the Steering committee?
• Should the guideline specify any preference for the tender to address all components of the SMP, as a staged process with subsequent stages being consequential on satisfactory performance of the previous stage/s?

1. More information could be included about the process that will occur after a ‘final’ SMP is approved by council/s.

• What is your understanding of the processes followed (by regional Natural Resources Management Boards, Stormwater Management Authority,etc.) once an SMP is endorsed by the relevant council/s so that it may be formally submitted to the SMA for its consideration?
• Do you have any suggestions as to whether and how the process could be improved or made clearer?

1. The guidelines should expect floodplain/flood hazard mapping be undertaken to best national practice (which would require analysis up to the Probable Maximum Flood) and analysis for current and ultimate development.

• What are the main implications of adopting national best practice (e.g. likely cost and resourcing implications)?
• Should the guidelines also seek to facilitate others’ input to support end use of flood mapping being of use to other organisations? If so, how might this occur?

1. There are many potential end users of floodplain maps. The guidelines could also seek to facilitate end products being suitable to them (e.g. planners, emergency mgmt., transport & utility planers/operators, risk managers, insurers, flood forecasters, property owners, floodplain residents & businesses).

1. Data access/sharing arrangements should be clear.

• What are the main issues for data access and sharing?

1. There is opportunity for the guidelines to facilitate greater standardisation across SMPs where appropriate (e.g.SMP structure;flood mapping/modelling, expected mapping/modelling detail, future development scenarios, water quality modelling methods/parameters, and guidance on cost-benefit methodology/ assumptions).

• What aspects of SMPs do you consider lend themselves to a more standardised approach?

1. The guidelines could facilitate greater recognition and alignment of SMPs with strategic plans.

• What are current key national, state of local plans/strategies that should be referenced in the guidelines?
• A list of strategic documents could potentially be provided by way of an annex to the guidelines (for updating periodically without having to amend the guidelines themselves). Would you support such an approach?

1. Guidance could be provided on long term arrangements/expectations for maintaining infrastructure, including any developed on private land.

• It is important that any assets developed as a result of an SMP can be maintained. How might this be best promulgated by the guidelines?

• Do you have any comments concerning the principles established to underpin the guidelines review (refer above in this discussion paper)?

• Do you have any other suggestions for enhancing the relevance and value of the guidelines for your organisation?

[1] The current guidelines are available on the SMA’s website