Water sensitive urban design (WSUD)

Water is a limited resource that must be managed both for immediate needs and long-term economic and environmental sustainability. With urban development increasing our water usage, altering flow regimes in our local waterways and increasing pollutant loads in stormwater runoff, sound policies are required to ensure a sustainable environment for present and future generations.

We have adopted a water sensitive urban design approach to the management of water within the Blacktown Local Government Area.  Water sensitive urban design (WSUD) is the integration of urban planning with the management, protection and conservation of the urban water cycle that ensures that urban water management is sensitive to natural hydrological and ecological processes.

WSUD aims to ensure developments are designed, constructed and maintained to minimize negative impacts on the water cycle. WSUD techniques and elements can be applied to all sizes of development and aims to manage the quality and quantity of stormwater to better protect the local environment and waterways.

We have introduced a number of new initiatives under the Developers toolkit for WSUD, including the Precinct Scale Water Quality Offset Scheme, our new On-site Stormwater Detention Policy and the Small Scale Stormwater Quality Model (S3QM) deemed to comply tool, to streamline the DA process.