Water's big impact on cities' liveability

This week Tony Trobe talks to Rob Catchlove, an environmental scientist and "water sensitive city" practice leader at Alluvium Consulting Australia.

TT: What do you think is driving the liveability agenda?

RC: Cities are actually in competition with each other: regionally, nationally, and internationally. The ABS forecasts that the ACT population will about double in the next 40 or 50 years. It has half the average annual rainfall (620 mm) and just 10 per cent of the GDP, so what would attract someone to live in Canberra over Sydney?

TT: Is liveability about competition, or is it more than that?

RC: Of course more. I've completed several (water) projects recently that have enabled me to contemplate other models of defining liveability. My research suggests there are four quite different lenses through which liveability is defined: macro-economic, micro-economic, social, and limits to growth.

TT: So do these four lenses mean?

RC: A "macroeconomic len" is a view that liveability is about growth and economic prosperity, and you focus on infrastructure and macro-economic policy settings to deliver it. A "micro-economic lens" is a view that it is all about the property and the individual. How do we make houses more affordable and more sustainable, and what matters for the individual, the family? It's a view strongly held by the Property Council of Australia.

The "social view" is that liveability is about meeting the needs of society and should be driven by community perceptions and values. The social lens suggests that you start with data on social perceptions and values, gain understanding of what drives these values, and then deliver services and infrastructure with those issues in mind.

A "limits to growth view" is almost the antithesis of the macro-economic view. It is a view that we can't become more liveable if we continue to consume more resources.

TT: And is water important in all of these?

RC: Not necessarily, and I'm candidly viewing this through a social lens. In my view, and with social needs driving liveability, water can be a major factor in enabling Canberra to become a leading city in terms of liveability, leap-frogging other Australian cities.

What I'm suggesting is that a strategy that involves a decentralised water system, that reduces runoff and pollution from the city into its lakes by 90 per cent, reduces flooding, reduces consumption of potable water by 75 per cent (from the Cotter Dam and other reservoirs), reduces wastewater treatment by 75 per cent, and reduces energy consumed by the water authority, would drive liveability and is in line with community perceptions.

Even more important is what you do with water at home, what you garden looks like, how your local street looks and feels, and how water is used in the local park and shopping centre. When takes up almost one in every three dollars spent by the ACT Government, and the environment helps with preventative health measures – that is worth thinking about!

TT: So you'd swim in Lake Burley Griffin?

RC: After it rains, no. But it's possible in the Canberra of the future. In 2012 it was closed 21 per cent of the time due to pollution events and associated health risks. Is that the city of the future?

Tony Trobe is a Canberra-based architect.