Facing up to water security challenges and adopting strategies to allocate water amongst competing users in an economically efficient manner can drive Australia’s water security.
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his is in line with global survey findings in the 2017 Black & Veatch Strategic Directions: Water Industry Report, which shows that water leaders worldwide
are adapting to a new normal of accommodating a changing climate and rising public scrutiny of the water supply and, in the process, exhibiting new levels of leadership and political will. Industry leaders anticipate better integration and involvement in land-use planning, looking beyond the scope of water and sewerage provision and collaborating with other sectors including waste, energy and local government in the next era for the Australian water industry.
Integrated planning Integrated planning resolves this by encour-
Integrated solutions to drive sustainability in water industry James Currie*
aging providers to consider all aspects of the water management cycle. The Strategic Directions Report shows that while early adopters are making progress with implementing more holistic approaches to planning, opportunities exist to go further. Integrated planning focuses on driving the best solution for the community. It is getting past the siloed thinking — water, wastewater, stormwater and reclaimed water — and identifying an integrated solution that will provide the resiliency the community needs in the long term. The key to that is having multiple stakeholders — the community, regulators, politicians and end users — work together to determine what is best for that community. At the end of the day, we are identifying that we have limited resources and how we are going to utilise those resources most effectively for the community. Collaboration with all the stakeholders will drive bestfor-community services.
8 Sustainability Matters - Aug/Sep 2017
www.SustainabilityMatters.net.au