WSUD asset maintenance

Just like a car, water sensitive urban design assets need to be maintained with regular inspections and tune-ups to keep them in good working order. As they age, they may need a major service or more substantial works too. Assets that are well designed, constructed, established and maintained usually work best and require the least long term effort and expenditure.

Why should an individual or Council maintain WSUD assets?

Because it's the law. When a new development is constructed it must comply with the State Environment Protection Policy (SEPP) Waters of Victoria. Residential subdivisions must meet Clause 56.07 of the Victorian Planning Provisions which refer to the 'Best Practice Environmental Management Guidelines' as a simple way to meet SEPP requirements.

In plain english, new developments have to be designed so they don't pollute and damage our waterways and bays beyond limits set down in law.

When Council take on resulting WSUD assets, they become responsible for maintaining them, just like roads, drains, parks and other assets.

Of course, well maintained assets also cost less to manage in the long term, provide much more benefits for the environment and community as they were intended to and look much better as well.

Planned maintenance and renewals

It is important to recognise there is a difference between:

Planned maintenance
Corrective maintenance and renewals

Planned maintenance is day-to-day work like cleaning out litter, removing accumulated sediment, pruning and replanting.

Corrective maintenance is needed when there are serious issues, often arising from design or construction problems that need major work to repair before the asset will function properly. Renewals also occur when an asset reaches the end of its useful life. Both of these are usually capital works.

Guidance on typical maintenance tasks for raingardens can be found in the City of Port Phillip: Targeted maintenance for streetscape WSUD assets by E2Designlab.

Budgets and resources for maintenance

Melbourne Water and other organisations have been collected data on maintenance costs for WSUD assets. The industry is relatively new so there is still a lot of variability in costs. However planned maintenance can be predicted with reasonable confidence and once your team has maintained a few assets it will have a much better idea of what's involved and how much time it takes.

Melbourne Water estimates of typical costs

Training and skills

Clearwater provide training for Councils to help them get up to speed on how to maintain their WSUD assets.

Clearwater maintenance training