United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

Water scarcity is one of Australia’s biggest challenges. For almost a decade, many parts of eastern Australia have been battling one of the most severe droughts in the country’s recorded history, known as the Millennium Drought. For the Gold Coast City, the Millennium Drought has caused significant adversity, but also provided a catalyst for change.

Located on the south east Queensland (SEQ) coastline and crowned by over 50 kilometres of famous surf beaches, the Gold Coast is an enticing business and tourist hub.

Traditionally, the Gold Coast has relied on a single water supply source, the Hinze Dam, to supply a population of over half a million residents and an annual tourist population of over 10 million visitors. Prolonged drought conditions in tandem with the second fastest growing population in Australia, has placed significant pressure on the city’s water supply source, highlighting its vulnerability.

In 2002, the Hinze Dam dropped to its lowest recorded level of just 28%, leaving less than two years until the Gold Coast ran out of water. With the city’s population expected to reach 1.2 million by 2056, the Gold Coast’s water consumption will increase from approximately 185 million litres per day (ML/day) in 2005 to approximately 466 ML/day in 2056.

In addition, a growing community awareness regarding the sustainability of the city’s water services was also coming to the forefront, with the sustainability movement and climate change awareness gaining momentum.

To meet these challenges, an innovative approach to sustainable water planning, management and use was urgently required. Gold Coast Water (GCW) a business unit of Gold Coast City Council (GCCC) responsible for water services for the city, was the first authority in SEQ to develop a Drought Security Plan, identifying leading water conservation and demand management measures to reduce potable water consumption. Entering unchartered waters, GCW then developed a series of key strategies in close collaboration with the community and stakeholder representatives. These strategies, underpinned by sustainability, diversity and adaptability, map the water future of the city’s needs for the next 50 years, and include:
The Pimpama Coomera Waterfuture (PCWF) Master Plan,
The Gold Coast Waterfuture (GCWF) Strategy, and
The GCWF draft Recycled Water Strategy (RWS).

The Waterfuture concept moved away from traditional long term water planning practices which typically involved the ‘design, announce, defend’, or DAD principle. In the past, the DAD principle was common practice, with Local Government Authorities characteristically adopting and implementing solutions with minimal or no community consultation. Recognising the benefits and synergies to be obtained from involving the community throughout the journey of creating a sustainable water future, GCW embarked on a series of groundbreaking urban water planning processes resulting in the multi-award winning Waterfuture strategies.

By 2008, the Millennium Drought had significantly impacted the entire SEQ region with SEQ’s combined water supply dropping to just 17%. As a result, the issues previously being incurred on the Gold Coast were now being experienced by the entire region.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
Participatory community and stakeholder processes underpin the success of the Waterfuture strategies. The robust consultation process employed throughout the Waterfuture journey has empowered the Gold Coast community to take ownership of their water future. The result has been rapid implementation of complementary and synergistic water supply, demand management and recycled water strategies that have secured the city’s water supply well into the future. The Waterfuture strategies pioneered a fresh approach to urban water planning and community consultation. This approach recognises the fundamental value of involving the community in the development of solutions for their future, which is especially important in situations such as drought and in facing the ongoing challenges of climate change. Involving the community from inception to implementation has subsequently led to outstanding outcomes in terms of social, environmental and economic sustainability. The advisory committee process ensured representation from across all sectors of the community and facilitated the opinions of the community to be represented. Guided by the GCW project team, the consultation framework and Multi-Criteria Assessment (MCA) process enabled the advisory committee to make decisions on highly complex, technical issues. Importantly, this process ensured the elimination of bias from stakeholder groups resulting in unanimous consensus for the final options for both the GCWF Strategy and PCWF Master Plan. Similarly, there was only one vote against the final option for the GCWF draft RWS. Ultimately, the development and implementation of the Waterfuture strategies have changed the way in which the Gold Coast community values water. Community ownership has consequently resulted in behavioural change, with the community now understanding and respecting the importance of water conservation. To provide perspective on how far the city has come, prior to the Millennium drought the average daily water use of the Gold Coast with a population of 409,000 was 182 ML/d. During the later stages of the drought, with a population of 505,000 the average daily water consumption was just 157 ML/d. The Waterfuture strategies provide a distinctive and easily recognisable way of identifying projects and programs that focus on the long-term sustainability of the city’s water supply, providing a multi-faceted approach to managing the city’s most precious resource – water. Under this approach, diversity of water sources and the integration of water management initiatives has become a way of life – not just a futuristic aspiration. This ensures that the water supply is adequate for the needs of the Gold Coast’s growing population while also protecting the environment, achieving the right balance of supply and demand as the city grows. The Waterfuture strategies consultation framework continues to have far reaching benefits for the Gold Coast. In 2008, the process was adopted and employed for GCCC’s Bold Future project. Where the Waterfuture strategies examined highly complex technical issues requiring rigorous qualitative and quantitative assessment over a 50 year planning horizon, the GCCC Bold Future project employed the Waterfuture process at a city wide strategic level to develop a community owned and developed vision for the Gold Coast over the next 30 years.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
GCW provides urban water supply, recycled water, and wastewater services to Gold Coast City, Australia’s second largest local government authority. The organisation is recognised for outstanding leadership and foresight in developing and implementing novel solutions alongside its considerable drive to engage the community. In developing and implementing the Waterfuture strategies, GCW pioneered an era of change to deliver internationally recognised planning processes. Central to the development of the strategies was extensive stakeholder and community participation, which formed the backbone of the investigative, consultative and decision-making processes. Community engagement was achieved through employing an integrated, robust participatory framework. For each of the strategies an advisory committee was established to represent a breadth of sectors and stakeholders across the community comprising Gold Coast community and industry representatives, Gold Coast City Councillors, Council officers and managers, Queensland State Government representatives and technical specialists in water, wastewater, economics and engineering. For example, the GCWF Advisory Committee comprised of high standing representatives from Youth groups; Environmental groups; Urban Development Industry Association; Chamber of Commerce; Residents Associations; Gold Coast Tourism groups; Department of Health; Environmental Protection Agency; Department of Natural Resources and Mines; Gold Coast Catchment Association and Gold Coast City Council. Each advisory committee was able to effectively represent and highlight the disparate opinions reflective of their stakeholders groups. Furthermore, the advisory committee forum facilitated a two-way process between the committee and their respective stakeholder groups. This enabled GCW to engage representatives from community groups and stakeholders throughout all elements of the projects. Through regular meetings, the committees were heavily involved in investigating benefits and constraints for each option and strategy, including complex technical, financial, social and environmental issues, and the suitability of each option and strategy, specific to the Gold Coast region. Through discussion and voting, the advisory committee resolved decision-making requirements at several key stages. Under the established Terms of Reference (TOR) each committee member had equal voting power. Together, the advisory committee and the project teams completed extensive planning processes, which resulted in the development and finalisation of the three Waterfuture strategies. The success of the Waterfuture strategies was dependant on community acceptance and understanding, achieved through GCW’s ability to effectively engage with the community. The two-way iterative process employed led to significantly more informed and socially accepted solutions. In addition, the outcomes are more certain as the strategies were owned and embraced by the community. Complimentary to the advisory committee process, extensive consultation was carried out including community education, market research, stakeholder workshops, site visits and expert presentations. To verify the success of these activities, GCW sought feedback from the community during the final phases of strategy development. More than 13,000 community members provided feedback illustrating that community awareness of the strategies was high. As a result of the community consultation, the committee modified its recommendations to address community opinion. All recommendations were endorsed by Council. The results provide a robust long-term water supply plan for the city which is owned and supported by the wider community.

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The primary objective of the Waterfuture projects was to develop community owned strategies which secure the Gold Coast’s sustainable water future, ensuring that water supply is adequate for the needs of a growing population while also protecting our environment, achieving the right balance as the city grows. The underlying principles of the Waterfuture strategies are based around diversification of supply, adaptability and minimising consumption of potable water sources and also minimising the release of excess recycled water to the environment. To meet these objective GCW developed and introduced its Waterfuture strategies in partnership with the Gold Coast community - the GCWF Strategy, a 50-year, whole-of-city water supply strategy; the PCWF Master Plan, an integrated master plan for the city’s most rapidly growing northern suburbs – Pimpama and Coomera and the GCWF draft RWS - a strategy harnessing recycled water’s potential by providing fit-for-purpose solutions for the entire city. The objectives of the Waterfuture strategies are detailed below: PCWF Master Plan - To ensure more sustainable urban use and protection of the region’s water resources, with sustainability being measured on a whole of life basis via a balance of environmental, social and economic outcomes. GCWF Strategy - To ensure the sustainable use of the region’s water resources by developing an adaptable, diverse and balanced strategy to meet the total community’s water needs into the future. GCWF draft RWS - To ensure sustainable provision of recycled water services to the City of the Gold Coast, by developing an adaptable strategy that values the recycled water resource. This will be achieved by a balance of environmental, social and economic factors, while ensuring it is consistent with the Gold Coast Waterfuture Strategy and will be embraced by the community. The objectives of each Waterfuture strategy was developed by the relevant community based advisory committees during the first meeting. This was fundamental in ensuring that the project team, advisory committee and broader community were working towards a common goal. This was also a critical step in ensuring community ownership from inception.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
Each Waterfuture advisory committee oversaw a thorough and rigorous process of assessment to ensure a robust strategy was developed. Preparatory activities involved developing common knowledge to ensure all participants had access to the same information. An independent chair was selected for each committee via a call for nominations from key community members. This voluntary position presided over all meetings, ensuring that the committee conducted its deliberations according to the TOR. This role also protected free speech and ensured debates were conducted properly. The success of the advisory committee process relied on having a highly skilled chair, who could effectively manage heterogenous groups and opinions as well as varied information of a technical nature. Fair representation of community groups and stakeholders was achieved through the selection process for each advisory committee. Membership was determined based on the need to reflect objectives of the committee and to allow for provision of broad-based input into planning and decision making. The role of the advisory committee was to provide a forum for community involvement, oversee and participate in development of the strategies and make recommendations to GCCC. This role oversaw the entire development process. Once selected, the composition of the committee did not change, which heightened trust in the process and maintained continuity with all stakeholders. TOR were established and agreed to by the advisory committees. The TOR were considered fixed for the length of the project, however could be interpreted as new issues emerged. A clear TOR was essential to ensuring that all members were committed to obtaining the ultimate outcome. Agreement was established on how to undertake the project, including the proposed MCA methodology and stakeholder engagement and participation. The committees met monthly to consider issues, options and initiatives for delivering revised ‘water supply’ strategies which meet the needs of the community now and in the future. Screening of options that did not meet mandatory criteria was undertaken at an early stage. The final strategies assessed through the MCA process consisted of various combinations of several different options. MCA provides an objective, structured and transparent framework for informed decision making, allowing each of the proposed strategies to be compared from an environmental, social and economic perspective. Quantitative and qualitative sustainability criteria were developed and scored using best and worst possible outcomes to assess the strategies performance. The iterative process employed often resulted in several iterations being made to the proposed strategies, ensuring a more comprehensive and robust solution. For each Waterfuture strategy, a broad community engagement program was implemented. The program was designed to inform and consult with the community, providing an understanding of the project as well as the opportunity to voice their opinions. The preferred strategy selected by the advisory committee was placed on public exhibition to allow the community time to absorb the detail and provide feedback before the final decision was made. As a result of the community consultation, the committee modified its recommendations to address community opinion. The revised strategy was then proposed and adopted by GCCC.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The key challenge for the ongoing success of the Waterfuture strategies was to create a sense of community empowerment and ownership of the strategies and associated initiatives. This was accomplished through two major elements: the establishment and implementation of an advisory committee and consultation with the wider Gold Coast community. These parallel processes facilitated an iterative two-way process which enabled broader community feedback to be incorporated in the final strategies. This allowed stakeholders to challenge assumptions and decisions made earlier in the process. Targeted community engagement activities were implemented throughout the development, implementation and review of the Waterfuture strategies engendering an ongoing sense of ownership. The specific activities employed were dependent on the project objective. For example, communications for the GCWF Strategy required more intensive consultation due to the nature of a city wide water supply initiative. Community engagement activities were designed to educate the community. The feedback received added another element of community opinion to assist committee members in their ultimate decision making process. These activities aimed to raise awareness of the projects and develop an understanding of the need for action, while introducing key concepts associated with water planning and the types of water initiatives. A challenge specific to the advisory committee process was ensuring that the committee members represented the opinions of their respective stakeholder groups and not their own. This was overcome by providing a structured procedure and tools to facilitate the two-way communication between the committee members and their constituency. This enabled the committee members to liaise with their respective groups and share the information to provoke discussion and development of a group opinion. Tools provided included presentations, questionnaires, technical information sheets and a soap box – an uninterruptable time-slot for members to voice their individual and stakeholder constituency opinions. This challenge was further compounded by the complexity of the issues being considered as well as the composition of the committee itself. To accurately represent the broader community, committee members were selected across a diverse range of backgrounds ultimately resulting in diverging and often polar opinions. This challenge was overcome by appointing a strong, independent chair, establishing and obtaining consensus on a TOR, developing a project objective and formalising and agreeing to the MCA methodology and weightings. The complex issues being considered were overcome by appointing a highly skilled and multi-disciplinary project team who communicated the required information to the committee in an easy to understand fashion. Additionally, each committee was supported by an independent expert panel, comprising of highly respected water industry experts. Care was taken to ensure that panel members represented varying opinions regarding topical and technical issues. This was further facilitated by the MCA process, which included the development of simplistic score cards to enable the committee to score complex and interconnected engineering, scientific, economic, environmental and social issues which required proper consideration within the decision making framework.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
The development of the Waterfuture strategies required significant and dedicated resources to ensure the integrity of the process and outcomes achieved. The assurance of a sustainable supply of water to the Gold Coast for the future however, far exceeded the cost of resourcing the projects. As described previously, GCW established an advisory committee to guide the development of each of the Waterfuture strategies. The advisory committee and iterative community engagement process involved significant time and resources, taking approximately 18 months from inception to implementation. Considerable internal resources and engineering consultants were further dedicated to the Waterfuture projects, highlighting GCW’s commitment to ensuring sustainable solutions for water management on the Gold Coast. Additionally, media consultants were employed throughout the development and implementation process to obtain wider exposure within the community. During the development of the three Waterfuture strategies, the Australian water industry was experiencing a major skills shortage. Obtaining skilled and appropriate resources was therefore a key challenge for the development and implementation of these strategies. To overcome this, and to ensure key GCW personnel were able to continue their activities for the broader GCW business, a team of consultants were engaged to assist GCW with the development of all three strategies. Together the project team, consisting of GCW employees and consultants, formed a powerful union representing the best technical and strategic planning skills available. Each member of the advisory committees and the supporting technical panel of experts were involved with the development of the strategies on a voluntary basis. Though advisory committee participation was voluntary, there was substantial cost involved with employing the project team, rigorous community engagement and MCA process throughout the duration of the development of the strategies. The cost of developing the Waterfuture strategies is estimated at over $1 Million (AUD). Despite the additional time and cost required to adequately engage and consult with the community and stakeholders, the participatory process inspired additional involvement and effort by the committee members and was essential in engendering a sense of community ownership of the process and overall outcome.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
Through incorporating sustainability best practice into the development and implementation of the Waterfuture strategies, GCW has created a legacy for the sustainable management of water, which has been embraced by the Gold Coast community. The Waterfuture strategies are multi-award winning processes, collectively receiving over 10 national and international awards. The adaptability and flexibility of the Waterfuture process ensures it can be employed across a broad spectrum of long term strategic planning projects. The Waterfuture process is now being applied for the GCCC Bold Future initiative. In developing the Bold Future framework GCW provided all relevant documentation, including the framework for the advisory committee and iterative process, community engagement plans and materials, TOR, MCA methodology, score cards and all other relevant materials. This has facilitated the development of a shared community vision for the Gold Coast City for the next 30 years, known as Bold Future. As an outcome of employing this process, the Bold Future project received 10,000 community responses. This clearly demonstrates the transferability of the process developed and employed for the Waterfuture projects. On a broader scale, the Waterfuture strategies are nationally recognised as best practice planning and community engagement processes and are employed as model examples internationally. By committing time, effort, resources and funding into the development and refinement of the Waterfuture process, GCW has significantly enhanced the knowledge of the international water industry by actively sharing its lessons learned and Waterfuture materials. In addition to transferability of the process, the outcomes developed through this process have also contributed significantly to securing the water future of the wider SEQ region. As the Millennium Drought tightened its grip on SEQ, the Queensland State Government announced that it would significantly reform water services in SEQ in an attempt to secure the whole region’s water supplies. As an outcome of these reforms, many of the key GCWF Strategy initiatives are now being rolled out across SEQ by the Queensland State Government. All GCWF bulk water supply initiatives are now owned and operated by the State Government, with the remaining GCWF initiatives incorporated in the draft SEQ Water Supply Strategy. The combined implementation of the Queensland State Government’s water reform and GCWF Strategy initiatives has resulted in the following outcomes: construction of the Gold Coast Desalination Plant; raising of the Hinze Dam; construction of the Southern Regional Water Pipeline; reversal of the Logan pipeline to supply 20 ML/day of potable water to Logan City; pressure and leakage management, recycled water, reduced consumption through water conservation initiatives and the mandatory installation of rainwater tanks in new housing developments. In addition to securing the Gold Coast City’s water future, the outcomes developed through the Waterfuture process have now ensured a secure and sustainable water supply for the wider SEQ region, clearly demonstrating its transferability in a tangible sense.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
With the development of its Waterfuture initiatives, GCW has created an integrated, urban water blueprint that is applicable locally, regionally, nationally and internationally – particularly where cities are undergoing rapid growth and redevelopment. In 2008, the Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA) benchmarked the GCWF Strategy against their Sustainability Assessment Framework, which was developed subsequent to the GCWF Strategy. WSAA concludes its report by remarking: “GCW should be recognised as having undertaken a very comprehensive sustainability assessment process and incorporating an advanced form of community engagement which leads the way in the Australian water industry. This engagement has lead to a high degree of community support for GCW’s plans. The GCWF project gives us substantial confidence that the stakeholder empowerment process is both practical and valuable for its ability to generate public endorsement for a planning process”. Specific lessons learnt from the Waterfuture journey are discussed below. The overall process employed must be agreed upon by the committee showing all steps prior to commencing. This ensures transparency of the process which results in less confusion and a high level of confidence in the process and overall outcomes. In establishing the advisory committee, an independent chair with no bias towards any particular outcome must be engaged. The chair, with the assistance of the project team, should guide the committee to remain focused on the agenda content. Process adherence ensures the committee undertakes all required discussion and decisions. The remaining advisory committee members should be selected based on their representation of key stakeholder groups. Terminology employed in the project must be tangible, understood by all committee members and established at the beginning of the process. Uninformed peer review of presentations prepared by the project team and guest speakers should be undertaken prior to the committee meeting to provide an indication of the clarity of the content. Time must be allocated during committee meetings to brainstorm and discuss ideas, issues and potential solutions and their associated benefits and disadvantages. This ensures trust is built into the process. A strong project team is key for success in supporting the advisory committee and overall process. The project team must remain focused to maintain a very strong schedule to avoid project delays. During the MCA process, it is important to separate the criteria weighting process from the analysis of performance of the strategies. This circumvents biased weightings. The application of sophisticated tools to assist in the consideration of a wide range of issues ensures a comprehensive sustainability assessment. However, the development of simplistic and easy to understand score cards is critical in translating this complex matrix of technical qualitative and quantitative information in a way that can be both understood and appreciated. A key aspect of the Waterfuture success is the interactive process employed allowing for community feedback to be incorporated and options reworked based on this feedback. This was integral in ensuring that the community is empowered to have buy-in and ownership of the strategy and also contributes to the achievement of high quality outcomes.


Institution Name:		Gold Coast Water
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Guillermo Capati
Title:		Manager Infrastructure Planning
Telephone/ Fax:		+61 7 5582 8261
Institution's / Project's Website:		+61 7 5582 8984
E-mail:		gcapati@goldcoastwater.com.au
Address:		PO Box 5582
Postal Code:		9729
City:		Gold Coast Mail Centre
State/Province:		Queensland
Country:		Australia

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information