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Water Sensitive Cities (WSC) to continue the work of the CRCWSC
15 April 2021
The CRC for Water Sensitive Cities’ term ends on 30 June 2021. Over the past 9 years, the CRCWSC has answered many of the big questions about how to create water sensitive cities, and has made significant progress towards mainstreaming water sensitive principles and practice.
But, there is more to do.
Join Water Sensitive Cities
Water Sensitive Cities (WSC) will be the legacy vehicle of the CRCWSC. This research-to-practice enterprise within Monash Sustainable Development Institute (MSDI) will build on the CRCWSC’s achievements by mainstreaming water sensitive practices. The aim is to see water sensitive practices applied at scale as business-as-usual activity in every city, every day. WSC will also work to integrate water sensitive practices with other key city shaping sectors.
WSC will inherit all CRCWSC IP, while ensuring all CRCWSC Participants retain “non-exclusive royalty-free worldwide perpetual licence to use, reproduce, modify and adapt” this IP. WSC will use this knowledge and IP to work with Australian and international partners to operationalise water sensitive practices.
Focus areas for WSC will include:
- bringing together diverse people and organisations to help them create a shared vision for their city
- synthesising breakthrough research and deep industry experience to find innovative, practical action and context-specific solutions
- building the collaboration, knowledge, governance and regulatory frameworks, industry capacity and business models needed for timely implementation at scale
- enhancing interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration.
WSC’s service offerings will span 6 portfolios (see figure below).
Ownership of WSC willb e transfered to Monash University in the 2021-22 financial year, and have commitments from a group of foundational industry partners. Collaboration has been at the heart of the CRCWSC and WSC has an ongoing committment to supporting the CRCWSC partners mainstream water sensitive practices into the future.
If you’d like to be involved, contact WSC Managing Director Ben Furmage: ben.furmag@monash.edu
Find the tools and resources you need on the Water Sensitive Cities Knowledge Platform
Launched at the 5th Water Sensitive Cities Conference, the Water Sensitive Cities Knowledge Platform curates the CRCWSC’s 1,700+ tools, resources and products accumulated over the past 9 years.
The platfom has made it simple for practitioners to search and find what they need, particularly the CRCWSC’s flagship tools, including the WSC Index, the Scenario Tool, the Benefit Cost Analysis Tool, Infill Typologies Catalogue and RESTORE Tool. Many of these are now freely available on the platform. There are also guidelines for implementing water sensitive practices on the ground, case studies that demonstrate how they’ve been implemented, and all the supporting research. Practitioners can search by theme (using the ‘water wheel’ on the homepage), for a tool or a case study, or for a specific resource.
WSC welcome feedback on the new site. While the site is being completed WSC welcomes feedback and are keen to hear if there’s anything you can’t find or would like to see added. Access feedback form here. Or you can email directly at admin@crcwsc.org.au.
