Advancing Water Sensitive Urban Design: A Rapid Assessment of
‘Institutional Capacity’ in Local Government Agencies
Model Background Briefing Notes
Purpose of These Notes
These notes aim to:
¡ Provide an overview of a project being run that involves a ‘rapid assessment’ of institutional capacity in the ((organisation’s name)) to promote water sensitive urban design (WSUD) and then the development of a local action plan to build key elements of this capacity.
¡ Explain who should try to attend the two workshops that are part of this project.
¡ Introduce some key terms and concepts that will be used during the project, so that participants will be better equipped to undertake the rapid assessment process during the workshop scheduled for ((date of the first workshop)).
Aims of the Project
1. To review the elements of institutional capacity that are needed to successfully drive WSUD in local government agencies.
2. To help participants to conduct a rapid self-assessment of whether these elements are present (and strong) in their organisation.
3. To identify high priority capacity building needs in the organisation.
4. To identify management strategies to address these needs.
5. To agree on a process to convert the management strategies into a local action plan which will then be implemented.
Background
((Insert local background information that addresses: 1) Why the rapid assessment process is being run. 2) To what extent is there executive support for this project and WSUD. 3) What will happen with the outcomes of the process.))
Who Should Be Involved with the Project
The project relies on involvement by key staff who are (or could be) promoting WSUD. Ideally, participants will represent the different functional units of each agency such as those responsible for policy, planning, engineering (design, construction and maintenance), environment / sustainability, community engagement, development assessment and parks / open space.
Ideally, there will be around 5-10 participants from council who will each attend the rapid assessment workshop on ((date)) (step 1) and then a follow-up workshop on ((date)) (step 2). Experience from running the process in other organisations indicates that where the same participants attend both workshops, better outcomes are produced.
The process also relies on a coordinator in the organisation volunteering to continue the process of building and implementing a local action plan to strengthen institutional capacity. The follow-up workshop will produce the key actions for such a plan, but more work will be needed to add some detail (e.g. priorities, deadlines, funding mechanisms, etc.), link the plan to existing documents, seek endorsement, and coordinate its delivery.
The Process Being Used
The two-step process is summarised in Figure 1.
Figure 1 – The rapid assessment and action planning process
Background to Some Key Terms and Concepts
This section provides an introduction to some key terms and concepts that will be used at the rapid assessment workshop.
Water sensitive urban design
Water sensitive urban design is the “term used to describe a new approach to urban planning and design that offers sustainable solutions for integrating land development and the natural water cycle” (Lloyd, 2001, p. iii). Figure 2 highlights how WSUD is consistent with the philosophy of ecologically sustainable development, and typically involves strategies to conserve water, minimise the generation of wastewater, and manage stormwater quality and quantity.
Figure 2 - The water sensitive urban design framework (Wong, 2006)
As shown in the images below, the WSUD philosophy commonly results in on-the-ground infrastructure, such as:
¡ Rainwater tanks, bioretention / rain garden systems and permeable paving on residential properties.
¡ Bioretention systems and vegetated swales in the road corridor.
¡ Constructed wetlands and ‘third pipe’ water recycling systems at the estate scale.
Domestic rainwater tank for reusing water(www.wsud.org) / Permeable paving – stormwater management
(www.wsud.org) / Linear bioretention system to treat stormwater
(André Taylor Consulting)
Pod-style bioretention system to treat stormwater / Constructed wetland to treat stormwater
(André Taylor Consulting) / Large scale stormwater / wastewater recycling scheme
Institutional capacity to promote water sensitive urban design
Increasingly, researchers and practitioners in the water industry have recognised that the barriers to the widespread adoption of WSUD are not just technical in nature. Typical barriers relate to knowledge, skills, tools, systems, processes, organisational cultures, leadership, intra- and inter-organisational relationships, legislation, policy, planning, finance, governance, incentives, etc. These are all elements of what researchers call ‘institutional capacity’.
As shown in Figure 3, elements of institutional capacity can be broken down into four groups:
¡ Relevant human resources (e.g. technical skills and leadership skills) to promote WSUD.
¡ Intra-organisational capacity, such as the key processes, systems, cultures and resources within local government agencies to promote WSUD.
¡ Inter-organisational capacity, such as the agreements, relationships and consultative networks that exist between stakeholder organisations in the Georges River catchment to allow these groups to cooperatively deliver WSUD.
¡ External institutional rules and incentives, such as regulations, policies and incentives that drive the adoption of WSUD within the catchment (see Brown et al., 2006).
Figure 3 - Aspects of ‘institutional capacity’ and capacity building interventions for
promoting WSUD (Brown et al., 2006)
Figure 3 also shows five groups of interventions that can be used to build institutional capacity to promote WSUD. These relate to:
¡ Building the knowledge base (e.g. forming a better understanding of what types of WSUD measures work well in the region and how much they cost).
¡ Professional development (e.g. helping emergent leaders to become more effective at driving change and helping stakeholders to build specific technical skills).
¡ Organisational strengthening (e.g. establishing improved cross-boundary relationships between stakeholders who need to collaborate in order to deliver good WSUD outcomes).
¡ Directive reforms (e.g. planning controls that require new developments to meet quantitative design objectives for WSUD).
¡ Facilitative reforms (e.g. incentive systems that encourage stakeholders to embrace the WSUD philosophy).
The rapid assessment workshop will provide an opportunity for participants to:
¡ examine many elements of institutional capacity that researchers have identified as being significant;
¡ discuss these elements in small groups;
¡ identify areas where capacity should be strengthened in their organisation; and
¡ highlight high priority capacity building needs.
Leadership, champions and other types of leaders
Leadership is an important element of institutional capacity that helps to drive change from traditional ways of managing water to more sustainable options. ‘Leadership’ can be defined as a process of influence that occurs within the context of relationships between leaders and their collaborators, and involves establishing direction, aligning resources, generating motivation and providing inspiration to achieve mutual interests (adapted from: Rost, 1993; and Kotter, 1998). Using this contemporary definition, WSUD ‘leaders’ engage in leadership behaviours to advance WSUD and could be:
¡ politicians;
¡ executives in council;
¡ an officer at any level in council; and/or
¡ members of stakeholder groups outside of council (e.g. consultants, academics, community members, etc.).
WSUD leaders can also be formal or emergent. For example, a formal WSUD leader may engage in leadership behaviours because their official role requires it. In contrast, an emergent WSUD leader may engage in leadership behaviours that have no relevance to their role description.
In the water industry, the term ‘champion’ is commonly used to describe a type of leader that is often a catalyst for significant change. Research in the Australian water industry (see Taylor, 2008 & 2010) indicates this term is used to describe emergent leaders who display distinctive personal attributes, work in environments where there was resistance to WSUD, and are adept at influencing others to adopt WSUD principles and practices. Examples of these distinctive attributes include being persistent, strongly motivated to promote change, and an advanced social networker.
This research has also identified several types of WSUD champions. Outside water agencies like councils, ‘political’ champions (e.g. local government mayors) and ‘external’ champions (e.g. consultants and academics) may exist. Within water agencies, ‘executive’ and ‘project’ level champions are often present. Executive champions create environments that support WSUD and project level champions. For example, these champions may foster supportive organisational cultures and policies, and share the risks associated with new WSUD projects. Project champions actively promote WSUD projects and policies on a daily basis. In water agencies, effective project champions typically work with a group of WSUD leaders who are located across the organisational ‘silos’ and in other organisations. They also usually work in tandem with executive champions to drive change.
This research has also identified two types of WSUD project champions – a maverick and diplomat type. Maverick champions tend to be more extrovert, more individualistic, less emotionally stable, less self-aware, and have a greater propensity for risk-taking. They are more common in organisational contexts that are less supportive of the WSUD philosophy. Both types of champion can be highly effective at driving change.
Phases of organisational development
Brown (2008) researched the adoption of sustainable stormwater management practices in local government agencies in Sydney. She then developed a conceptual framework that describes five phases that organisations typically move through as they progressively adopt sustainable water management philosophies, such as WSUD. This framework is summarised in Figure 4. This figure briefly describes the Project, Outsider, Growth, Insider and Integrated phases. It also shows how WSUD champions typically become powerful agents of change as their organisations move into the Growth developmental phase. This is because their context has become supportive enough for them to deliver outcomes and build their power (see Taylor, 2010).
This project has been assisted by the New South Wales Government through its Environmental Trust as well as the Sydney Metropolitan Catchment Management Authority
1
Figure 4 - Five phases of organisational development for adopting WSUD and the relationship between these phases and
the ‘champion phenomenon’ (modified from: Brown, 2008; and Taylor, 2010)
This project has been assisted by the New South Wales Government through its Environmental Trust as well as the Sydney Metropolitan Catchment Management Authority
6
Brown’s framework is a useful tool when seeking to advance WSUD, as it provides guidance on what needs to be done in order for an organisation to move to the next, more advanced phase. For example, as organisations move from the Growth to Insider phase (see Figure 4), they typically develop strong relationships with local research groups and non-government organisations (e.g. through collaborative pilot and research projects).
References
Brown, R. (2008). Local institutional development and organizational change for advancing sustainable urban water futures. Environmental Management, 41, 221-233.
Brown, R., Mouritz, M., and Taylor, A. (2006). Institutional capacity. In T. Wong (Ed.), Australian runoff quality: A guide to water sensitive urban design (pp. 5-1 - 5-20). Melbourne, Victoria: Engineers Australia.
Kotter, J. (1998). Winning at change. Leader to Leader, 10(Fall 1998), 27-33.
Lloyd, S. (2001). Water sensitive urban design in the Australian context. Synthesis of a conference held 30-31 August 2000, Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne, Victoria: Cooperative Research Centre for Catchment Hydrology.
Rost, J. (1993). Leadership development in the new millennium. The Journal of Leadership Studies, 1(1), 92-110.
Taylor, A. (2008). Leadership in sustainable urban water management: An investigation of the champion phenomenon. Industry report for the National Urban Water Governance Program, Monash University. Melbourne, Victoria: Monash University.
Taylor, A. (2010). Sustainable urban water management: The champion phenomenon. PhD eThesis. Monash University: Melbourne, Victoria.
Wong, T. (2006). Introduction. In T. Wong (Ed.), Australian runoff quality: A guide to water sensitive urban design (pp. 1-1 - 1-9). Melbourne, Victoria: Engineers Australia.
File name: Background briefing notes - version 2
Prepared by André Taylor, May 2010
This project has been assisted by the New South Wales Government through its Environmental Trust as well as the Sydney Metropolitan Catchment Management Authority
7