Sustainable water planning for MidCoast’s growing population

New South Wales, Australia

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Developing a 30-year Integrated Water Cycle Management strategy and financial plan to support long-term sustainable outcomes for the MidCoast Council Local Government Area in New South Wales, Australia.

With the population in the MidCoast Council Local Government Area (LGA) expected to increase by almost 50% over the next 30 years, MidCoast Council needed a plan to future proof their water and wastewater infrastructure. In partnership with the Council, we produced an Integrated Water Cycle Management Strategy (IWCM) that takes a holistic approach to effective and sustainable urban water supply and sewerage services. The outcome is a 30-year strategy and financial plan to support long-term sustainable outcomes for Council and the MidCoast region.

A holistic approach to strategic planning

We partnered with MidCoast Council to deliver the IWCM Strategy within the Department of Planning and Environment’s (DPE) new Regulatory and Assurance Framework for Local Water Utilities (2022). As the framework was new and untested, we (AECOM and the Council) worked closely with DPE to make sure we were aligned at each step of options and scenarios phase.

Key activities included:

  • Development of an options long-list to address each of the strategic issues of water security, sustainable effluent management, unserviced villages and climate change, with an “all options on the table” approach.
  • Coarse screening workshops to identify a short-list of feasible and practical options for further investigation, with outcomes informed by the Council’s experience and knowledge of their system assets and operations, AECOM’s broader integrated water planning experience, and consultation with representatives from DPE to make sure the process was robust.
  • Investigations to inform options including secure water yield modelling, water balance, reuse opportunities resilience assessment and climate change adaptations.
  • Quadruple Bottom Line assessment with consideration of social, environmental, governance and economic criteria, that compare the performance of each scenario across these four measures. Financial modelling was also undertaken to understand the cost impacts to ratepayers of each scenario under a range of funding levels.
  • Our Water Our Future Workshop 2 to present the scenarios to representatives from various government agencies, community groups and interested residents.
  • Refinement of the preferred strategy and development of the adaptive pathway to ensure the strategy caters for future uncertainty by mapping possible future changes, including government policy and regulation, changing customer expectations, new technologies, and climate-related impacts.
Graphic for scenarios

Taking the long view

By collaborating with the Council and other stakeholders, we delivered an IWCM Strategy that meets the long-term needs of customers, the community and the environment, within an extremely short timeframe.

The outcome is an adaptable IWCM Strategy for the next 30 years that aims to ensure:

  • Water is managed responsibly and sustainably.
  • There is sufficient quality drinking water now and into the future.