By creating harder surfaces that stop water penetration, new urban developments in South East Queensland can potentially increase the runoff of stormwater into the region’s waterways and Moreton Bay.

This runoff can contain harmful sediment, phosphorous, nitrogen and litter and cause in-stream and riverbank erosion downstream of the developments.

Consequently, the South East Queensland Regional Plan 2009–2031 requires the total water cycle—from rainfall to outfall—to be managed sustainably.

This includes the adoption of water sensitive urban design—integrating water cycle management into the built form of houses, allotments, streets, suburbs and master-planned communities.

SEQ Regional Plan Implementation Guideline No. 7—Water sensitive urban design contains best-practice design objectives for managing stormwater.

The aims of the design objectives are to manage:

• stormwater quality—to reduce the impacts of urban development on pollutant loads discharged to receiving waters during the life of the development
• waterway stability—to reduce the impacts of urban development on channel, bed and bank erosion by limiting changes in flow rate and flow duration
• flow frequency—to reduce the frequency of disturbance to aquatic ecosystems from urban development by managing the volume and frequency of surface runoff.

The design objectives are primarily intended to provide local governments with a consistent standard for assessing new infill or greenfield development.

For very-low-density development, the adoption of alternative ‘deemed to comply’ solutions is encouraged.

Download

South East Queensland Regional Plan Implementation Guideline No. 7-Water sensitive urban design: Design objectives for urban stormwater management ( 244 KB)

Related initiatives

• SEQ Healthy Waterways Partnership has more detailed, technical information on how to achieve the design objectives on a particular site or how to apply them to a particular type of development.
• Model for Urban Stormwater Improvement Conceptualisation (MUSIC) provides urban stormwater professionals with information on the size and configuration of devices needed to achieve the design objectives.