Sustainable Australia
Australia ranks poorly on the sustainability scale, with an extremely high per capita carbon footprint driven by the dispersed nature of the population living in towns and large cities that have been largely developed in the era of the car, supported by cheap and abundant fossil fuels.
Greening Australian cities and towns
On the greening front we have a mixed record. Conservation of natural landscapes and suburban development that provides for open space, together with extensive roads and service reserves has led to a situation where most towns and cities have developed parks, gardens and sporting facilities.
Most roads and streets have street trees or other landscaping and there are remnants of natural vegetation, that is pre-European settlement vegetation, scattered along drainage systems, along coastlines and on agricultural and other undeveloped land. This is a fortunate aspect of car-based, low density suburban development that has green space scattered throughout.
The larger Australian cities, especially Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane/Gold Coast, are in rapid growth mode putting the car-based suburban development model under pressure. New city growth areas are seeing new subdivisions with residential lots that are getting smaller with houses getting bigger and public transport as well as road systems struggling to support this growth.
Space for greening is often reduced because gardens are limited and streets are mostly paved and full of services. Canopy trees can be difficult to establish because of limited space and lack of moisture within soil profiles.
City centres and middle ring suburbs that have better services and more jobs are being redeveloped at much increased density. This means there is extra pressure on local roads, public transport infrastructure and open spaces.
Vegetation is being lost and bigger buildings and more pavements increase urban heat and stormwater runoff. Increased population puts pressure on existing parks and other public spaces including streets.
Considerable expenditure is being made on new transport infrastructure to help keep up with population growth in both new development areas and redeveloped brown field sites, but this new infrastructure is often undertaken by authorities or private sector delivery companies who see new landscape as a secondary opportunity rather than an integral requirement.
202020 Vision is a collaborative project involving the government and the design and horticulture industry in Australia that started in 2013 with the aim of increasing the vegetation cover in Australian towns and cities by 20% by the year 2020. It has involved universities in measuring canopy cover vegetation and pavement areas across all local government areas using GIS sensing so they can highlight needs and opportunities to encourage action by local government. Their 2014 report ‘Where are all the trees?’, which surveyed the existing canopy was followed up in 2017 by a study titled ‘Where should all the trees go?’ that documented change since 2014 and highlighted priority areas for greening efforts through measuring overall vulnerability based on heat mapping and socio-economic data.
It is unfortunate that over the three years between the surveys, tree canopy cover had declined significantly within 35% of local government areas while hard surfaces had increased within 34% of the areas.
This has been a period of significant focus and effort with greening, but the urbanization processes mentioned above have won out in many areas. Similar processes seem to be occurring in rural areas due to clearing of trees and native vegetation for agriculture and timber harvesting. Increased droughts, floods and bush fires under the effects of climate change seem to be inevitable.
How can we move to greener, more sustainable cities?
This will involve a coordinated effort from all three tiers of government and support from communities.
The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (A.I.L.A) is calling for the development of a National Green Infrastructure Strategy to be led by Infrastructure Australia, the organization that prioritises and funds major infrastructure projects developed and managed by the States.
This new strategy would improve the sustainability of the built environment through the delivery of a range of ecoservices.
As cities grow in population and increase in density, protecting and managing ecosystem services such as water and air quality, biodiversity and ecological communities will require a far more integrated approach. A.I.L.A. argues that systematic delivery of green infrastructure will help reduce carbon emissions, chronic disease and extreme heat events.
This new National Green Infrastructure Strategy would cover the following issues with sub-policies listed underneath each one.
1. Cooling Cities
•Recognise and reduce urban heat island effect.
•Develop a national green infrastructure strategy.
•Establish a national living cities fund.
2. Healthy Communities
•Value existing open space and commit to providing more in Australian cities.
•Fund local government green infrastructure packages.
•Develop a national ‘Green Streets’ guide and establish a ‘grey to green’ pilot programme.
3. Public Transport
•Invest in public transport.
•Enforce minimum SITES rating for federally funded projects.
•Recognise ‘living infrastructure’ as an asset class (or equivalent).
4. Future Streets
•The Australian government is encouraged to become a global best practice leader in sustainable urban development through improvements to our existing and future streets that:
•Embrace our streets as important public spaces that can generate and produce opportunities for our communities and not just harm and pollute them.
•Amend policy and regulatory requirements to facilitate the design and management of streets in accordance with the Future Street approach.
•Invest in the design and building of streets that are greener, more complete and smarter.
Urban Growth and Redevelopment
All cities and towns whether large or small, growing or static, have the potential to support viable communities in sustainable and liveable settings through sensible planning design and management.
Local government in regional areas often lacks funding, expertise and policies and needs to be supported by the State Government with the planning, design and management of existing and new urban development including the integration of green infrastructure.
CASE STUDIES
Open space improvement that enhances sustainability and liveability.
Victoria Park Lake, Shepparton, Victoria
Shepparton is a rural city in central Victoria 170 kms north of Melbourne situated in a flood plain at the crossing point of the Goulburn River and at the heart of a large agricultural district of dairy, fruit and vegetables. The city has around 40,000 residents and a service catchment of around 80,000. Victoria Park Lake is its premier open space besides the river and close to the centre of the town. This once swampy land was converted to a park by creating a shallow man-made lake in the 1920s. The last 30 years have seen its gradual development as a park for passive recreation. The lake dried up during the drought in 2008 but has now been reconstructed by increasing water depth, reshaping the edges and planting it out as a managed wetland to enable water sports, fishing and provide refuge for birds. The lake has become a protected wetland and a popular destination for residents, community events and visitors. It is soon to become the home of a new art gallery on the site of a former service station. This is an example of how careful consideration of natural systems for maintaining water quality, together with well-designed paths and facilities for all ages, will attract high levels of public use and satisfaction.
Sydney Green Grid
The Sydney green grid is a plan produced for the New South Wales Government Architect’s Office that “...promotes the creation of a network of high quality open spaces that support recreation, biodiversity and waterway health.”
The work involved GIS analysis of the entire city in terms of its existing hydrology, ecology, recreation and agricultural uses. This allowed opportunities for green infrastructure to be rationally considered across local government boundaries and normal specialist professional silos. The plan developed a series of priority projects for further scoping within a number of areas of more detailed investigation. The aim has been to identify projects that have multiple values for the community. Time will tell whether this type of strategic thinking finds favour with governments and moves into the funding and implementation phase.
Urban Forest Strategy, City of Melbourne
The City of Melbourne is a local government area that is tightly focussed on the central business district while several other local councils manage the larger city, with overall planning being the responsibility of the State Government. City of Melbourne has been a leading local government in Australia in terms of urban design policy and planning design and management of the public realm.
It has set high standards for design and management of parks and streets.
City of Melbourne has the means and experience to explore the possibilities of green infrastructure including:
•Development of sophisticated water harvesting and treatment systems within its parks and streets to assist with keeping landscapes green and cool through periods of heat and drought.
•Managing trees and other vegetation over time, including adaption to climate change.
•Conserving and improving existing open spaces and developing new green infrastructure to serve rapidly growing high-density residential areas within the city.
The City of Melbourne Urban Forest Strategy is a policy document initiated in 2012 to look at the issue of maturing trees in streets and parks – sometimes more than a century old – that are in decline and how they can be managed and replaced so that the city can:
•Increase canopy cover from 22% to 40% by 2040.
•Improve diversity so that no more than 5% of the city’s trees are one species, 10% one genus and 20% one family. This will increase ecological richness and risk of failure due to disease.
•Aim to enhance 90% of trees in the city to a healthy status by 2040.
•Ensure that soil moisture and water quality achieves levels that provide for healthy growth of vegetation.
•Protect and increase the level of biodiversity that contributes to a healthy ecosystem.
•Inform and consult with the community so they can appreciate the value of the urban forest (green infrastructure) and engage with its development.
City of Melbourne have surveyed existing vegetation and engaged with 10 local communities to develop plans for new trees and vegetation at a park-by-park and street-by-street level, with cost and staging that feed into annual budget and works programmes.
Research work has been done on likely species performance in Melbourne under climate change scenarios. This has informed species selection. Street tree planting details are being developed to capture storm water for trees and to ensure that they can develop to their potential.
The City has made its tree information available to the public so residents can associate with individual trees.
Conclusion
Australian towns and cities provide reasonable liveability for most Australians; however they are far from sustainable with their high carbon footprint and car-based planning model.
Things are slowly changing with good work and expertise being developed to help improve the situation. There is however a need to apply this knowledge and skill throughout all urban areas on a greatly enhanced scale in terms of policy, funding, implementation and management. Trees take time to grow so we need to act in the coming decade to ensure that our towns and cities reduce their carbon footprint and maintain and improve their liveability by better managing storm water and developing a fabric of plants, trees and ecological networks, before impacts of global warming take hold.
Governments at all levels are getting involved with developing strategies but the short electoral cycles, together with the adversarial nature of our politics, mean that long term visionary thinking is rare and important long term commitments are not yet being made.
PHOTOS: BRUCE ECHBERG
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