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Urban metabolism for planning water sensitive city-regions: Proof of concept for an urban water metabolism evaluation framework

This report summarises and compiles research activities for the urban metabolism component of the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC) project on ‘Catchment-scale landscape planning for water sensitive city- regions in an age of climate change’ (Project B1.2). The problem this project addressed was a lack of frameworks and methods for evaluating urban metabolic performance, particularly at macro scales (for example city-region), and quantifying this performance through indicators of holistic urban water performance. A concept for an Urban Metabolism Evaluation Framework for Water (UMEF4Water) was developed in the first phase of the project and presented in the previous Milestone Report (Renouf et al., 2016). In this second phase of the project, the objective was to test and prove the UMEF4Water concept. The evaluation framework was applied at a number of urban scales to generate baseline water metabolism performance indicators for these urban regions. The framework was applied to three city-regions in Australia: South East Queensland, Greater Melbourne and Greater Perth, and to a meso-urban scale of a master plan development (Ripley Valley Development Area). By doing so, it tested if the indicators and knowledge that it generates can inform urban planning towards water sensitive cities. The relevance and value of the generated information was validated through consultation with water sector practitioners and planners in the case study regions.

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Melbourne

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