Resilient urban systems
Resilient urban systems
The Resilient urban systems policy brief is now available for download. To obtain a hard copy, contact VCCCAR.
Click here for a pdf copy of the project summary
About the project
Climate change poses significant risks to Victorian communities through expected impacts on energy and water infrastructure. Droughts and bushfires provide ready examples of ways in which energy and water systems are already vulnerable to existing climatic conditions – and may be expected to become increasingly vulnerable in the future.
The Resilient Urban Systems project aims to assess the capacity of community-level urban energy and water systems to support long term adaptation to climate change.
The types of systems in questions include developer- and community-led systems. The former are found in new urban developments fitted with energy and water saving features such as solar photo voltaics, smart meters, ‘low-flow’ fixtures and fittings, stormwater harvesting and wastewater recovery systems. The latter are found where individual householders are implementing their own, or commercially available, systems to reduce or eliminate their reliance on mains water and/or grid energy, and also multiple householder systems where small scale commercial or collective organisations are set up to coordinate across household units.
Both types of systems rely on different levels of community participation and co-management in their planning, implementation and operation, ranging from completely passive to highly interactive systems. Individual responses and system functions are therefore closely linked and highly context-specific, reflecting the needs and aspirations of the people involved as well as environmental, social, cultural and institutional arrangements. These arrangements cover wealth, governance, institutional structure, access to capital/labour, conflict, demographic characteristics, the socio-economic status of individuals and communities, degree of social justice and equity, access to education, levels of social cohesion and community participation, value systems and practice ‘norms’.
Why are these systems important?
Along with system design, these environmental, social, cultural and institutional arrangements contribute to the resulting adaptive capacity of the system. However, to date, most energy and water systems are not designed with these in mind, so it becomes a hit or miss affair whether they turn out to be adaptive or ‘maladaptive’.
Maladaptation is when an ‘action taken ostensibly to avoid or reduce vulnerability to climate change, impacts adversely on, or increases the vulnerability of other systems, sectors or social groups’.
Some examples of maladaptation include:
- Air conditioners – where, on especially hot days, their use increases dramatically, and the increased energy demand puts supply systems at risk of failure.
- Passive reduction measures – these can lead to situations where the perception of intrinsic energy efficiency can result in maladaptive attitudes to energy and water use whereby people think they have a ‘free license’ to use as much or even more than before. This is happening in Australia particularly around 5-6 star housing developments and what we call 'McMansions', and is anticipated with regards to desalinisation plants. These adaptive approaches do little, if anything, to alter people’s attitudes or behaviour around energy and water consumption.
- In contrast, water conservation guidelines and restrictions have been very successful in Australia. However, an unforeseen result of this is that some local sewerage networks have failed due to a lack of water entering the system.
Unless the potential consequences of the system design have been considered, taking into account how social and organisational arrangements might interact with the system, behaviours and practices can emerge that could be regarded as maladaptive, producing outcomes that may run counter to the original aims of the system and with the associated loss of significant investments of both time and money.
Given this context, and the growing awareness that, as well as the ongoing risk of climate change impacts, Victoria’s energy and water infrastructure also faces the prospect of having to cope with an additional 4 million residents by 2050, this research is designed to address the following gaps:
- There are currently no studies of adaptive and maladaptive practices that are developing in Victorian communities in terms of energy and water consumption
- Little is known about how and why ‘local’ stakeholders have developed alternative systems
- There is a lack of knowledge regarding the innovation models, opportunities and implications, of rolling out systems identified as resilient
- There is no evidence base to inform adaptive rather than maladaptive policymaking
Community scale systems need to be investigated to better understand their actual and potential consequences in terms of adaptation and maladaptation. This work will be crucial in ensuring that future investment decisions are relevant, appropriate and measurable against best current understanding of what will deliver the adaptive capacity required to meet Victoria’s infrastructure needs over the next 20-50 years.
Project phases and timelines
This project involves four phases:
- Identification of two pilot studies of adaptive community-level energy and water supply configurations across Victoria that address the state’s urban climate change vulnerabilities.
- Qualitative research in the pilot study communities focused on understanding:
- How people/stakeholders perceive and manage risks within these systems
- How adaptation approaches are perceived in relation to mitigation efforts
- What adaptive and maladaptive practices households and communities develop
- How adaptive practices could be improved.
- Institutional analysis of the innovations and motivations of stakeholders supporting and developing resilient systems in pilot study communities, and a preliminary technical review of the potential short term uptake of pilot study systems.
- Development of an initial assessment criteria to evaluate resilient urban energy/water supply systems, and presentation of outcomes and preliminary criteria to relevant public, private and community stakeholders.
The pilot project will inform the development of preliminary criteria for assessing resilient urban systems in the short term, to support long term climate change adaptation for Victorian governments, agencies and programs.
Project team
Project leader: Prof. Ralph Horne, RMIT University
Project coordinator: Paula Arcari, RMIT University
Che Biggs, University of Melbourne
Prof. Chris Ryan, University of Melbourne
Dr Yolande Strengers
Dr Cecily Maller
Technical reference group
Dr Ifte Ahmed, RMIT University
Assoc. Prof. Sujeeva Setunge, RMIT University
Dr Kevin Zhang, RMIT University
Prof. John Wiseman, University of Melbourne
Taegan Edwards, University of Melbourne
Progress and outcomes to date
To identify resilient energy and water projects underway across Victoria and identify suitable pilot case studies for this research, the project team designed and distributed an online survey as part of Stage 1 of the research. The survey was distributed through the Centre for Design and VEIL’s energy and water stakeholder networks.
Based on 31 completed surveys, results show the following system types operating in Victoria with service sizes ranging from the level of individual householders up to potentially more than 25,000 householders:
On-site solar electricity 14 systems
On-site wind generated electricity 5 systems
On-site heat and power co-generation 6 systems
On-site greywater 10 systems
On-site blackwater 5 systems
On-site desalinisation 2 systems
The survey also sought information regarding broader features of the system. The following figure shows the responses for a selection of features considered key to a preliminary assessment of adaptive capacity.
Notwithstanding the good response rate achieved for the survey, very few projects were suitable as case studies for this research. Rather than describing systems that involve multiple households or communities, the majority of submitted projects were either:
- Non-household (related to either business or public-space/amenities)
- Single-household
- Demonstration sites
- A concept or product still in development or seeking support trial
Furthermore, most were not operational and not expected to be for at least a year. It should be noted that many of these projects might be worthy of follow-up in relation to future research in this area.
Due to the lack of suitable responses, the project team undertook a web review to locate additional projects across Victoria and assess their potential as case studies for this research. The following matrix model was used as a basic guide to the sorts of systems that we wanted to focus on (the top right quarter of the model):
This led to the identification of five projects that were both operational and involved several householders. Four of these projects expressed interest in being part of the research and were invited to a forum and inaugural reference group meeting at which, following an afternoon of presentations and discussion, two projects were selected to showcase examples of a development-led and a community-led response.
The two projects that will serve as case studies for this research are the Aurora Residential Development and WestWyck Village.
Current status
The Resilient Urban Systems Policy Brief is now available for download.
Having selected one development-led and one community-led case study, the next phase involves in-depth qualitative research with householders and stakeholders involved in the delivery of community scale systems in the pilot case studies (Westwyk and Aurora). For stage 4, initial assessment criteria will be developed to evaluate resilient urban energy/water supply systems, and the outcomes and preliminary criteria will be made available to relevant public, private and community stakeholders.
Find out more about the urban resilient systems project
Project coordinator: Paula Arcari, RMIT University
Email: paula.arcari@rmit.edu.au
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| VCCCAR Resilient Urban Systems 011010.pdf | 253.27 KB |
| Resilient Urban Systems Policy Brief May 11.pdf | 932.64 KB |
