Case studies

The future looks hot for Darwin. The city is already experiencing the kind of increase in hot days that were predicted for the year 2030. Climate projections suggest a significant increase in the average number of days per year ≥35 °C, with actual measurements showing a new record of 45 days ≥35 °C during 2019, compared to an average of 18 days per year that reached at least 35°C between 1991 and 2020. In 2019, the City of Darwin declared a climate emergency, recognising the escalation of climate impacts in the city. The Darwin Living Lab is responding to this sense of urgency.

The Darwin Living Lab was established in 2019 to help Darwin develop into a thriving cool capital of northern Australia. A 10-year collaboration between CSIRO, the Australian and territory governments, and the City of Darwin, the lab is testing and evaluating urban innovation ideas from the territory and around the world in ‘real world’ experiments to improve the city’s livability, sustainability and resilience.

By taking a collaborative approach with local, interstate and overseas practitioners, planners, developers, governments and scientists, the first phase of the Living Lab has 3 focus areas:

•       Smart City Initiatives, which use data and digital innovation to stimulate innovation and learning by bringing together leading experts to exchange ideas for a more connected and livable Darwin

•       Heat Mitigation Initiatives, which support urban cooling trials that enable a cooler and greener, climate-adapted city. This includes monitoring and benchmarking outcomes to provide an accessible resource for Darwin on ways to cool streetscapes, adopt climate-sensitive approaches to building design, and use living infrastructure strategies appropriate to the dry tropical climate

•       Energy-Efficient Home Design, which looks at trialling new approaches to deliver cooler and more energy-efficient buildings in the tropical north.

CSIRO is developing a monitoring and evaluation approach to track the changes made through the Living Lab while translating the knowledge and experience gained into products and services for other tropical cities in Australia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations region.

The Darwin Living Lab is complemented by other CSIRO urban living labs across Australia, including Western Sydney and a proposed third lab in Canberra. These place-based collaborations address sustainability and resilience issues, and test ideas in different climates and urban contexts.

Figure 35 The Darwin Living Lab

Expand View

Figure 35 The Darwin Living Lab

Source: CSIRO (2019a). © CSIRO Australia​

In some cases, urban gardens are providing both food production and connection to culture.

Waraburra Nura rooftop garden, University of Technology Sydney

Source: Aryton (2020)

The Waraburra Nura (Happy Wanderer’s Place) Indigenous rooftop garden at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) provides valuable localised Indigenous cultural curriculum. Waraburra Nura features many indigenous plants and showcases Indigenous knowledge associated with these plants, including:

• understandings of relationships between plants through combination planting and how these relationships inform their efficacy as medicine and for nutrition
• information related to Indigenous cultural practice and agriculture, showcasing their uses for technologies, nutrition and medicines.

Providing a biodiverse haven for insects and birds and a calming and relaxing environment for students and staff in a heavily built-up environment, this garden is complemented by extensive educational offerings specifically aimed at growing students and staff understandings of Indigenous people, culture and knowledge. The garden has been used to connect to Country on campus, and features in the curriculums of UTS subjects in art, Indigenous studies, medicine, education, science, Indigenous political history, design studies, the Graduate School of Health and more.

Yerrabingin rooftop garden, Redfern, Sydney

Sources: Yerrabingin (2021), van Egmond (2020) and Green Magazine (2021)

Yerrabingin (‘we walk together’) is an Indigenous-led group delivering cultural landscapes within urban areas, undertaking projects aimed at delivering environmentally conscious native landscapes based on Indigenous knowledge and design principles.

Yerrabingin provides employment opportunities for many Indigenous Australians. It also creates intercultural opportunities for the broader public. Although they have delivered many projects, perhaps their most famous is the urban rooftop farm located in South Everleigh, Sydney, also named ‘Yerrabingin’.

This farm, set on top of an office building, covers around 500 square metres and is home to more than 2,000 edible, medicinal and culturally significant indigenous plants being farmed and shared through commercial relationships. The farm also incorporates educational offerings that centre on Indigenous knowledge of plants. The social and cultural outcomes of Yerrabingin projects are positive, and the biodiversity benefits of converting roof space in a heavily built-up industrial area are significant.

Source: GA NSW (2020b)

Over the past 10 years, there has been growing recognition of the importance of urban forest strategies to both improve livability and better manage urban environments. Local and state governments are increasingly preparing policies and standards to address this through metropolitan and local government strategies or programs for planting trees, and creating open spaces, green corridors and networks, and green walls and roofs.

A recent survey by the Horton Innovation found that 88% of 131 councils surveyed across Australia had an urban forest strategy or were developing one, 61% had an endorsed tree canopy target on public land and 26% had a target relating to private land (Hurley et al. 2020).

There is also extensive activity at the Australian Government, and state and territory levels, including:

• The Australian Government’s $37 million investment to plant 20 million trees by 2020.
• One of the Australian Capital Territory Government’s key goals is to develop an urban footprint that secures a 30% tree canopy cover and 30% permeable surfaces as part of its Living Infrastructure Plan. The plan sets the direction for maintaining and enhancing trees, soils and waterways to keep Canberra cool, healthy and livable in a changing climate. This direction is supported by changes in the Tree Protection Act 2005 (ACT) to protect the mature trees while making room for new ones.
• In Victoria, the Nature in the City Strategy (2017) and Greening the West program aim to increase green space by 20–25% by 2030 and double the urban tree canopy by 2050. The Victorian Government has prepared a draft Open Space Strategy for Metropolitan Melbourne in response to action 93 of the 5-year implementation plan for Plan Melbourne 2015–2017, which seeks a whole-of-government approach to cooling and greening Melbourne and supports local urban forest strategies. The Victorian Planning Authority’s Precinct Plan Guidelines also set a 30% tree canopy target in growth areas.
• In New South Wales, the Greater Sydney Region Plan sets an overall target to increase tree canopy from 23% to 40%. This is supported by the premier’s priority to plant 5 million trees across Greater Sydney and the appointment of the first Minister for Planning and Public Spaces. Further details on the green and blue network along more refined targets by place and development type are provided in the Greener Places Design Guide (i.e. 15% for central business district areas, 25% in medium- and high-density and light commercial areas, 40% in suburban areas).
• In Western Australia, the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage, in partnership with the Western Australian Local Government Association, has developed a comprehensive guide to assist local governments manage their urban forests and enhance urban tree canopy. The department has also prepared a comprehensive online mapping tool in collaboration with CSIRO, which can track tree canopy cover and growth over time.

‘Gambu gulinj Narrm, Wurundjeri Gulinj nuringianith biik baambuth: The First People of Melbourne, the Wurundjeri people, have been caring for Country since the beginning of time’ (Melbourne Water & Victorian Government 2018).

The Birrarung (re-named by the colonialists as ‘the Yarra’) has always been central to the cultural, spiritual and ceremonial lives of the Traditional Owners of Melbourne. Today it provides 70% of Melbourne’s drinking water, and 2,450 hectares of urban parklands and green space surround the Birrarung – it is the lifeblood of Greater Melbourne (Melbourne Water & Victorian Government 2018).

In 2017, the Victorian Parliament passed the Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron) Act 2017, the first legislation in Australia specifically designed to recognise the Birrarung (Yarra River) as a single, living and integrated natural entity for protection purposes. Recognising the Birrarung as one living entity, despite its traversal across many boundaries and disparate mechanisms of management, reflects the holistic management practices of Traditional Owners. Further, naming the act in the Woi Wurrung language of the Wurundjeri people was aimed at foregrounding Indigenous custodianship of the river.

The conceptualisation of Traditional Owners not just as stakeholders, but also as rightsholders, is also effected through the establishment of the Birrarung Council, a new statutory body comprised of Traditional Owners and others designed to ‘give voice’ to the Birrarung, a living entity. The bill specifically enables Indigenous governance through the establishment of the Birrarung Council while making specific reference to Aboriginal cultural values, heritage and knowledge of the Birrarung being recognised, reflected, protected and promoted – it is titled the Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron) Act 2017, (Parliament of Victoria 2017, DELWP 2020).

The foreword from the Wurundjeri people in the Yarra River 50-year Community Vision reflects the care and custodial responsibilities to the Birrarung their people have held and enacted over many millennia. It also exemplifies the need to empower Traditional Owner groups and their custodial responsibilities as an effective means to empower Country:

The Wurundjeri believe that we need to change how all Victorians think about and actively respect the Birrarung. We believe we need to see not a resource to be exploited but rather to recognise the complex, living system that is sensitive to its surrounds and a uniquely Victorian treasure. By engaging with those partners with whom we now share the river we, together, are capable of turning around the damage of the past and acting to restore the river and its environment for the future use and enjoyment of all. Wurundjeri invites all people to see the Birrarung through our eyes, to talk with us to understand our values, and to partner with us to re-energise the river as we fulfil our cultural duty in bringing the Birrarung back to environmental, cultural, ceremonial and spiritual health. (Melbourne Water & Victorian Government 2018)

Source: Infrastructure Australia (2019)

Across Australia, urban areas are piloting and managing a range of integrated water cycle management approaches to produce potable water and provide an alternative source of water to preserve higher-quality water for households.

Such schemes can also recharge groundwater, provide environmental flows and start to manage public perception of recycled water use. Examples include Kwinana, Western Australia, for industrial use; the Virginia Scheme, South Australia, for agriculture; and Gippsland, Victoria, for both the industrial and agricultural sector.

There are also a few dual-reticulation recycled water schemes for residential uses operating across Australia, including:

• Rouse Hill, New South Wales, which connects a third pipe to allow for grey water to be used for gardens and toilets
• South East Water, Victoria, which provides recycled water to 11,000 residents and agricultural users
• Water Corporation, Western Australia, which treats waste water to a drinking standard to supply 2% of Perth’s drinking water at the same time as using recycled water to replenish Perth’s deep aquifers as Australia’s first Groundwater Replenishment Scheme.

Urban areas are intricate ecosystems that can present challenges in measuring and monitoring their performance. The Greater Sydney Commission has recognised the importance of measuring the impacts of the Greater Sydney Region plan – a metropolis of three cities to allow for benchmarking and continuous improvement.

In developing its approach to the metrics, the Greater Sydney Commission engaged with citizens via panels to determine what was important to them and how to measure and monitor outcomes in the city most effectively. Of greatest importance to citizens were:

• jobs being closer to where they live
• more affordable education and more high-quality education opportunities
• better access to, and reliability of, public transport, including more opportunities to walk and cycle safely across the city
• more trees and open space for place making and climate resilience to improve quality of life
• improved housing choice and affordability, to be able to live close to family and friends within local areas
• feeling safe and socially connected with local access to shared community facilities and events.

On this basis, the Commission found that what mattered to citizens could not be captured in any one metric. Rather, the best approach was a combination of metrics that spoke to livability as distinct to any one aspect of the urban environment. Four metrics were subsequently agreed and used to measure how planning in Greater Sydney was achieving the 10 objectives or directions of the Greater Sydney Commission’s plan:

• access to jobs and education opportunities and housing diversity
• the need for a 30-minute city
• walkability
• urban heat.

These 4 metrics were subsequently applied to the 10 directions of the Greater Sydney Region Plan in a matrix format to create an integrated and systematic approach to monitoring outcomes. In its second year, the Pulse of Greater Sydney measured the outcomes of the 3 cities model (Greater Sydney Commission 2019).

Figure 39 Greater Sydney Plan performance indicators

Expand View

Figure 39 Greater Sydney Plan performance indicators

Source: Greater Sydney Commission (2019)

Source: Beaupark (2020)

The 4 seasons of summer, winter, autumn and spring are applicable to a European context. But Indigenous knowledge is teaching us that this does not fit the pattern of seasons in Australia. Through discussions with the Darug people of Greater Sydney, researchers from the Clean Air and Urban Landscapes (CAUL) Hub identified a more appropriate pattern of seasons and weather cycles.

This knowledge, initially thought to have been lost after European colonisation, correlates with the changing flora and fauna informing food availability. The CAUL researchers applied this knowledge to decadal-scale records of meteorological records measurements to create a set of 6 quasiseasons for the Western Sydney Region (CAUL Hub 2019).

This approach is the first step in designing an Indigenous seasonal calendar for Greater Sydney. It is also helping to inform broader research concerning air quality fluctuations through the year, and could be used to inform the management of biodiversity, heat and land in urban areas.

Figure 40 IKALC seasons of Western Sydney, based on weather and time of year

Expand View

Figure 40 IKALC seasons of Western Sydney, based on weather and time of year