Blog

The Future of Australian Housing Design
Responding to population growth and climate change
Dr Peter Coombes is speaking on the economic advantages of decentralised water and stormwater management at the Rainwater Harvesting breakfast at 7:30 am on Wednesday 27 February 2019 at the Parramatta Novotel.

Tone Wheeler, Principal of Environa Architects will be discussing how architects are, and believe we should be, responding to these challenges. 

Lord Mayor Andrew Wilson will be speaking on the Parramatta Environmental Sustainability Strategy 2017

Australia city face escalating challenges of population growth, economic development, decline of ecosystems and climate change. A number of new urban housing challenges have emerged, and western Sydney is experiencing all of them.

Bottom up systems analysis of urban water resources and market mechanisms for pricing water and sewage services
Presentation Peter J Coombes, Michael Barry and Michael Smit at the HWRS 2018 conference in Melbourne at 11:00 am on Tuesday 3 December 2018. Consumers in the Greater Melbourne region pay uniform fixed and variable tariffs for utility water and sewage services. Removing fixed tariffs creates substantial reductions in water demands and improvements in water security to 2050 at a net present value of $8.6 billion. A full usage tariff regime was seen to increase water efficient behaviours and reveals improvements in household welfare.

Australian Rainfall & Runoff 2016 Urban Book workshop at the Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium
Workshop by Peter Coombes, Steve Roso and Mark Babister at 11 am on Monday 3 December 2018 at Ballroom 3 Pullman Hotel 192 Wellington Pde Melbourne.

Introduction to Australian Rainfall & Runoff 2016 Urban Book workshop by Peter Coombes and Steve Roso at 1 pm on Thursday 18 October 2018 at Reg Sparks Room, Sporting Car Club of SA, 51 King William Road, Unley. Join the authors and editors of Australian Rainfall and Runoff (ARR) Urban Book as they cover the philosophy and application of ARR in urban catchments.

Presentation by Peter Coombes, Mark Colegate and Sophia Buchanan at Stormwater 2018 conference at 3:45 pm on Wednesday 10 October 2018. Urban stormwater catchments can be subject to complex hydrological and hydraulic responses that are driven by unresolved sub-catchment influences, flow pathways and local depression storages. This paper provides an overview of the processes to define complex urban hydrology, establish evidence based targets for urban catchments and design of detention basins using ARR2016 resources.

environmental management
Presentation Dr Peter Coombes at Stormwater 2018 conference at 2:00 pm on Tuesday 9 October 2018.

This research project builds on previous publications by the author that utilised a Systems Framework of historical big data from government agencies and utilities to identify the water and stormwater benefits of property scale water conservation measures for Australian cities. Bottom up systems analysis is used  quantify the stormwater resources and economic value of  stormwater infrastructure for Greater Melbourne.

Melbourne could save 100 billion litres of water a year by 2050
Interview with Dr Peter Coombes on ABC News Breakfast at 6:30 am on 16 August 2018.
Water savings targets for buildings can drive an average 50% reduction in demand for utility water supply in households. Achievable water efficiency targets for buildings would drastically reduce water usage and create better environmental and economic outcomes. These benefits apply to households, water utilities and government across normal climate and drought periods.

Targets for sustainable buildings will increase household welfare and urban areas will have reduced impact on drought effected rural catchments.