Melbourne Water is developing Adaptive Service Plans (ASPs) for its services, including its waterway management function. ASPs are a key planning mechanism to identify the significant shifts required to adapt and meet obligations and objectives over a 10+ year timeframe.
The key components of an ASP include multiple future pathways or options that respond to different conditions and include trigger points or thresholds that signal when to shift pathways.
The process to develop ASPs has traditionally been applied to constructed assets and the management of coastal environments. There is little guidance on how to apply the process to a natural waterway asset.
A pilot ASP was undertaken for the Maribyrnong catchment, one of the five major catchments/ river basins in the Port Phillip and Westernport region.
The pilot aimed to test the scale and types of decisions required for effective climate adaptation and associated flexibility and evolution in waterway programs to meet longer term objectives.
The pilot developed several adaptive pathways, which included the identification of decision points, triggers, knowledge gaps and customer and community needs.
It demonstrated the types of adaptive pathways that can be developed for natural waterway assets using existing data. It also recommended a way forward for the roll out across additional investment programs, catchments and timeframes.
Adaptive Service Plans are a useful tool, providing foresight and decision-making agility for Melbourne Water and its community and agency partners. They show the tough decisions and trade-offs that need to be made now and in the future.