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Melbourne Water

Melbourne's water
storages are currently

34.1%

Community Engagement Programs

Community engagement and education is an important part of our business planning and decision-making.

Community workshops, feedback and research

As part of our commitment to working with local communities, we deliver workshops, undertake research, and support local initiatives such as helping community groups develop their own websites.

Our community engagement activities provide opportunities for people to influence what we are doing to manage our rivers and creeks.

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Community learning


Our education programs with schools, industry, community and environmental organisations aim to ensure a sustainable water future.

We are the regional sponsor of Waterwatch, a free, fun and hands-on river health education program that supports community members, schools and businesses to be actively involved in monitoring and protecting the health of our rivers and creeks.

In partnership with the Amphibian Research Centre, we deliver the Melbourne Water Frog Census. Community volunteers visit local rivers, creeks and wetlands throughout the year to record frog calls and to monitor threatened, endangered or locally rare species. The results are identified by ecologists and then are mapped on the Melbourne Water Frog Census website. Melbourne Water is also a partner in the National Frog Atlas and contributes data to this website.

Our websites are another resource for schools, industry, community and environmental groups. Our education website includes important information on rivers and creeks for students and teachers, our Water Sensitive Urban Design website provides industry and councils with the latest information on best practice water sensitive urban design techniques, and the Our Yarra website provides local information on rivers and creeks in the Yarra catchment.

We are investing $3 million to develop an education centre and wetlands trail at the Edithvale-Seaford Wetlands. The facilities are expected to become a model for wetlands education.

We also work with industry organisations and fund industry training programs such as Green Gardeners.

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Grants for individuals, community and local councils

The Port Phillip and Westernport region has an active community that has carried out a significant amount of work to improve our rivers and creeks.

Through our grants programs, we provide funding assistance, technical advice and educational opportunities to support individuals, landowners, schools, community groups and local councils in the fantastic work they do to protect our rivers and creeks.

Under the Stream Frontage Management Program, we partner with landowners to protect, improve and manage their creek and river frontages. The most common works include weed control, fencing to exclude stock and revegetation of banks with indigenous plants.

Through the combined Melbourne Water/Port Phillip and Westernport Catchment Management Authority Community Grants Program, we support the important role that volunteer community groups, local councils and other public land managers play in protecting and improving local rivers and creeks throughout the Greater Melbourne region.

Under the Corridors of Green Program, we fund local councils and other agencies to implement on the ground projects, such as planting along rivers and creeks.

We also support the Young Watercare Program, administered by Landcare, which provides grants to primary and secondary schools to undertake environmental projects to help protect our rivers and creeks.

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Working with industry and councils

We help businesses and councils develop skills and build capacity to deliver best practice stormwater management.

We are a key supporter of Clearwater - a capacity-building program for industry and councils. Clearwater develops education and training for people in industry, councils and Victorian Government agencies.

We are currently managing the Water Sensitive Urban Design component of the Clearwater program. As part of our involvement we have developed a technical manual entitled 'Water Sensitive Urban Design: Engineering Processes for Stormwater Management'. The manual provides standards for the design, construction and maintenance of water sensitive design technologies.

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Cultural heritage
Cultural Heritage Strategy 2008-2011

In order to fulfil our responsibilities and set in place a coordinated approach to cultural heritage management we have developed a Cultural Heritage Strategy 2008-2011 (PDF, 3.9mb).

The Strategy aims to:

  • set our heritage management direction
  • provide a clear basis for determining whether heritage values might be affected by any project or works
  • explain how we will manage all cultural heritage matters in a consistent way.

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Downloads

You will need Adobe Acrobat to access the above PDF documents.