What is franc.Sydney?

Franc.sydney is about challenging the application of conventional urban stormwater management practices to our modern cities and new developments.  It is building a community of individuals who are, connected to urban stormwater and are passionate about changing the way it is managed. It seeks a future focused, resilient, adaptive and connected future.  In short, it is about being franc.

Conventional stormwater management that focused purely on the rapid removal of stormwater have served our cities well in the past. However, continued urban expansion has led to serious environmental, economic and social degradation such that the costs now outweigh the benefit.  The radical changes in catchment hydrology and the multiple and diverse pollution sources that conventional approaches introduce are aggressively degrading our freshwater and oceanic resources across Australia.

Fortunately, advances in urban stormwater practices and technologies have been developed that  alleviate these costs and provide additional benefits to the flood, drought and thermal challenges brought on by climate change.  Further, by contributing to the ‘blue’ in blue-green infrastructure[AT1] , these new technologies and practices can help address some of the downsides apparent in modern urban development.  This includes making urban more humane,  improving our mental and physical health outcomes to such an extent that it is now recognised by health institutions as a means of reducing the burden on health systems, helping to prevent disease, and increase life expectancy and quality.

Despite demonstrable benefits, the adoption of Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) and Integrated Water Cycle Management (IWCM) has been poor.  Indeed, there are signs that the transition to improved practices is stalling, and is at risk of returning to conventional practices. 

The reasons for this are complex, including politics, ineffective policy, vested interest, market failure, professional bias and institutional inertia.  Given the consequences of continuing to use conventional practices, it is critical that society confronts these issues to build new developments that address the challenges introduced by climate change as demonstrated by the summer 2019/20  bushfires and the 2020/21 floods.

Stormwater NSW has been fiercely advocating for change but has found that its voice alone is not enough.  So, we have built franc to bring together parties from beyond the stormwater profession to tackle this problem.  Together we can facilitate the change. The franc community currently includes professionals, academics, researchers and water quality advocates that recognised the need for change. But we need to grow this group.  So, please, reach out to us a Stormwater NSW admin@stormwaternsw.asn.au to become part of this movement, and join us at franc.sydney 2023 to share ideas and knowledge about how we make stormwater truly blue green.