Stormwater Priority Areas for Melbourne Waterways Strategy 2018

This dataset identifies stormwater priority areas for Melbourne Water's Healthy Waterways Strategy 2018, covering the Greater Melbourne region. It was created using the Zonation decision support tool and a co-design process to prioritize management actions for improving habitat suitability for platypus, fish, and macroinvertebrates.

Use Cases

• Identify stormwater priority area polygons to target management actions for improving instream habitat suitability.
• Analyze harvesting and infiltration targets per impervious hectare to estimate requirements for stormwater disconnection.
• Use total volume targets for full urban development to plan for stormwater management under complete urban growth boundary scenarios.
• Prioritize sub-catchments for treatment based on the merged sub-catchment polygons from the University of Melbourne's subc layer.

Strengths

• Based on a formal decision support tool (Zonation) and a co-design process.
• Covers the Greater Melbourne region, aligning with the priorities of the Melbourne Water Healthy Waterways Strategy 2018.
• Includes specific quantitative targets for harvesting and infiltration to guide stormwater management.

Limitations

• Target values for harvesting and infiltration are approximate averages and do not replace site-specific investigations.
• Stormwater management requires additional judgment for areas upstream of the identified priority polygons.
• The dataset's methodology and target calculations rely on external research (Walsh et al. 2012), which may not reflect all local conditions.

Provenance

Source

Melbourne Water Corporation via the Melbourne Water Open Data Hub.

Collection Method

Created by merging sub-catchments from the University of Melbourne's subc layer and using the Zonation prioritization tool.

Time Range

Associated with the Healthy Waterways Strategy 2018.

Freshness

Last updated March 20, 2026.

Geography

Greater Melbourne region, Australia.