Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) Report
A Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) report calculates a development’s ability to treat rainwater collected from the other hard surfaces introduced. A site that usually features a large percentage of lawn and vegetation nourished by rainwater will now have a significant amount of hard surface area collecting the rainwater and pushing it through the stormwater drainage system.
Not only is there a significant increase in rainwater being collected and sent to the stormwater drains, but there are also sentiments and contaminants being collected and sent to the stormwater drains.
A STORM scorecard system is used to calculate the respective hard surface areas and allocate various treatment types.
A score of 100% is required to satisfy council requirements.
There are various options to pick from when nominating treatment type. Rain water tanks, buffer strips, rain gardens can all be selected depending whether it is for a dwelling or a driveway.
Each council has there only perferred treatment option and what they wont allow.
An example of this is Maroondah Council, they don’t allow any rain gardens to be nominated at all, so it is often the developer who will be required to pay a development contribution fee to offset not being able to achieve the minium 100% required.