Monash University

Monash University is the youngest institution ranked in the world’s Top 100 universities. With over 60,000 students from over 170 countries, it is Australia’s largest university and has a particular focus on the Asia-Pacific with campuses in India, Malaysia, China and Indonesia.

Monash has been engaged with the Asia-Pacific region since its beginnings. The University is highly committed to building the in-country capability of its regional neighbours through research, education and collaboration.

Monash University, through the Monash Water for Liveability Centre (a unit of Monash Sustainability Institute), has pioneered an interdisciplinary research and stakeholder engagement framework that addresses the global challenges of managing urban water.

Monash Water for Liveability’s (MWfL) vision is to undertake outstanding research that leads to transformations in the way water is managed in planning and designing the urban form to achieve more liveable, sustainable and resilient cities.

MWfL is Monash University’s coordinating platform for integrating its interdisciplinary research to addresses challenges for urban water management and its links to the liveability of cities. In the last five years, the Centre (and its predecessor, Monash Centre for Water Sensitive Cities) has attracted over $20M in revenue.

In addition to its standalone research program, the Centres researcher’s currently undertake around half of the CRCWSC’s research. MWfL has worked with over 80 partners across federal, state and local governments as well as industry.

Organisational Capability

1. Integrated urban water management 2. Water sensitive urban design 3. Urban water transitions and governance 4. Planning and designing resilient and liveable cities 5. Ecosystem dynamics 6. Green cities and microclimate 7. Urban Design and Architecture 8. Economics and Evaluation 9. Socio-technical Planning and Modelling 10. Water and Sustainability in Asia

Projects

Exploring pathways towards water system resilience
This initiative develops modelling tools that can support strategists and planners to understand the implications of possible water infrastructure adaptations. It aims to enable the development of robust and resilient water management solutions through testing many different scenarios of climate, population growth, city development and societal change patterns.
Enabling policy and practice transitions to water sensitive cities
The Urban Water Transitions and Governance Program aims to support cities to transition towards water sensitive policy and practice. By undertaking fundamental and applied social research on topics such as transition dynamics, institutional change, strategic planning, landscape perceptions, innovation and learning, the program examines and provides guidance on how water management can be improved in different urban contexts.
Identification of the climate benefits of water sensitive urban design
Using a combination of measurement, modelling and remote sensing, the urban climate group is actively assessing the positive climate impacts of green infrastructure, irrigation and water sensitive urban design. As the work matures, it is focusing more on building and assessing a range of models capable of determining the degree of cooling provided by different urban design, at a range of spatial scales from the microscale (household) to the meso-scale (citywide).
Heat, thermal comfort and human health relationships for Australian cities
In this initiative, the urban climate group is assessing the relationship between urban heat and human health for Australian urban environments and developing novel approaches to mapping human heat vulnerability in Australian cities. The group is also assessing the role of water sensitive urban design and green infrastructure in human thermal comfort, particularly under extreme conditions. This will eventually enable us to assess the direct heath and thermal comfort benefits of water sensitive urban design.
Green and blue infrastructure for liveable cities
MWfL has commenced work on development of vertical water biofiltration technologies. This includes green walls for treatment of greywater that can also actively contribute to mitigation of urban heat issues as well as deliver aesthetically pleasing urban environments. This is a logical extension of our ongoing work on stormwater WSUD technologies.
Environmental and Public Health Microbiology (EPHM) Lab
The EPHM Lab has a specific focus on health related urban water microbiology. There are four main projects that rely on this facility: understanding the physical pathways through which pathogens flow in urban stormwater treatment systems; pathogenic risks of using urban stormwater for growing vegetables; development of novel antimicrobial filtration media; and pathogens in the Yarra River Estuary.