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Overview

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Episode Teaser

Biography

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Quick Summary & Highlights

• There is no correct word for water sensitive urban design: His most-cited paper concluded that terminology is local rather than universal. Each region builds its own language around whoever championed the idea there. A term’s job is to persuade planners and architects, not to satisfy a dictionary.
• The barrier to scaling this work is governance, not technology: Conservative cost-benefit work for the Victorian government returns marginal ratios of fifteen to twenty dollars of benefit per dollar spent. Governments still hesitate. Election cycles make long-term decisions structurally difficult, whoever happens to be in office.
• A rainwater tank can work the way a solar battery works: Networked tanks release water ahead of a forecast storm and top up the creek in dry weather. The household keeps its supply, the stream gets its flow, and modelled flood damage in one precinct falls by around two million dollars a year.
• Bigger stormwater projects were not cheaper, they were dearer: Problems at the household scale cost an extra five hundred or eight hundred dollars to solve. One large public system needed screw pylons under the tanks and cost three hundred thousand. The economy of scale ran backwards, an argument for measuring rather than assuming.

Resources Related to the Episode

Key research and publications

• Fletcher and colleagues (2015), the terminology paper that maps SUDS, LID, BMPs, WSUD and the rest, and argues against a single global vocabulary. Co-authors include Bill Hunt (episode 33) and Danielle Dagenais (episode 21): https://doi.org/10.1080/1573062X.2014.916314
• Walsh and colleagues (2005), the paper that named the urban stream syndrome: https://doi.org/10.1899/04-028.1
• Walsh, Fletcher and Ladson (2005), looking to the catchment to save the stream, the conceptual basis for the Little Stringybark Creek work: https://doi.org/10.1899/04-020.1
• Hatt, Fletcher, Walsh and Taylor (2004) on drainage connection and pollutant loads in small streams, the paper by Belinda Hatt (episode 20) referenced in the conversation: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-004-0221-8
• Wong, Fletcher, Duncan and Jenkins (2006), the unified treatment model behind MUSIC and the k-C* relationship: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0925857405002351
• Nemes and colleagues (2016) on the uniform-price reverse auction used to fund systems on private land: https://doi.org/10.1080/1573062X.2014.988732
• Walsh, Fletcher, Bos and Imberger (2015) on Little Stringybark Creek as a catchment-scale social and ecological experiment: https://doi.org/10.1086/682422
• Walsh and colleagues (2022) on the measured water quality improvement from dispersed stormwater control: https://doi.org/10.1029/2022WR032041
• Xu, Fletcher, Burns and Cherqui (2020) on the seven-day forecast window in real-time controlled tanks, the algorithm described in the episode: https://doi.org/10.1029/2020WR027856

Tools, methods and context

• eWater MUSIC, the Model for Urban Stormwater Improvement Conceptualisation: https://ewater.org.au/ewater-solutions/tools/music/
• The Universal Stormwater Treatment Model documentation, explaining k-C* and the CSTR approach in plain terms: https://ewater.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MD6/pages/56470287/The+Universal+Stormwater+Treatment+Model+USTM
• The research group’s public apps for sizing a rainwater tank or rain garden on your own property: https://tools.thewerg.unimelb.edu.au/
• UK biodiversity net gain guidance, the credit mechanism raised as a comparison for putting long-term value into planning decisions: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/understanding-biodiversity-net-gain

Projects, groups and places

• Waterway Ecosystem Research Group at the University of Melbourne: https://safes.unimelb.edu.au/research/werg
• Melbourne Waterway Research-Practice Partnership: https://mwrpp.org/
• Tanks for Platypus and the Monbulk Creek smart water network, written up by the project team: https://theconversation.com/how-smart-rainwater-tanks-can-help-keep-platypus-habitat-healthy-269816
• urbanstreams.net, Chris Walsh’s site collecting the Little Stringybark Creek outputs and a long-running rain garden diary: https://urbanstreams.net/
• Novatech, the international conference on sustainable urban water management held in Lyon every three years: https://www.graie-novatech.org/en/
• HERUS at EPFL, the laboratory that hosted this recording in Lausanne: https://www.epfl.ch/labs/herus/

Cultural, natural and fun references

• Platypus conservation status, listed as vulnerable in Victoria: https://platypus.asn.au/conservation-status/
• What is the plural of platypus, for anyone who came here for the etymology: https://platypus.asn.au/platypus-names-including-whats-the-plural-of-platypus/
• Eucalyptus regnans, the mountain ash, tallest flowering plant in the world: https://anpsa.org.au/plant_profiles/eucalyptus-regnans/
• Melbourne Water’s platypus monitoring programme, including how to report a sighting: https://www.melbournewater.com.au/learn-about/making-difference/citizen-science-waterwatch/platypus-monitoring

Episode Chapters

(Chapters are embedded in the episode for quick access, click this to expand and view all chapters and time stamps)

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:59 Guest Intro & Remembering our first encounter
• 6:42 Reminiscing about undergraduate times and education
• 10:39 How would Tim describe himself?
• 13:10 The WSUD Terminology Debate
• 21:28 The key barrier to scaling up WSUD
• 27:09 Tim’s Monash Era
• 31:33 The MUSIC Model
• 40:40 A 101 on Ecohydrology & the Urban Stream Syndrome
• 43:32 The Little Stringybark Ck Living Lab
• 1:03:57 Tim’s Tanks for Platypus Project & Real-time Control
• 1:22:21 What is Tim’s biggest lessons learnt so far?
• 1:25:04 Q&A Start
• 1:25:12 What does innovation mean to you?
• 1:28:02 Key moment, book, person, event
• 1:31:52 If you had a magic wand?
• 1:33:34 Time Management
• 1:36:10 Favourite childhood memory
• 1:38:13 Biggest challenge to date?
• 1:43:04 Advice for young professionals
• 1:46:34 What is something you’ll regret not doing?
• 1:47:50 What would you most like to be remembered for?
• 1:49:57 Where can people find you?
• 1:52:48 Final Message
• 1:53:23 Outro

Connect with Tim D. Fletcher

• LinkedIn
• University Profile Page
• Waterways Ecosystem Research Group
• Google Scholar

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Related Episodes

	Episode #9 – Ana Deletic From first flush and manholes to pendulums of stormwater, engineering and life (Related Topics: stormwater, urban hydrology, water quality, water sensitive urban design)
	Episode #20 – Belinda Hatt Stormwater control measures, healthy waterways, battleships and karate at the riverside camp (Related Topics: urban hydrology, stream health, stormwater control measures)
	Episode #21 – Danielle Dagenais The paradox of nature – process and parts and its implications for green infrastructure (Related Topics: blue-green infrastructure, ecology)
	Episode #31 – Neil Armitage Reflections, from a canoe chute and litter traps to Day Zero and South Africa’s Sustainable Drainage (Related Topics: sustainable drainage systems, terminology, planning)
	Episode #33 – Bill Hunt America’s evolving stormwater management, our innate connection to water and walking your “Camino” (Related Topics: stormwater, low impact development)

Credits

• Hosted by Peter Marcus Bach, follow me on: X: @petermbach, Instagram: @petermbach87 or subscribe to my channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/PeterMarcusBach/
• Intro/Outro Song: ‘Starsky’ by Alex Keren (Check out more of his tunes over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5vZ3lENfDLjkln8scBJ8mW)