about

Who are we?
The Cooks River Sustainability Initiative is an innovative new project based on Marrickville Council’s award-winning USWIM (Urban Stormwater Integrated Management) project. It is a partnership between eight Councils – Ashfield, Bankstown, Canterbury, City of Sydney, Hurstville, Marrickville, Rockdale and Strathfield, and includes a research component being undertaken by Monash University. The initiative is taking an integrated approach to water management at a small scale and involves working collaboratively with local communities, councils and various other government agencies and interested parties.

What are our goals?
The main goals of the initiative are to:

• improve the quality of water that flows to the Cooks River;
• create new relationships within and between councils and the community that will provide ongoing long term benefits for the Cooks River; and
• develop a Vision and an Action Plan for implementing water sensitive urban design.

Where are we working now?
The Cooks River catchment is the area of land that drains into the river system. The catchment covers approximately 100km2 and is made up of many smaller subcatchments. The Cooks River Sustainability Initiative is currently working on six subcatchments that lie within the Ashfield, Bankstown, Canterbury, City of Sydney, Hurstville, Marrickville, Rockdale and Strathfield Council areas.

Why is this initiative unique?
While the Cooks River Sustainability Initiative acknowledges and builds on previous work and studies completed by the Cooks River Foreshore Working Group, government agencies and community groups on the Cooks River, it is taking a new approach. This includes:

• bringing planning down to the neighbourhood or ‘subcatchment’ scale, encouraging community ownership, and ensuring solutions represent local ideas, knowledge and values; and
• undertaking detailed social, physical and organisational research to ensure that the solutions and strategies developed are right for the subcatchment and its community.

The project focuses on six diverse subcatchments, creating a framework or models that can then be replicated in other subcatchment areas.

How is this initiative being funded?
The initiative is funded through the NSW Government’s Urban Sustainability Grant Program from 2007 to 2010.