Applying WSRD to the Victorian Road Network: Looking Outside the Square and Using Commonsense and Realistic Options

The ability to implement Water Sensitive Road Design (WSRD) into the design and construction of the Victorian Road Network is dictated by the location of the project, the available space within the road reserve, and the type of the road works being undertaken. These road reserves are also used extensively to place other infrastructure services such as telecommunications, gas, water, sewage, and electricity, which are time consuming and expensive to relocate. VicRoads is often provided with WSRD concept designs that fail to take into account the most basic of site characteristics. This results in the WSRD feature not being built as designed and therefore failing to meet treatment objectives. It may also be over designed and engineered for the road catchment, or is located in such a way as to hinder maintenance and upkeep of the installed features. This in turn prevents it meeting water quality objectives and lifecycle estimates. There is a need for segments of the WSRD industry to focus on the characteristics of a site in the context of its land use from design through to operation and to look outside the square and develop realistic and common sense WSRD options that are site specific and sustainable for the road network.