Maximising climate governance for liveability: Heat mitigation in Western Sydney.

Heatwaves impact heavily on Western Sydney’s (WS) liveability and are significant risks to communities’ health. Predictions of more frequent, severe, and prolonged heatwave events require that government and non-government agencies and local communities are fully prepared.  Yet multi-agency governance arrangements around heat mitigation are poorly developed, not just in WS, but Metropolitan Sydney, NSW and beyond.

Project Description

The seed funding will develop strategies, resources, and co-designed workshops at PEIH to support external partners’ governance work in establishing the most effective heatwave risk management and implementation strategy for WS.  Resources produced will include a Multi-Agency Adaptive Governance Manual and Action Plan and a Catalogue of Best-Practice Heatwave Risk Management Strategies, framed around WS’s heat-vulnerability mapping and heat-related liveability impacts.

The research engages transdisciplinary researchers in WSU Urban Transformations Research Centre (at PEIH), and UNSW CHETRE and City Futures (linked to Cities Institute at PEIH). The research provides momentum for additional funding opportunities, with our intention for WS to become exemplar global region in multi-agency climate adaptation. The research is readily applicable to other natural disaster management planning (including flooding) and place-based resilience work, which our partners identified as top priority and pressing knowledge gap to fill.

The purpose of this project is to support the work being led by Western Sydney Regional Councils (WSROC) Heat Smart Resilience Framework that has recommended better governance as core to implementation. Our focus is to develop ‘learning by doing’, co-designed workshops. Our transdisciplinary WSU/UNSW teams will produce two action-oriented deliverables, centring on how to deliver effective governance structures and strategic guidance necessary to facilitate place-based community resilience to heat, in Western Sydney as the prime case study (see WSROC Turn Down the Heat). The project builds on Morrison (WSU PI) and Harris (UNSW PI) combined expertise in adaptive governance with an urban liveability and health lens.

Related Publications

1. Harris P (2022) Illuminating policy for health: Insights from a decade of researching urban and regional planning, Springer

2.      Morrison N, McIntyre E, Reynolds N, Harris P (2021), Increasing resilience to climate change project: Review of local council strategies for climate, health and wellbeing in the Western Sydney region, Western Sydney University

3.      Morrison, N., Harris, P. The Conversation March 9, 2022, Under-resourced and undermined: as floods hit south-west Sydney, our research shows councils aren't prepared. https://theconversation.com/under-resourced-and-undermined-as-floods-hit-south-west-sydney-our-research-shows-councils-arent-prepared-178293

4.      Western Sydney Regional Councils (WSROC) (2018). Turn down the heat

Funding

WSU / UNSW Project Mezze Seed Funding Round 2022

Chief Investigator/Lead

Nicky Morrison, Patrick Harris

Contact

patrick.harris@unsw.edu.au