Principles and Objectives: Victorian Environmental Policy and Stormwater Management
Principles and Objectives: Victorian Environmental Policy and Stormwater Management
Principles and Objectives: Victorian Environmental Policy and Stormwater Management
Chapter 2
Principles
and Objectives
Victorian environmental policy and stormwater
2.1
management
State environment protection policies (SEPPs) provide a clear statutory framework of pub-
licly agreed environmental objectives. SEPPs identify the ‘beneficial uses’ (indicating the
environmental values) of the land, water or air environment in any particular place. They
establish environmental quality objectives at levels which will ensure the protection of
these uses. As legally enforceable statutory instruments, SEPPs provide the cornerstone for
a wide range of environmental protection and management activities in Victoria.
There are several SEPPs that include urban waterways and other urban waters. State
Environment Protection Policy (Waters of Victoria) is the statewide policy. This policy
contains some catchment specific Schedules—for example Port Phillip Bay and Yarra
River. There are also some separate SEPPs for individual catchments such as Western
Port. These are progressively being reviewed and included as schedules under the Waters
of Victoria policy.
The State Environment Protection Policy (Waters of Victoria) identifies a number of beneficial
uses of Victoria’s waterways including:
• water-based recreation;
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Urban Stormwater
SEPP (Waters of Victoria) requires that run-off from urban and rural areas must not com-
promise the identified beneficial uses of the receiving waters. Several provisions of SEPP
(Waters of Victoria) specifically refer to stormwater pollution and require that measures be
implemented to control its environmental impact.
2.2
Urban stormwater management principles
• source control : limit changes to the quantity and quality of stormwater at or near the
source; and
Source controls may be used effectively to avoid a number of stormwater impacts. These
measures can include land-use planning, education, regulation and operational practices
to limit changes to the quality or quantity of urban run-off before it enters the stormwater
system.
Structural control, as the name implies, involves building structures to reduce or delay
stormwater flow, or to intercept or remove pollutants after they have entered the storm-
water system.
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Urban Stormwater: Best Practice Environmental Management Guidelines.
© CSIRO 1999. This electronic edition published by CSIRO PUBLISHING, 2006.
2 Principles and Objectives
Stormwater
As a last resort, where pollutant levels or stormwater flows remain too high, it may be
necessary to manage the receiving environment itself by the use of bed and bank stabili-
sation techniques or by installing treatment measures such as floating litter traps, by
implementing a clean-up program for major pollution accumulation, or by restricting
certain uses of waterways (such as recreation or water supply).
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Urban Stormwater: Best Practice Environmental Management Guidelines.
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Urban Stormwater
Figure 2.3 illustrates typical pollutant types and size ranges that can be addressed with
structural controls. The particle size fractions are presented and matched with the
removal processes that structural treatments employ. Selection of treatment measures
should be based on matching the pollutant type with the removal process.
More details on selecting treatment measures based on target pollutants are provided in
Chapter 7.
L G
I R
T A
Screening
T V
Gross pollutants E E
R L
Coarse sediment
Sedimentation
Medium sediment
T
T Enhanced sedimentation P
U M
Fine sediment/ R E
attached B S
T
pollutants I I
A
D L Adhesion and filtration L
I T
S
T N
Dissolved 0
pollutants Y Biological uptake 3
2.3
Stormwater performance objectives
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2 Principles and Objectives
quality improvement necessary to ensure SEPP objectives can be met and the beneficial
uses protected (refer Figure 2.4). These are by either:
• monitoring: actual stormwater quality can be compared with receiving water quality
to establish the level of treatment necessary to protect beneficial uses, where sufficient
monitoring data are available;
• modelling: stormwater quality and its potential impact on receiving waters can be
mathematically modelled to determine treatment requirements. Some monitoring
data are usually required to validate such models; and
• generic values : averaged values for typical urban stormwater quality can be com-
pared to receiving water quality and SEPP objectives to indicate the level of improve-
ment required (refer Table 2.1).
Construction phase:
Suspended solids comply with SEPP Effective treatment of 90% of daily run-off
events (e.g. <4 months ARI). Effective
treatment equates to a 50%ile SS concentration
of 50 mg/L.
Litter comply with SEPP (e.g. No litter in Prevent litter from entering the stormwater
waterways) (1) system.
Other pollutants comply with SEPP Limit the application, generation and migration
of toxic substances to the maximum extent
practicable
1 An example using SEPP (Waters of Victoria 1988), general surface waters segment.
2 SEPP Schedule F7—Yarra Catchment—urban waterways for the Yarra River main stream.
3 Litter is defined as anthropogenic material larger than five millimetres.
The preferred method for determining the required level of treatment is by use of moni-
toring data. However, the inherent variability in water quality experienced both in
waterways and stormwater systems means that an extensive monitoring program is usu-
ally required to obtain sufficient data for such assessments.
Modelling provides an ability to predict likely changes in water quality associated with
proposed urban developments. Such water quality models can be used to establish per-
formance objectives for stormwater systems. These are limited by the availability of local
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Urban Stormwater
Are information
Is monitoring data No and appropriate models No
available to characterise available to characterise
stormwater quality? stormwater
quality?
Yes Yes
water quality data and the understanding of the biological and physical processes that
influence water quality and the receiving water environment. There are often significant
limits on the confidence with which predictions can be made using water quality models.
The typical quality of urban stormwater and the performance capabilities of certain treat-
ment measures have been determined from a number of studies (Mudgway et al. 1997,
and Duncan 1997b).
These measures of typical urban stormwater quality can be compared to SEPP objectives
to determine treatment requirements. Performance objectives for stormwater manage-
ment have been derived using this approach because of the limited availability of water
quality data and the limitations of modelling. Table 2.1 presents the performance objec-
tives based on the expected improvement required to meet SEPP objectives and that can
be achieved by current best practice techniques.
These performance objectives are indicative only. In many situations, where there are no
extreme or unusual factors, stormwater management which achieves these objectives
will generally satisfy the environmental objectives of the SEPP.
Further information on the derivation of the performance objectives in Table 2.1 can be
found in: L. B. Mudgway, H. P. Duncan, T. A. McMahon and F. H. S. Chiew, 1997, Best
Practice Environmental Management Guidelines for Urban Stormwater. Background Report to
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2 Principles and Objectives
the Environment Protection Authority, Melbourne Water Corporation and the Department of
Natural Resources and Environment, Victoria, Cooperative Research Centre for Catchment
Hydrology Report 97/7, October 1997.
Urban stormwater has a major influence on the water quality of urban waterways. Inte-
grated stormwater management provides a means for minimising the environmental
impact from urban stormwater systems. Other sources, such as sewer overflows, septic
tank losses, vehicle emissions and so on, can also have significant effects on water qual-
ity. These are, however, beyond the scope of these guidelines. It must be recognised
that, depending on the relative impacts of these different inputs, improvements to
urban stormwater by themselves may not be sufficient to achieve SEPP requirements in
some waterways.
The tools described in Chapters 4, 5 and 6 provide stormwater quality benefits when
applied in the appropriate situation or context. Therefore, all of the tools should be con-
sidered for use where practicable and in the absence of any apparent adverse impacts.
The extent of water quality improvement likely to result from the use of these tools or
combinations of measures can be estimated in a qualitative or semi-quantitative manner
using the performance information in these guidelines. This allows some judgments to
be made on the relationship between proposals and stormwater performance objectives.
Consideration of all benefits, including those outside of stormwater quality, should be
included in this assessment.
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Urban Stormwater: Best Practice Environmental Management Guidelines.
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