The development of this web based planning tool is an initiative of the South Coast Government Officers Technical Advisory Group (GOTAG), a community of local governments and State government agencies working towards better NRM in the region.
Like many regions, the South Coast NRM region is undergoing significant land use change and development. This is resulting in increased competition and conflict over access to natural resources which are declining in quality and availability.
Traditionally, NRM has focused on policy approaches which seek to influence the management of resources post development. The strategic and statutory land use planning system administered by local governments provides some opportunity to intervene in the process of land use change and development to ensure that negative impacts on natural resources are avoided or appropriately managed and that natural resource management (NRM) targets are addressed.
The planning tool aims to provide best planning practices (BPPs) for integrating NRM with land use and development planning processes. Because these impacts and planning responses to different development types vary, the approach used has been to customise BPPs by development type.
This project has focused initially on identifying BPPs for peri-urban land use types because considerable work is already being undertaken to integrate NRM with urban development planning. The initial development types which form the focus of the planning tool and BPPs are rural residential/smallholdings and wine grape vineyards.
The following process was used to develop this version of the planning tool:
1. Prepare
discussion paper to assess NRM policy context, NRM issues and impacts of development, population and development trends.
2. Analyse growth trends and impacts of key development types and prioritise using multi-criteria analysis.
3. Develop the structure and content of the planning tool having regard to the decision trees and requirements of users.
4. Conduct an information and knowledge audit of primary references to identify BPPs for the selected development types and link these to the relevant drivers for planning including policy/legislative requirements and market/certification requirements (where relevant).
5. Identify and link technical and locally relevant resources to support implementation of the BPPs.
The content for the planning tool was collated, structured and linked in a database and then deployed to a collaborative website called a ‘
wiki’. The wiki enabled GOTAG members to review and discuss content online. Modifications to the design and content were subsequently made in the database and the content was re-deployed to create this version of the planning tool. Members of the GOTAG members can continue to discuss content online as well as edit or add content (e.g. news and upcoming events, meeting notes etc.).