Mackay region flood and stormwater management strategy
Preparation of the Mackay Region Flood and Stormwater Strategy commenced in October 2015 with a goal to progressively reduce flood and stormwater risks to the community through the identification and prioritisation of clear actions from works and projects that represent the most effective and efficient use of council’s funds. The strategy will ensure that future growth can be serviced whilst also allowing for the repair/maintenance and expansion of existing infrastructure.
Council manages over 700km of flood and stormwater infrastructure, and the network is expected to grow with our population. The development of the strategy involved condition assessments of a significant proportion of this infrastructure, combined with flood studies to understand the existing exposure to flood risk of the region. Flood studies also looked at potential exposure to flood risk into the future.
To understand community expectations and priorities for managing these risks both now and into the future, targeted community consultation was undertaken with key stakeholders considered to represent the sectors of the economy, society/social, environment and infrastructure. This consultation helped to inform the specific objectives of the plan, from which, a number of key action items were developed.
A prioritisation framework was developed, based on the priorities of council and the community to assess a range of projects and initiatives preliminarily identified to complete the action items. The list of projects is not included in the strategy as it is subject to annual review and may change based on external factors, and newly identified projects or risks. The prioritisation framework will be consistently applied to inform council’s works programs.