Climate change is having an impact on Victoria’s rainfall levels.
Flooding and rising water levels are a natural occurrence across Victoria as a result of this, and all Councils have a role to play in building their community’s resilience. This role is shared with water authorities, emergency services and other government bodies.
Inner-city areas like Yarra can be prone to flooding and rising water levels as water can’t be absorbed into the ground easily and the topography of the area limits the way stormwater can move overland. This impacts the way our city develops, future infrastructure needs and how public spaces are designed.
Over the last few years, Yarra City Council has undertaken the following work to build Yarra’s resilience against flooding:
- maintaining the existing drainage network
- undertaking periodic inspections
- regularly cleaning pits and pipes
- proactive planning of capital or renewal work
- monitoring rainfall data and undertaking flood analysis
- boosting community preparedness through education
- identifying and upgrading critical drainage assets
As an additional preventative measure, we’re looking to implement planning controls that will ensure future developments are better designed to minimise the impacts of overflow in our stormwater network during a severe storm.
These will be informed by a series of flood maps that are being finalised in partnership with Melbourne Water and guided by the best practice approach benchmarked against other Councils.
How you can help.
We want to understand more about our community’s experience with flooding and rising water levels in Yarra. Information including dates, frequency of weather events and any pictures of incidents are helpful to understanding a specific location’s risk.
Your experience and feedback will be measured against the Bureau of Meteorology’s historical rainfall data to better understand what weather patterns have the most significant impact on our city.
Council is also in the final stages of developing flood maps for the municipality. Your experiences will provide further valuable information to support this work.
