Thriving in a changing climate means that Council is committed to futureproofing our city, ensuring we plan and adapt to a changing climate for both our own operations and for our community.
We are already experiencing the impacts of climate change in our city, and we will continue to do so. Climate impacts such as increasing urban heat, storm events, and flooding, combined with reduced rainfall place our community, and the infrastructure and services Council provides, at risk. They also place pressure on local emergency services.
Council will need to understand and mitigate risks to infrastructure, our natural environment, sports and recreation, urban development and housing, human health, and Council operations to ensure our city thrives in a climate-changed future. Economic risks also need to be considered, including insurances, changes to revenue streams and any additional costs to ensure assets are climate-resilient.
Council action to ensure our city adapts and thrives in a changing climate will focus on three key areas:
- Increase urban greening and cool our city
- climate-ready built environment
- a resilient, connected community
What we're doing
Urban greening and cooling
A healthy environment supports a healthy community. We are creating a cool and green city through increasing canopy cover and growing our urban forest, transitioning to water-sensitive designs and practices, and protecting and enhancing biodiversity.
Stonnington is well known for its tree-lined streets, parks, and gardens. While we have the second-highest tree canopy cover of any inner-metropolitan Melbourne council, we also have the second lowest amount of public open space of any Victorian municipality.
As a dense, inner-metropolitan municipality with more built environment than natural spaces, the City of Stonnington is vulnerable to the ‘urban heat island effect’, meaning our neighbourhoods get hotter during the day in warmer weather, and struggle to cool down during the night.
To help cool our city, and to support the health and resilience of our community and precious biodiversity and local ecosystems, we are working to protect and enhance our natural spaces and assets, and use water wisely:
- All of our building projects include rainwater capture and reuse in their design as well as water-efficient fittings and fixtures.
- We have installed over 100 water-sensitive urban design assets throughout the city. These include rain gardens, wetlands, swales, tree pits and structural soils.
- We are researching plant and tree species that will be resilient to a changing climate while also providing canopy cover and habitat.
- We run educational biodiversity events throughout the year, including our participation in the My Smart Garden program and our annual Adopt-A-Native-Plant Giveaway.
- We are working to review our Urban Forest Strategy and develop standalone Urban Biodiversity and Integrated Water Management Action Plans in 2024.
Climate-ready built environment
A climate-ready future means ensuring that our built environment can withstand the extreme weather events associated with climate change, such as storms, flooding and heatwaves, whilst providing safety and enhancing livability.
We also aim to support climate-ready private development through our Planning Scheme, education and engagement.
- All major projects must comply with our Sustainable Assets Policy, ensuring Council projects showcase leading environmentally sustainable design and climate resilience.
- We have reviewed the climate resilience of a number of our facilities as part of a condition assessment, and are working on plans to upgrade priority sites over the coming years.
- We are researching to understand the specific vulnerabilities of the Stonnington built environment, including both public and private assets.
- We are working with Melbourne Water to update our flood modelling data, to inform future upgrades to our stormwater drainage infrastructure.
Resilient, connected community
A resilient and connected community will be more adaptive to a changing climate. When people in communities have strong social connections and work together, they are better able to respond to stresses and threats.
Council will work to strengthen community connections and partner with key community groups to expand our reach, particularly with vulnerable community members.
We want to prepare our neighbourhoods, communities, local economy and our infrastructure and services to withstand climate impacts and other threats, such as global pandemics, to emerge stronger and more connected.
- In 2023, we delivered a series of climate resilience workshops with our local community health organisations to build capacity and connections.
- We provide advice to the community on how to stay safe and healthy in a changing climate, especially during heatwaves, storms, and floods.
- We have established a network of Cool Places throughout the city to support our most vulnerable residents during heatwaves.
- We have run our Environmental Champions program with four cohorts of Stonnington locals since 2021, developing the capacity of our community for local sustainability leadership.
- We partner with 11 other councils to deliver My Smart Garden, a free program with a focus on climate-ready gardens.
Project spotlight
Council is currently trialing options to passively irrigate our street trees by collecting rainwater into reservoirs under the nature strip that slowly release to the tree roots.
What you can do