Discover some of the water projects initiated by the City of Melbourne in order to create a more sustainable city.

Eastern Parks and Gardens Stormwater Harvesting

Completed in 2014, this scheme is made up of three large stormwater harvesting systems that provide 119 million litres of treated stormwater for irrigation to Fitzroy Gardens, Birrarung Marr, Alexandra and Queen Victoria Gardens.

Darling Street Stormwater Harvesting

Completed in 2011, this system is similar to the Fitzroy Gardens system and captures 21 million litres of stormwater per year, treats it in a raingarden and stores it in an underground tank for irrigating local green spaces in East Melbourne.

Grant Street Reserve

New public open space was created on Grant Street, Southbank where landscape features collect stormwater runoff. The water is treated in a raingarden and stored in a 200 thousand litre underground tank for irrigation of the grassed area.

Trin Warren Tam-boore Wetlands

Located in Royal Park, stormwater from Brunswick and Parkville is diverted into a treatment wetland that cleans the water naturally. The clean water is transferred to a storage tanks distributed throughout the park until it is needed for irrigating the sport fields in Royal Park, the treed medians down Royal Parade and the ornamental pond in Princess Park North.

Errol Street Reserve Expansion

Under-utilised roadways next to the reserve were turned into parkland, increasing the size of the park from 400 to over 4000 square meters and improving permeability and vegetation diversity. Raingardens were included to treat runoff from the roads and footpaths before entering the stormwater drains.

Raingarden tree pits

Raingarden tree pits are installed next to roads and are designed to take the water that runs off roads and allow it to soak through the sandy soil at the base of the tree. This provides water for the tree and also cleans the stormwater before it is returned to the river. Over 300 raingarden tree pits have been installed across the City of Melbourne.