City’s water saving measures a win for environment

The City’s staged replacement of irrigation systems in parks and reserves is undertaken annually based on water wise hydro-zoning principals, with Scenic Park in Wanneroo next in line for hydro-zoning.

Acting Assets Director Grant Chettleburgh said hydro-zoning involves grouping areas of vegetation with the same water requirements within parks to enable more efficient use of the City’s groundwater resources.

“High use areas like sports fields and high traffic passive areas will receive greater amounts of water compared to the areas surrounding sports fields and low traffic passive areas,” he said.

“As part of this process some of the passive areas of turf in Scenic Park will be converted to mulch in the coming weeks and planted with native vegetation in winter this year which will allow for water savings of 4,500 kilolitres a year, while also creating habitat for local fauna.

“As part of our hydro-zoning process the City is identifying areas where the overall turf footprint can be reduced, without the need to eliminate turf from our parks.  

“We are able to do this by converting these areas to low water using areas of vegetation which allows the City to continue to comply with its Ground Water Licence allocations for irrigation use issued by the Department of Water.”