Publications

The UTRC has contributed to various publications across its three interrelated Research and Innovation programs addressing key challenges in sustainable and resilient regional growth.

	Places to Swim Perspectives Report By Morrison N, Wright I, and Littman A People love to recreate around, on and in the water. As part of the Department of Planning and Open Spaces Program, Places to Swim provides an opportunity to improve access to natural waterways for recreation across NSW. This report investigates the issues, barriers and benefits associated with opening waterways for recreation. NSW is enriched with a range of beautiful and healthy waterways providing opportunities for people to swim and recreate safely, create places that people can visit, and help build better communities. A key attribute for all swimming sites is ensuring they are safe to use. Recreation involving waterways inherently involves risks, including exposure to waterborne contaminants and the risk of injury and drowning. As new swimming sites are opened the risks need to be identified, monitored, and managed.
	Synthetic Turf In Public Places By Sebastian Pfautsch and Agnieszka Wujeska-Klause Urban growth and densification can lead to increasing pressure on public recreational facilities like parks and sport fields. Traditionally, many of these public recreational facilities, especially those that support ball games, would be surfaced with natural turf. The confluence of inappropriate design, construction, and maintenance practices with the added pressure of increased use hours can lead to damage of turf surfaces and reductions in time such facilities are available for the public to use. In response to this situation, public and private organisations opt to install synthetic turf surfaces with the goal to extend use hours and provide appropriate facilities to support a more active lifestyle of local communities and sport clubs.
	Despicable Urban Hot Places: Hot Car Parks By Sebastian Pfautsch, Agnieszka Wujeska-Klause, Awais Piracha, Riccardo Paolini, Ryan van den Nouwelant, Nicky Morrison Cities are warmer than surrounding non-urban areas. Climate models predict that metropolitan centres will become even warmer due to the dual impacts of global warming and densification. However, the outer fringe zones of metropolitan centres will also become warmer as a consequence of urban expansion that requires replacing green and open spaces like pastures or bushland with grey infrastructure such as roads and buildings.
	Wicked Urban Challenges in Western Sydney: Researches Respond By Nicky Morrison, Cecelia Cmielewski, Alex O'Mara, Phillip O'Neil, Sebastian Pfautsch, Emma Power The purpose of this publication is to provide critical insights and perspectives around how to tackle four of Western Sydney’s wicked urban challenges, and ensure our region is prepared for the future, namely: job/housing imbalances and inadequate infrastructure investment; declining housing affordability; cultural infrastructure disparities; extreme urban heat. Our aim is that this publication continues the debate generated in the online forum, ‘Wicked urban challenges in Western Sydney: researchers respond’, held in October 2021.
	Increasing Resilience to Climate Change (IRCC) Project: Review of Local Council Strategies for Climate, Health and Wellbeing in the Western Sydney Region By Nicky Morrison, Erica McIntyre, N. Reynolds, R. Al Qayem, P. Harris This Local Government NSW funded project focusses on identifying how local councils in the Western Parkland City have addressed climate risk and resilience within their policies and plans, and uncovering the barriers and enablers of planning, implementing, and evaluating climate risk and resilience strategies within the Western Parkland City. The intent of this research is to inform the development of guidance and tools to assist the development and implementation of strategies and action plans to reduce the impact of climate on health and wellbeing across the Western Parkland City. The project used the wide local council networks of the WSHA to ascertain if policy action areas identified in the Framework for a National Strategy on Climate, Health and Wellbeing (Climate and Health Alliance, 2017) could be translated into local council and health service strategies and action plans across the Western Parkland City region.
	Making Healthy Places: NSW Built Environment Practitioners' Perspectives on Place-making Opportunities that Help Deliver Health and Wellbeing Outcomes By Morrison, N., Barns, S., Dunshea, A., Paine, G., Pry, J., Sajan, J., … Nouwelant, R. V. D The built environment can positively impact the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities. Where you live shapes how easy it is to buy healthy food, use active transport, and make social connections. The evidence is clear. But how do we go about creating places that help deliver positive health and wellbeing outcomes for all? This project looks at such convergences and divergences within a particularly instrumental environment – the barriers and opportunities that present to built environment practitioners when making healthy places.