The water sector plays a key role in achieving sustainable and thriving communities by understanding the community’s needs, involving them in decision making, developing solutions that improve sustainability and liveability, and delivering multiple benefits to the community and the environment. This applies across all landscapes, not just in urban areas. What can we do better to create more resilient communities of the future?

• Challenges and opportunities arising from population growth, climate change and global megatrends
• The water sector’s role in delivering multiple benefits, including greener and cooler places, enhanced amenity and wellbeing
• Driving social equality through the United Nations Sustainable development Goals (SDGs), with local and global examples
• The water industry’s contribution to smart cities and digital planning
• Integrated Water Management across all scales of urban planning and development
• Aligning land use planning and urban water cycle planning
• Decentralised and distributed systems, precinct-scale and multi-utility solutions
• Governance, policy and project delivery across traditional silos
• Meaningful community engagement in shaping future communities
• Delivering liveable, water-sensitive and climate-resilient communities
• Enabling housing growth through integrated water planning
• Nature-positive and community-led water solutions

Provision of safe, secure water services is core business for the water sector be it in Australia or overseas. Excellence in operations, treatment and practices are critical to ensure we meet the needs of the customers and communities we service in the most efficient manner. With the digitisation of the water industry, excellence in operations extends to the way we operate our digital systems as well as our physical systems. What are the great operational achievements that are being delivered and how are they making a difference? What does the future hold for excellence in operations?

• Transformative technologies and new treatment practices being implemented now
• Game-changing renewal and repair techniques
• Energy optimisation and water efficiency
• Translating research and development into operational gains
• Innovative industrial treatment solutions and the circular economy of trade waste
• Delivering operational efficiencies and cost reductions
• Cyber security and the protection of operational systems
• Digital transformation and practical applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI), automation, analytics, digital twins and integrated operational technologies
• Computer vision, robotics and autonomous inspection technologies
• Digital operations centres and real-time operational decision support
• Operational resilience through digital innovation and automation
• Lessons learnt from implementing AI and emerging technologies

Effective planning, design, delivery and renewal of assets is critical to providing safe and reliable services at the lowest long-term cost. Water sector assets now span physical, digital, natural and green infrastructure. This theme explores how smart asset management and planning practices are enabling more resilient, affordable, and future-fit water services.

Tell us how asset management, planning and solution delivery are enabling resilient communities and water services in an increasingly uncertain world.

• Asset planning, capital delivery and lifecycle optimisation, including multi-functional assets
• Climate adaptation and resilience in infrastructure planning
• Green infrastructure and nature-based solutions
• Future planning, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), and lifecycle assessment models
• Engineering advances that deliver wider project benefits
• Translating research and development into practice
• Digital approaches to project delivery
• Operations and asset management that deliver co-benefits for liveability and sustainability
• Frameworks for asset decision making that go beyond financial metrics
• Managing digital assets alongside traditional infrastructure
• Predictive maintenance and asset management using innovative practices, data analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Delivering infrastructure to support population growth and housing supply
• Optimising investment through risk-based asset decision making

The world of CX (Customer Experience) is rapidly evolving and the links between CX and business sustainability are becoming stronger. As custodians of a precious resource, and as an industry that delivers an essential service to customers every day, how are we engaging with the community to deliver information, education and excellent service? The water industry services many different types of water users (including the environment) and as community expectations continue to evolve, embracing CX strategies and technologies will be crucial.

• Building trust in essential water services
• Purified recycled water and productive, safe community conversations
• Understanding different customers and stakeholders, including developers, citizens and the environment
• Understanding customer behaviour, attitudes and expectations
• Designing experiences and services for different customer groups
• Understanding value and willingness to pay
• Affordability, vulnerability and equitable service delivery
• Championing the voice of the customer in decision making and strategy
• Community education, water literacy and behaviour change
• Using digital technologies to improve customer experiences and engagement
• Creating customer-centric operations and service teams
• Community acceptance of emerging water solutions

People are the essence of the water sector.

Building a thriving, inclusive, and resilient workforce has never mattered more. This theme explores how organisations are embedding equity, inclusion and wellbeing across strategy, operations and culture.

A diverse and inclusive workforce is shown to be a more productive workforce with both tangible and intangible benefits including improved community relations and more creative ideas. The water sector also plays an important role in driving greater diversity, inclusion and equity across the community, including through achieving liveability and access outcomes for all.

• Workforce wellbeing and the psychological, emotional, intellectual and social health of employees
• Cultural transformation across behaviours, perceptions and capabilities
• Supporting the LGBTIQ+ community
• Understanding how diverse water knowledge, values and expectations influence practice and decision making
• Diversifying leadership across gender, First Peoples, age, cultural background and ability
• Fostering diversity and inclusion across organisations, supply chains and service delivery
• Addressing unconscious bias and creating inclusive workplaces
• Equitable access to safe water and sanitation in Australia and internationally
• Change management and building agile organisations
• Creating healthy, safe and psychologically supportive workplaces
• Building a flexible, adaptive and resilient workforce
• Building the workforce of the future
• Workforce capability in an increasingly digital industry
• Leadership development at all career stages
• Attraction, retention and succession planning

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities continue to experience systemic water inequity, and improvements are necessary to elevate First Peoples to decision-making roles in water planning and management. How do we move beyond engagement to co-decision making? By elevating the voices of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people, we can reflect on the past to recognise and value traditional responsibility for land and water. We can then build constructive and positive future partnerships for sustainable water management. What are examples of successful engagement of First Peoples in water management globally? What do we still need to learn and how do we learn?

We invite submissions led by, or developed in partnership with, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander water rights and cultural flows assessments
• First Peoples leadership and involvement in water sector programs
• Surface water and groundwater planning that addresses environmental flows and cultural entitlements
• First Peoples participation in water governance and decision making
• First Peoples insights on regulatory and policy change
• Community engagement and knowledge sharing across the Murray-Darling Basin
• Reconciliation Action Plans in practice
• First Peoples leadership in the delivery of water projects
• Caring for Country, culture and people through contemporary water management, stories, case studies and projects
• Co-designing water projects with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
• Embedding and respecting Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) rights
• Partnerships that create enduring outcomes for communities

Leadership, best-practice governance and future-ready regulation are critical to a resilient water sector. This theme explores how institutions, frameworks and leaders are shaping bold, fair, and adaptive pathways forward.

We’re seeking case studies and strategies on enabling innovation, balancing risk, integrating ESG, and aligning water, land use and financial policy. Who is leading well, and how are regulations evolving to keep up with a fast-changing world?

• Contemporary business practice that leads or outpaces regulation and policy
• Examples of effective governance in practice
• Enabling innovation through the operating and regulatory environment
• Collaboration in a competitive environment
• Best practice in policy, regulation, risk and opportunity management
• Technology and innovation shaping governance, policy and regulation
• Integrated decision making across governance and management boundaries
• Water pricing and valuation
• Economic and governance models that support private sector participation
• Taking a long-term regulatory view during periods of financial pressure
• Enabling water-sensitive cities through policy and governance
• Climate-related reporting
• Integrating water and land use planning
• Using ESG and sustainability frameworks to drive organisational outcomes
• Organisational transformation, adaptive leadership and long-term resilience

The water sector plays a vital role in the health of the community, both directly and indirectly. Most evident in the past has been the health and safety benefits from safe drinking water, sewerage services and flood protection. The water industry also has an essential role to play in improving the built and natural environment of our communities and this is becoming an increased focus for the industry. What action is being taken to secure and safeguard the future health of people and the environment?

• Protecting and monitoring environmental values in receiving environments
• Catchment management for healthy waterways
• Emerging contaminants of concern, including PFAS, microplastics and lead
• Health-based targets and their implementation
• Progress towards clean water and sanitation SDGs in Australia and internationally
• Risk-based catchment management to protect source water quality
• Risk assessment for protozoa, viruses and climate-driven microbial risks
• Adoption and implementation of World Health Organisation (WHO) drinking water standards
• Wastewater overflows and other environmental impacts
• Fit-for-purpose water supply
• Maintaining community trust and confidence in drinking water and environmental health
• The role of water quantity and quality in supporting healthy environments
• Community involvement in defining health, wellbeing and environmental outcomes
• Measuring the public health, wellbeing and environmental value of water-sector interventions
• One Health, biodiversity and innovative environmental monitoring

The transition to a circular economy is reshaping the way the water sector manages resources, infrastructure and the environment. From recovering water, energy and nutrients to reducing emissions and regenerating natural systems, the sector has a critical role to play in creating more sustainable and resilient communities. Water sits at the nexus of waste, energy, agriculture and manufacturing, and Australia’s national target of doubling circularity by 2035 cannot be met by any sector working alone.

This theme explores how innovation, policy, partnerships and technology are enabling circular economy outcomes across the entire water cycle. We invite submissions that demonstrate practical implementation, emerging technologies and new approaches to biosolids management, resource recovery, decarbonisation and creating value from water and wastewater.

• Co-digestion and organic waste-to-energy
• Water recycling and fit-for-purpose reuse
• Nutrient recovery and emerging resource recovery opportunities
• Biosolids management, treatment, beneficial reuse and the development of sustainable end markets
• Emerging biosolids treatment technologies and contaminants of emerging concern
• Recovery of valuable resources, including biogas, biochar, biopolymers and other emerging products
• Decarbonising wastewater and resource recovery systems
• Energy recovery and low-carbon treatment solutions
• Circular economy business models, investment and partnerships
• Building community confidence and market acceptance for recovered resources
• Policy, regulation and governance that enable circular economy outcomes
• Supporting the net-zero transition through carbon-positive water services
• Innovation in treatment plant operations, distribution systems and resource recovery
• Regenerating natural capital and improving environmental outcomes through integrated water management
• Biosolids strategy, regulation, risk management and pathways to long-term beneficial use

Climate change is reshaping the way the water sector plans, operates and invests. As droughts, floods, fires and other extreme events become more frequent and severe, the sector must adapt, build resilience and continue delivering safe, reliable services in an increasingly uncertain future.

This theme explores how organisations are responding to climate risk through adaptation, resilience, preparedness and innovation. We invite practical case studies, lessons learned and forward-looking approaches that strengthen communities, infrastructure and water systems.

• Climate adaptation planning and implementation across the water sector
• Building organisational resilience to climate impacts and system shocks
• Emergency management, incident response and disaster recovery
• Adaptive pathways, scenario planning and decision making under uncertainty
• Infrastructure planning for drought, flood, fire, sea level rise and other climate impacts
• Climate risk assessment, disclosure and resilience planning
• Demand management and diversified responses during drought and water shortages
• Digital technologies supporting climate adaptation, forecasting and operational resilience
• Flood resilience through integrated water management
• Climate adaptation across wastewater, stormwater and water supply systems
• Applying First Peoples knowledge to strengthen climate adaptation and resilience
• Lessons from Australia and internationally that can improve climate resilience
• Strengthening community resilience through water services and partnerships

Cities, towns, catchments and basins around the world are increasingly facing water availability challenges. To confront these issues, take action and build resilience to climate change, there is a need to learn from the experiences of others, transform the ways we work together, and develop new approaches to plan and manage water systems and water resources.

• Adaptive and integrated planning to deliver water for people and the environment
• Risk identification, monitoring, evaluation and performance review
• Equitable water security and resilience outcomes
• Total water cycle management
• Integrating town water solutions with river basin, stormwater and groundwater management
• Communication, engagement and community participation
• Governance and regulatory challenges
• Advances in water resource, catchment and basin management
• Digital solutions for resilience and water security
• International approaches and lessons for Australia
• Water security challenges in developing countries, including the Pacific
• Diversified water portfolios, including reuse, efficiency, desalination and alternative water sources
• Long-term planning and adaptive pathways under uncertainty
• Balancing affordability, sustainability and resilience
• Processes to deliver secure, sustainable and resilient water supplies

The provision of water, drainage and sanitation services in these areas can have some additional challenges and opportunities for action. Beyond just the provision of water and sanitation services, water management in rural, remote and regional areas often intersects with agriculture, viticulture, the mining sector and ecosystem services. As water crosses boundaries, and industries, what action is being taken for a more collaborative future that ensures thriving rural, remote & regional communities across Australia? How are the impacts of current environmental pressures being addressed with an ever-growing list of competing priorities to ensure resilience for future generations?

• Climate impacts and innovative solutions addressing water quantity and quality
• Climate-smart and regenerative agriculture
• Ecosystem outcomes from rural, remote and regional water management
• Water allocation regulation, environmental water and long-term river health
• Water for liveability in regional towns
• Safe and reliable sewerage for unsewered and remote communities
• Remote operational monitoring, control and data analysis
• Adaptive and innovative service delivery in rural, remote and regional areas
• Staffing, workforce attraction and capability in regional Australia
• Water efficiency through digital tools and education
• Cross-border investment and alignment between governments
• Water storage and groundwater use
• International support for rural and remote communities to access safe water supplies
• Partnerships supporting regional resilience
• Delivering sustainable services in small and remote communities

 Each year we receive submissions that don't quite fit under any of the sub-themes, which is why we have the wildcard category. It's submissions like these that remind us of the need to think outside the box to solve our water challenges.