New resources to help boost community water literacy

Improving water literacy was a key focus for the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities, but gaps remain. So, Water Sensitive Cities Australia worked with the Monash Climate Change Research Communication Hub and partners in Perth and Melbourne to develop and test practical recommendations on building water literacy through community engagement. 

This project produced several outputs:

Practical advice on building water literacy

This guidance note for industry provides practical evidence-based recommendations to help the water sector improve community water literacy. 

The guidance is presented in 4 sections to assist in planning and delivering activities to build water literacy:

1. Planning your campaign—e.g. Know your audience, Have clear water literacy goals
2. Designing your campaign—e.g. Be engaging, Get the framing right
3. Delivering your campaign—e.g. Respect sensitivities, Choose the right channels
4. Evaluating your campaign—e.g. What to evaluate, How to evaluate.

Building community water literacy technical report

The industry guidance for building community water literacy was based on a mixed methods research project to develop and test practical recommendations. 

The project involved 4 stages:

1. Conducting a rapid literature review of technical reports developed by the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities to identify and collate recommendations about building community water literacy 
2. Developing draft guidance based on those recommendations
3. Conducting 2 pilots—one in Perth and one in Melbourne—to test the guidance, undertaken by the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub 
4. Finalising the guidance. 

The project technical report outlines the project approach, the set up and findings from the pilots, and the implications for the final guidance.

Water for wellbeing information packs

The project produced graphical elements summarising key water-related messages for different urban contexts:

• Parks and natural areas
• suburban homes
• sports grounds
• urban centres
• summary graphic that combines all contexts. 

These graphical elements were tailored for each trial:

• Melbourne Water for wellbeing – Info pack
• Perth Water for wellbeing – Info pack

These info packs and posters are free to share, adapt and co-brand for non-commercial purposes. You may add your organisation’s logo and make minor edits to suit your needs. Please keep the #waterwellbeing reference and Monash University logo and acknowledge the original source: Monash University.