ID: 1982
Presenting Author: Ruth O'Connor
Session: 678 - Advancing government approaches to effective science communication in Impact Assessment
Status: pending
This presentation explores the role of science communication in building a social licence for the new infrastructure required to meet future water demand in Sydney, Australia.
This presentation explores the role of science communication in building a social licence for new water supply infrastructure in Australia’s largest city. Like other cities around the world, Sydney faces water shortages as its population grows and water inflows to dams decrease due to climate change. One solution to water supply that is being pursued is Purified Recycled Water (PRW) because, unlike existing dam infrastructure, it is rainfall independent. However, adoption of PRW has a chequered history of implementation in Australia because of public backlash, politicisation and misinformation. In recognition of these challenges Sydney Water is seeking to incrementally build “water literacy” and public acceptance of water reform via a suite of communications and public education. Our analysis suggests that beyond awareness of why investment is needed and how the technologies work, communication creates transparency which is critical to trust in the implementing agency. Applying a social licence lens to this issue also revealed that communication and engagement must be designed in recognition of the different forms of acceptance or licence required for successful project implementation and reform. For Sydney to achieve water sustainability acceptance is needed of a) the need for change b) the cost of that change, and c) the solutions such as PRW. Importantly, a political licence is also required. A political licence may be built directly through communication and engagement or by demonstrating community acceptance.
Dr Ruth O’Connor is a social scientist whose work focuses on how participatory processes can achieve positive societal outcomes and how those processes can be meaningfully evaluated.