New South Wales Sites
Sydney
Olympic Park, Homebush Bay, Sydney
artilce published Landscape Australia no 22 (3- 2000)
Developing Practical Constraints
Mapping at the Homebush BayOlympic Site
by Kate Hughes, Edwina Laginestra and Peter Daffern,
Ecology Programs, Olympic Co-ordination Authority
The Homebush Bay Olympic site was developed using ESD principles and provides an opportunity to showcase the benefits of constraints mapping.
The Homebush Bay Olympic site is an area of 750 hectares and comprises both natural and constructed landscapes. Sydney Olympic Park contains major Games venues whilst the adjacent Millennium Parklands include remediated and natural lands. The Parklands cover 450 hectares and include woodlands, wetlands, waterways and grasslands, as well as 120 hectares of remediated lands.
Four huge waste-consolidation mounds dominate this constructed landscape, a product of the Olympic Co-ordination Authority's remediation program. Five lesser mounds and four eyecatching Millennium Markers have also been created during the cleanup, which saw 9 million cubic metres of mixed waste retrieved from the wetlands and placed atop existing waste dumps.
Leachate management systems ensure that any contaminated liquid flowing from the landfills is captured and transported away for treatment.
Containing both remediated and more natural landscapes, the Parklands will always require hands-on management to maintain and enhance ecological and recreational values. To achieve this in a sensitive and responsible way, park managers require an accessible knowledge base about the area's industrial past and recent remediation projects. Preliminary constraints mapping shows how this knowledge can be delivered spatially and already represents a useful guide for Parkland managers.
In future, a Constraints Mapping System will provide one of the key Data Sets of the site Geographic Information System, now being developed as part of the Ecology Data Bank. The information compiled in the Data Bank will be a foundation of the Olympic environment legacy.
Land-use Constraints at Homebush Bay
When people visit the Millennium Parklands, there will, of necessity, be constraints upon their activities. Significant areas of natural landscape or heritage items require protection from human pressures and remediated mounds have defined management requirements to ensure the integrity of the clay, soil and vegetation capping. Protection of the health and safety of future visitors and workers to the `natural' areas also requires consideration.
There are four major Constraint Types, with minor types identified as relevant to the Homebush Bay site. Future management of the Parklands will aim to ensure recognition of these constraints and thereby provide a safe amenity for people and enhanced habitat for the area's impressive biodiversity.
