Community survey
Results Released
Healthy Waterways have released the final report for the results of a community survey that was conducted to benchmark awareness and attitudes towards waterway health issues in South East Queensland.
For a copy of the final report, please contact Healthy Waterways.
Over 3,700 South East Queensland residents completed the online survey in March 2010. The survey was commissioned by the SEQ Healthy Waterways Partnership and conducted by the Institute of Social Science Research at the University of Queensland.
Key findings include:
Ranking of factors that people believe impact negatively on the water quality and health of waterways in SEQ:
- #1 Rubbish and litter
- #2 Pollution in stormwater runoff from urban areas
- #3 Pollution from industry
- Although ‘pollution in stormwater runoff from urban areas’ was marked 2nd, ‘sediment from construction sites’ came 7th.
While there is a sense that waterways aren’t optimally healthy, respondents do not seem confident to assess how ‘unhealthy’ waterways are.
- 48% marked neutral or unsure when asked about the current condition of waterways in SEQ
- 34% felt the overall health of waterways to be deteriorating
- 30% felt that the overall health of waterways was improving
- 22% marked that they did not know if water quality in Moreton Bay was getting better or worse.
Check out more key findings.
Further analysis
Healthy Waterways will undertake further analysis of the results including investigation of stakeholder differentiation in regard to geographics, socio-demographics, group membership, employment, knowledge, attitudes etc. This will assist in the development of strategically focused communication targeting particular groups, knowledge gaps and perceptions of water quality and ecosystem health.
The results can be analysed in relation to a specific council area where there was good representation (that is, an adequate number of people filled out the survey to be representative of the population) but this is dependent on requests and the commitment of further research funding. Also the survey included some specific questions for Brisbane, Gold Coast City, Ipswich, Moreton Bay Regional and Redland City Council areas.
For more information, please contact Healthy Waterways.
Background information
The results of this research will assist the development, implementation and evaluation of communication, education and motivation (CEM) activities undertaken by Partners to help achieve the Partnership's Vision.
Communication and education programs, especially those aimed at changing behaviour, need to be based on a good understanding of stakeholder characteristics as well as their communication/education needs. This research project will also build on past Healthy Waterways social and marketing research.
In June 2008 a scoping workshop was held with Partners to discuss social research that could support the implementation and evaluation of the SEQ Healthy Waterways Strategy 2007-2012.
Key recommendations from the workshop included:
- Review of Healthy Waterway’s communication tools and channels including a review of products generated by the Partnership Office such as fact sheets, the website and technical reports. (completed February 2009)
- Literature review of current social and attitudinal research relating to topic areas such as water sensitive urban design, diffuse and point source pollution and water litter, and a survey of Partner organisations to identify related CEM activities. (completed August 2009)
- Community survey on knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of waterway health issues. Survey questions have been developed collaboratively with Healthy Waterways Partners. The survey will be conducted online and promoted through Partners (February 2010)
Past Healthy Waterways Research
Below are reports from past market and communication research carried out for the SEQ Healthy Waterways Partnership.
- 1997 – South East Queensland Waterways Research: A Final Report (Reark Research) (5.5MB)
- 2001 – South East Queensland Healthy Waterways Campaign: Market Research Report (Centre for Social Science Research, Central Queensland University) (337KB)
- 2003 – Healthy Waterways Stakeholder Interviews (Three Plus Communications) (161KB)
- 2008 – Queensland Social Survey (Centre for Social Science Research, Central Queensland University)
- Final Sampling Report (726KB)
- Final Data tables (123KB)