Stormwater Management

A swollen river rushes beneath a stone bridge with a cross.

Stormwater is rainwater which does not soak into the ground, and instead travels into drains, pipes and creeks and across hard surfaces such as driveways, paths and roofs.

Much of this water enters one of Council's 23,000 drainage pits before being conveyed underground along some of the 543km of piped drains across the City of Parramatta.

This water, along with all the pollutants it has picked up, is eventually transported into the 65km of natural creeks or 13.4km of open channel that form the lifeblood of our catchment.

From here, most of the stormwater ends up in Parramatta River, and then Sydney Harbour. Council’s approach to stormwater asset management is outlined in its Stormwater Asset Management Plan 2025-2034(PDF, 2MB).

Stormwater pollutant traps across the City

Council has installed a range of pollution control devices across the City of Parramatta to help reduce the amount of litter, sediment and organic pollution entering our waterways. These devices include:

  • Rain gardens and/or bio-filtration systems to further improve stormwater quality within urban streetscapes, parks and town centres.
  • Gross pollutant traps (GPTs) which collect litter from the stormwater system.

There are more than 58 of these traps and they are the last chance to catch litter before it ends up in our waterways, and therefore impacts marine life and water quality.

Council’s catchment team has also started a new project to determine what is causing the litter in the upstream catchment. Results will help them identify sources of pollution and measures to help clean our waterways.

For more information on GPTs see our Gross Pollutant Trap project page.

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