Exploring transdisciplinary practice in local government

Connecting people and creating new understandings and relationships are essential for Water Sensitive Cities. Despite the broad academic commentary calling for more transdisciplinarity, it is unclear how it looks like in practice and what people and organisations do to realize more effective environmentaloutcomes. The aim of this paper is to explore transdisciplinary practices within the Australian local government context. The analysis largely draws upon scientific literature, and synthesizes the research highlighting the contextual factors of idealized transdisciplinarity and its relation to a typology of varying organisational dynamics at the local scale. While organizational commitment, participatory leadership and practice networks influence transdisciplinary practices, it is clear that transdisciplinary professional development and associated forms of social learning are crucial for facilitating transdisciplinarity.