How to Use this Guide

Overview

Purpose

The Purpose of this Guide is to help practitioners prepare Green Infrastructure Asset Management Plans (AMPs) in a structured, evidence-based and practical way. It is a working guide for preparing an AMP to support the sustainable, service-based delivery of green infrastructure.

Core principle

Use the Guide as a workflow

The Guide sets out the nine steps required to prepare an AMP. Each Step produces evidence, decisions and writing outputs that feed the next Step.

Use the pages in sequence when preparing the AMP. Reference pages, tools, templates and examples are provided to support the development of the AMP.

How the online Guide is organised

The online platform has four main layers:

How the Guide is organised
Layer	Purpose
Start Here	Introduces the Guide, the first-cycle AMP pathway and where to begin.
Foundations	Explains the concepts needed to use the method well, including why GI is different, service potential, data confidence and financial/value reasoning.
3×3 Framework	Shows the full method: three phases and nine Steps for preparing the AMP.
Detailed Step pages	Provide the implementation guidance, tables, checks, examples and AMP-writing support for each Step.

Using the Guide

Start with the structure

Before entering the detailed Step pages, it is essential to first understand the structure of the Guide.

The Foundations explain the core concepts. The 3×3 Framework lays out the whole workflow. The left-hand navigation then lets you move through the Guide in sequence.

This matters because the Guide is not organised simply by topic. It is organised around the practitioner workflow needed to prepare an AMP.

Work through the Steps in sequence

The nine Steps are designed to be followed in order.

Each Step creates information that the next Step depends on. Step 1 establishes the asset register. Step 2 assesses current condition and performance. Step 3 defines Levels of Service. Later Steps use that evidence to forecast demand, plan lifecycle responses, test scenarios, quantify costs, prepare the financial strategy and monitor improvement.

Implementation chain

Assets → performance → Levels of Service → demand → lifecycle strategy → scenarios → costs and benefits → financial strategy → monitoring

You may move quickly through a Step if the data is simple or already available. You may need more detailed work where the asset class is complex, the decision is significant or the data is weak. The sequence should remain stable even when the level of detail varies.

Use each Step to write the AMP

Each Step page includes a “Writing Your AMP” section showing how that Step’s outputs become the matching AMP chapter. AMP Writing Overview gives the full Step-to-chapter writing map.

Use available data and record confidence

The Guide is designed to work with the information currently available to the organisation.

Many councils begin preparation of the AMP with incomplete registers, mixed condition data, uncertain unit rates or limited benefit evidence. That does not prevent a first-cycle AMP from being prepared. It does mean the AMP must be realistic about the confidence level of data, assumptions made and limitations acknowledged.

Where data is limited or flow reliability, record the limitation and convert it into an improvement action. This improves the credibility of the AMP and provides for continuous improvement.

Use Optional Extensions only when useful

Some Steps may include Optional Extensions for more advanced analysis. These may include deeper modelling, formal scoring methods, sensitivity analysis, detailed financial treatment or integration with specialist systems.

Optional Extensions are not essential for a useful first-cycle AMP, but they can improve decisions for subsequent updates of the AMP. Do not delay the AMP because every optional method is not yet possible.

Using the platform

The left-hand navigation shows the main structure of the Guide and allows you to move between Start Here, Foundations, the 3×3 Framework and the detailed Steps.

Use it to keep your place in the overall workflow. The left-hand navigation remains at Guide and Step level. It does not expand into every internal heading within a Step page.

The right-hand navigation shows the main headings within the page you have open.

Use it to move around long pages without losing your place. On detailed Step pages, it helps you move between the main parts of the guidance, such as the overview, method and completion sections.

Use the Planning Model and examples as support

The Planning Model and worked examples help to prepare the AMP and its inputs. Use them alongside the Step pages so that the practical outputs remain connected to the reasoning, assumptions and decisions behind them.

For example, the Planning Model's Step 1 helps you build the asset register, but the Step 1 page explains why the fields matter, how confidence should be recorded and how the register feeds later Steps.

Use Foundations as reference pages

The Foundations Overview pages explain concepts that recur across the Guide. These include service potential, data confidence, why GI is different from conventional grey infrastructure, and how financial and value reasoning should be treated.

When a Step relies on one of these concepts, the relevant Foundation page can provide the deeper explanation. This keeps the Step pages focused on the work while still giving access to the underlying reasoning.

Before you begin

Choose the asset class

Begin with one GI asset class. The Practice Guide recommends preparing a standalone AMP for each GI asset class, such as one AMP for urban trees and a separate AMP for constructed wetlands. This keeps the scope clear, the register manageable, the lifecycle costs specific and the service levels auditable.

Choose an asset class that is material to service delivery, risk, public value or organisational need. Urban trees, wetlands, raingardens, biofilters, remnant bushland, coastal assets or green roofs may all be appropriate depending on the council context.

Portfolio-level aggregation of asset classes is carried out later, particularly through Step 8, where cost forecasts and funding requirements are consolidated for the Long-Term Financial Plan and corporate reporting.

Where a council prefers service-based or integrated infrastructure plans, the same framework can still be used as a structured GI module within that broader plan, provided the asset class, service objectives, cost responsibilities and data confidence remain clear.

Set up the AMP Preamble

Before writing the technical chapters, set up the AMP Preamble to provide document control and set out assumptions, limitations and the executive summary.

Use the AMP Preamble starter structure on the Start Here page as your initial template. The AMP Writing section will later provide fuller drafting guidance.

Do not finalise the executive summary until after the nine chapters have been prepared.

Prepare your working files

Before starting Step 1, create a simple working folder for the AMP.

At minimum, prepare:

a working AMP document;
a blank spreadsheet or working file for the asset register you will begin building in Step 1;
a folder for source data;
a folder for tables, figures and maps;
an assumptions and data confidence log;
and a running improvement action list.

These do not need to be elaborate but they must be organised, traceable and easy to update as the AMP develops.

Move to Foundations

After reading this section, move to Core Foundations to understand the concepts that support the method.

Then continue to the 3×3 Framework to see how the nine Steps fit together before beginning Step 1.

Next sequence

How to Use this Guide → Core Foundations → 3×3 Framework → Step 1

Continue the Guide

Create a free account to access the Core Foundations and 3×3 Framework.

The public pages explain how the Guide works. A free account lets you continue into the Core Foundations and 3×3 Framework before deciding whether your organisation needs implementation access.

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