WATER RESOURCES IN A CHANGING CLIMATE

26 July 2007

Dr Colin Grant, Executive Director, Australian Bureau of Rural Sciences (ABRS), presents an overview of the challenges facing Governments, utilities, businesses and farmers in the management of Australia's diminishing water resources in the context of global climate changes. In this talk, Dr Grant traces the evolution of our continent's climate, and shows how a risk management approach is being applied to water resources in a changing climate, and its likely impact on current farming, mining, rural practices.

THE FAILURE OF GOVERNANCE IN DELIVERING SUSTAINABLE WATER MANAGEMENT

27 September 2007

Mr Bob Wilson, Managing Director of the former Sydney Water Board, will address the reasons why governments have been so unprepared for the current water crisis. The failure of public sector governance systems for urban water resource management has resulted in long term water resource planning being overwhelmed by short-term so-called public sector efficiency. The former statutory authorities were corporate bodies which had legal status and commercial/technical expertise to undertake tasks set by organisation-specific legislation. Governance was achieved through a board whose charter was inscribed in legislation. Planning horizons were 20, 30 and 50 years. But all this changed in the 1970s as Governments created stronger regulatory regimes...

SECURING URBAN WATER SUPPLIES BY DESALINATION, RECYCLING & WATER HARVESTING

25 October 2007

Population growth, coupled with less predictable dam/reservoir yields, has accelerated the need to develop new sources of drinking water for our cities. These new water sources require careful planning in order to ensure future generations have reliable drinking water.

Associate Professor Greg Leslie, Deputy Director, UNESCO Centre for Membrane Science & Technology, UNSW, compares the desalination, recycling & water harvesting supply strategies of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane on the basis of their existing water/waste water infrastructures and the embedded/embodied energy associated with these diversified supply options, and how well they satisfy the criteria of minimising both energy consumption and the attendant emissions/environmental constraints.

THE GROWTH IN WATER REUSE WORLDWIDE

29 November 2007

John Anderson, former Technical Director of the NSW Department of Commerce and Convener of the Australian Water Association Recycling Network (AWARN), talks on how we need to adapt to Climate Change through water savings and reuse.

John recently attended the 6th International Water Association Specialist Conference on "Water Reclamation and Reuse for Sustainability" in Belgium, for which he was a member of the Conference Advisory Committee, Chairman of the 'Risk Management' Technical Session, and where he presented a paper on "Adapting to Climate Change With Water Savings and Reuse". His presentation provides an up-to-date overview of water recycling and reuse around the world.

GROUNDWATER USE & MANAGEMENT

27 March 2008

Water policy in Australia is undergoing substantial reform. Many aquifers are over-committed, and active programs are being introduced to reduce farmer entitlements to groundwater, with serious social and economic ramifications. As our rivers/dams dry up, attention has focussed on the role of groundwater in augmenting Sydney's water supply. Although portrayed as a "silver bullet", in reality it is only a marginal source of water for Sydney.

Associate Professor Noel Merrick, Director of the National Centre for Groundwater Management, UTS, provides an overview of groundwater principles, its importance relative to surface water, and the problems that can result from poor groundwater management. The presentation includes some comments on the Kangaloon Aquifer as a viable source of water.

MURRAY-DARLING BASIN: A BRIEF STUDY

24 April 2008

When severe droughts occur, it is a time of challenge and opportunity for water management in the Murray-Darling Basin. The presentation includes: a brief history of water sharing, storage and management in the Murray-Darling Basin; a description of some of the major current programs being conducted by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission (e.g. the Living Murray, which aims to improve the health of internationally significant sites along the River Murray through an investment of almost $1 billion); and an overview of changes and opportunities in the light of recent decisions by the Council of Australian Governments.

Dr Lindsay White is senior manager of a project reviewing past and present operations of the River Murray system, which will have significant input into the future Basin Plan. Dr White has worked for the Commission as a staff member and consultant over the last 11 years. His previous roles have been in coordinating the recovery of water for the environment from investments in infrastructure and in water purchases in the market, and as a river operator who made instructions to release water out of storages. He has a PhD in fish-ways, as well as degrees in engineering and economics.

ABC 7:30 REPORT ON DESALINATION

4 July 2007

Critics Slam NSW, Vic Desalination Schemes: Last month Victoria and New South Wales announced they would be following Western Australia in building desalination plants, saying the risk of climate change makes the so-called water factories a necessity. But there have been protests against the plan in Sydney, while in Victoria, critics have raised questions about its viability after comments by a key bureaucrat that its plant could be closed in a decade if there was heavy rainfall.