Sydney Water Engineering Panel

Funding for Local Infrastructure Projects in California

The Australian section of the ASCE is hosting its regular free Sydney Summer Lecture series again this year with Jeff Cooper visiting. Jeff is the Director of Municipal Services with NV5 which is a provider of engineering and consulting services to public and private sector clients as well as being the ASCE Region 9 Governor, that is for California.

In this lecture, Jeff Cooper will speak on funding local infrastructure projects in California in the USA. Due to taxing limitations, communities often need to get creative in funding projects. The presentation discusses the challenges, the options and the ways to be successful in funding projects. In addition, 3 specific projects will be presented: Undergrounding Overhead Utility Districts; Street Light Improvement Districts; Sewer fees for improvements and maintenance.

Details
5 for 5:30pm
Thursday 15th November 2018
Cardno Conference Room
Level 9, 203 Pacific Highway
St Leonards NSW 2065

Also available online: https://cardno.zoom.us/j/2572627660

RSVP
If you plan to attend in person or remotely then please:
Email Kitty Kan at: [email protected] Or call her on Telephone +61 2 9496 7700
By Wednesday 14 November 2018.

Printable Flyer
A printable PDF flyer is available for download.

Fish Passage Presentation Slides

Thanks to the support of our presenters we have been able to post PDF copies of their slides for your information:

John Haris: pres01-Harris.pdf
Martin Mallen-Cooper: pres02-MallenCooper.pdf
Matthew Gordos: pres03-Gordos.pdf

It was an interesting presentation with a great turn out.

Videos From Fish Passage Posted

We’ve now posted the videos from the fish passage presentation in August. There was some audio problems but these should be manageable. PDFs of the presentation slides will be posted shortly.

Check out all three videos on our YouTube channel.

ARR2016 User Survey

This post is on behalf of a researcher at UNSW.

We would like to invite you to complete a survey on how Australian Rainfall and Runoff (2016) is being used and implemented. This research is being completed by UNSW honours research student Michele Guild and supervised by Dr Fiona Johnson. We are interested in the opportunities, barriers and limitations that are facing professional engineers in using ARR2016. If you use ARR we would appreciate you taking the survey. The consent and participant information form for the survey can be accessed via the survey directly https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RHC78TM or downloaded from http://www.hydrology.unsw.edu.au/survey-on-australian-rainfall-runoff-2016

Hydraulics of Fishways

Fishways for Engineers

When: 1st August 2018, 5:30pm for 6pm
Where: PSA Auditorium (see map below)
CPD: 2 hours
RSVP: Online at EA
Cost: $0 for EA members, $30 otherwise
Printable Flyer: Available for download

This presentation will be delivered in three parts followed by a Q&A style session with all three presenters. Across the three sections of this talk we will cover:

A brief overview of the biological issues surronding fishways as well as the critical need to include these structures in all water management plans and designs – particularly to be included at the early project conception stages.
The high capital and maintenance costs of fishways and how smart engineering solutions based on a detailed understanding of the biological needs of different species can, and is, bringing these costs down as well as improving performance.
An overview of the hydraulics classification of fishway structures including rock ramp, vertical slot, fish lock and other fishways.
Presentation of recent collaborative field trials by the Department of Primary Industries and UNSW WRL and their immediate application to design standards

Fishway Design and Example Montage (©NSW Department of Primary Industris, ABC News)

Speakers

Dr Matthew Gordos, Visiting Fellow John Harris and Dr Martin Mallen-Cooper

This presentation will be delivered in three parts. Dr Gordos is the Senior Manager – Fish Passage Unit and the Department of Primary Industries – Fisheries. John Harris is a visiting professor at the University of NSW and Dr Mallen-Cooper of Fishway Consulting Services. All three presenters have unique experience of both the research and practical applications of fish ladders and hydraulics as well as their design and implementation.

Venue Map

Scientia Scholarship at WRL

Prestigious Scientia PhD Scholarship at UNSW Water Research Laboratory now available in project “An innovative fishway to restore migration for freshwater fish”

The Scientia Scholarship program is a prestigious program attracting PhD scholars of exceptional quality to work on selected cutting edge research projects. The stipend is A$40K per year with a further A$10K per year available for career development and international collaborations. The tuition fees are also covered for international applicants.

In a cross-disciplinary project, the supervisor team of WRL’s Dr Stefan Felder, Adjunct A/Prof William Peirson and Prof Richard Kingsford from UNSW’s Faculty of Science have combined their expertise to progress an innovative fishway to restore migration for freshwater fish.

Fish are the most threatened of freshwater vertebrates. Internationally, fish populations have declined 76% over the past 40 years. A primary contributor to this loss are dams obstructing migrations critical to many fish life-cycles. UNSW scientists and engineers have developed an innovative fishway to restore migrations over high dams. The project builds on successful fish attraction trials as well as numerical and physical modelling. The study will move to larger scale, optimising fishway design by large-scale experiments with live fish. The objective is a final design to restore fish passage to previously obstructed river systems internationally.

Due to its interdisciplinarity, the project is open for HDR candidates from a range of disciplines within Science and Engineering. While it will be beneficial that the HDR candidate has some understanding and background of either ecology or applied fluid mechanics, the diverse expertise of the project team will ensure that the HDR will receive adequate training in a range of areas relevant to the project. The project will be mostly experimental and the HDR will be based at the UNSW Water Research Laboratory. The HDR candidate would need to be self-driven, motivated and willing to learn new project-related knowledge from both engineering and ecology.

The deadline for prospective applicants to express their interest on this research project is 20 July 2018.

Further information and the expression of interest link are available online.

Application of Australian Rainfall and Runoff (ARR2016) in Urban Areas Workshop

The ARR Urban Book workshop with the editors is now live for registration.

1:00pm – 5:00pm, Monday 7 May 2018
Engineers Australia, Level 31, 600 Bourke St, Melbourne, Victoria

This is an optional pre-conference workshop as part of the Climate Adaptation Conference taking place in Melbourne from 8-10 May 2018. Special pricing has been arranged for delegates and EA Members:

$200 EA members and/or delegates
$250 All others

This afternoon workshop will be presented by the editors and authors of Book 9 of ARR and will cover the philosophy and application of ARR in Urban catchments. The workshop will provide an overview of ARR and its application in urban areas. This workshop will include practical application via examples, open discussion and answers to questions. Importantly, this workshop is an opportunity for practitioners and ARR editors to discuss the objectives, the application and challenges of the new ARR Urban Book as part of completing the Book.

A printable PDF flyer is available for download.

Official ARR 2016 Training Announced

In conjunction with Engineers Education Australia the Water Panel is promoting the upcoming two-day ARR training events that are occurring in Sydney on 21/22 May 2018. Places are limited, and this is a paid event run by EEA, so check out the summary here but otherwise jump over to their site for full details.

Day One – Introduction and Update
Suitable for all professionals working within the water industry, Day One will deliver an overview of the ARR guidelines and tools, as well as the updates to best practice as detailed in the 2016 edition.

Day Two – Advanced Application
Designed for hydrologists and engineers working within water related fields, this workshop will detail how to practically apply the tools, techniques and software in ARR 2016.

Participants have the option to attend either Day One or Day Two, or the full workshop. Contact EEA to register for a single day.

A printable PDF flyer is also available for download.

Pumped Hydro Videos and PowerPoints

The Water Panel is excited to announce that we have launched our own YouTube channel with the inaugural content being the Pumped Hydro presentations from Andrew Blakers and Nick West. Please head over, check out the content and subscribe to receive updates.

Also, in conjunction, the presenters have kindly allowed us to post PDFs of their presentation:

The YouTube channel is new and if you have feedback we’d love to hear it. Please contact Peter Brady with comments and suggestions.

HWRS 2018 Call For Abstracts

Abstracts are invited for Engineers Australia’s Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium (HWRS 2018). The theme of the Symposium is “Water and Communities”.

If you wish to submit an abstract for consideration by the Technical Committee, you must also intend to register for the Symposium. Online submission is the only method of receipt of abstracts.

The deadline for abstract submission is Friday 20 April 2018.

Full details at: http://hwrs.com.au/call-for-abstracts/