Sydney Water Engineering Panel

Scrivener Dam: Assessing Dam Safety through Physical Modelling

The next Water Panel webinar is schedule for 4:00pm on Wednesday 30 September and is free for EA members but pre-registration is required.

Scrivener Dam is a critical piece of Canberra’s infrastructure, maintaining water levels of the iconic Lake Burley Griffin. Like all dams in Australia, it requires regular maintenance and assessment to ensure ongoing safe operation.

A recent inspection identified potential for undesirable uplift forces under the stilling basin slab, triggering a more detailed assessment of dam stability. This included a 1:40 scale physical model by the UNSW Water Research Laboratory (WRL) for the National Capital Authority. The model was used to measure water dynamics for the dam at critical flood conditions, with a focus on dynamic pressures within the stilling basin.

This presentation will discuss findings and the unique advantages and limitations of physical hydraulic modelling. It will be streamed live from WRL and includes a live demonstration of model flows.

This event will be co-presented by WRL’s Dr Laura Montano and Ben Modra.

We have a PDF available with full details.

Are we still lossed about Losses?

The next Panel presentation will be delivered online via WebEx on Tuesday 14th July 2020 starting at 5pm sharp. Event is free for EA Members but pre-registration is required.

It is expected that as temperatures increase, extreme precipitation will increase resulting in more severe flooding. However, in Australia, there is significant evidence of decreasing flood maxima, despite increases in extreme rainfall.

This online webinar will explore changes in flood timing and magnitude from the AWRA-L. The result is a ‘worst of both worlds’ scenario whereby the rare flood events that are used in design of infrastructure are increasing, but smaller events, critical for water supply and dam storage are decreasing.

Australian Water School Hosting Free ARR Webinar

What’s new with Australian Rainfall and Runoff 2019

July 8th, 2020 01:00 PM Sydney Time

For the first time in 30 years Australian Rainfall and Runoff (ARR) has been updated, learn about new developments and how to access the data hub.

Hosted by Mark Babister, Managing Director of WMAwater and co-editor of the Australian Rainfall and Runoff guidelines.

Guidelines for the Maintenance of Stormwater Treatment Measures

We are pleased to announce that the next presentation is titled Introduction to the Guidelines for the Maintenance of Stormwater Treatment Measures and is co-hosted by Stormwater NSW. It is scheduled for:

6pm 17^th March 2020
PSA House Auditorium
160 Clarence Street
Sydney

The event is free for EA and SNSW members, but we really prefer pre-registration so that we can manage numbers for the venue.

Call for Abstracts for HIWE2020

The first call for abstracts for the 2020 Hydraulics in Water Engineering is now live. Please check out all the details on the conference website and, to be nice to the organisers, submit an abstract early.

Video Posted From Palaeoclimate and Drought Presentation

Thanks to the presenters we have posted the video of the presentation on our YouTube Channel, or check it out right here:

Managing droughts and water security – getting maximum value from palaeoclimate records

Introduction

The next panel presentation, which is incredibly relevant to the current drought, is scheduled for:

26th November 2019
BoM Elizabeth Street Office
Register/Network from 5:30pm
Formal Start: 6:00pm

We already have a lot of interest for this so please ensure that you pre-register to ensure your place.

Abstract

Droughts cause significant problems in Australia. However, we still do not know the true chance of a drought occurring or how reliable existing infrastructure is for dealing with current and future drought impacts. This talk (i) summarises recent research that demonstrates how drought risk changes due to multidecadal climate variability and (ii) discusses the implications of this for water management, policy and infrastructure.

Slides and Video From Drones in Water Engineering

It has taken a while for our backend systems to catch up but all three presenters have submitted their slides in PDF format and the video from the BoM conference facility is live on YouTube, check it out via the embed below or watch it natively on YouTube.

The three presentation slides are:

Heights and UAVs, Dr Craig Roberts
Harnessing drones for water engineering, Chris Drumond
Water Sampling Drone, Tim Hill

Drones and Remote Sensing in Water Engineering

The next Panel presentation will be deliver by three highly skilled operators and managers that have extensive experience in the deployment and analysis of drones in Water Engineering. We are being hosted by the Bureau of Metereology at their Elizabeth Street facility on 27th August 2019. Free for members ($30 for non-EA or BoM) but please pre-register and check out the PDF flyer for all the details.

Drone on landing pad in coastal wetland (courtesy Chris Drummong, UNSW WRL). — Drone on landing pad in coastal wetland (courtesy Chris Drummond, UNSW WRL).

Congratulations to the NCWE Student Scholarship Winners

Congratulations to the NCWE Student Scholarship Awards, in alphabetical order:

Nicholas Klein
Mitchell Knox
Amber Smith

They are pictured here with Brendan Berghout of the Kuczera Symposium Organising Committee.