Sydney Water Engineering Panel

Maritime Panel: Half Day Seminar on Legislation and Impacts

The Institution of Engineers Australia – Sydney Division Maritime Panel in association with PIANC, present:

Half Day Seminar: Changes to NSW Coastal Protection Legislation and Implications for Coastal Protection in NSW

Session 1 – Policy and Legislation
Session 2 – Emergency Measures
Session 3 – Coastal Protection and the Courts

DATE & TIME: Monday 23 August 2010, 12:30pm start (Lunch provided from 12.00 noon) finishes 5:30pm.

VENUE: Engineers Australia Auditorium Ground Floor, 8 Thomas Street, Chatswood, NSW, 2067.

ENQUIRIES: Indra Jayewardene (Chair Maritime Panel 2010) Indra.Jayewardene@mhl.nsw.gov.au

Timetable and registration details can be found in the attached PDF. Please note payments can only be processed online.

Stealth Cameras to Catch Exclusion Zone Incursions

It appears that the State government has started to implement some tools of the information age to catch alleged waterway and restricted area violators. As originally reported by ABC online news.

Abstracts Extended for the IAHR2011 and Hydrology Symposium

The EA National Committee on Water Engineering has just announced that the deadline for submitting abstracts for the IAHR2011 and Hydrology Symposium has been extended to 6th August 2010.

The response to the call for abstracts has been very good, however we have received many requests for extensions and as a consequence the deadline has been extended to Friday 6 August 2010.

Short abstracts only are required, maximum 150 words. To submit your abstract electronically, visit www.iahr2011.org and select the “Call for abstracts” option.

Source: EA News Article.

Presentation: Bushfires Impacts on the Murray-Darling Basin

Ian White, Professor of Water Resources and Associate Director Research at ANU, will give the next Sydney Water Engineering Panel session on the impacts of bushfires on the upper Murray-Darling basin. This is scheduled for Tuesday July 27th 2010, 5:30 for 6pm at the EA Auditorium, Chatswood. Refreshments will be available prior to, and during, the event and RSVPs are not necessary.

Professor White’s major research focus is into the interactions of surface water with groundwater systems. His current research activities include the mitigation of land use impacts on catchment yield and water management policy development.

Abstract:

Analysis of the long term impacts of Victoria’s 1939 bushfires on Melbourne’s water supply catchments in the 1970’s revealed startling, long-term decreases in catchment yields as the burnt out mountain ash forests regenerated. It has been suggested that similar decreases in yield would occur in other native-forested water supply catchments in the Murray-Darling Basin. The January 2003 bushfires, which essentially burnt out all of Canberra’s near-pristine Cotter River water supply catchments provided an opportunity to study the impact of severe bushfires on catchments predominantly containing dry sclerophyll forests. This talk will examine the impacts of the 2003 wildfire and a smaller fire in 1983 on water quality and on catchment yield in forests that are different from Victoria’s mountain ash water supply catchments and will discuss reasons for the marked differences in responses. Analysis of results was complicated by the exceptionally dry period following the 2003 bushfires. Additionally, impacts of management decisions on water quality will also be highlighted.

For further details please contact Peter Brady (peter.brady@eng.uts.edu.au) or check out the PDF flyer.

Australian Engineering Week

Australian Engineering Week is currently scheduled for the first week of August 2010 and Engineers Australia are in the process of getting publicity out and asking for volunteers. If you are interested please see: www.makeitso.org.au for all the details.

National Climate Change Conference: Keynote Announcements

The National Conference Practical Responses to Climate Change is proud to confirm impressive keynote presentations from:

Dr Jaap Schellekens, Expert Advisor at Deltares, Netherlands
Dr Kevin Hennessy, Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Australia: Climate Change Science Update
Dr Francis Chiew, Senior Leader at CSIRO Land and Water, Australia: Climate Impact on Water Resources
Mr John Ginivan, Executive Director – Planning Policy at the Department of Planning and Community Development, Australia: Policy and Pragmatism in the Real World
Mr Angus Gordon, former CEO of Pittwater Council: Terror Australis – Local Government in Deepening Water
Mr Rob Skinner, Managing Director, Melbourne Water: Sustainable Cities of the Future

To view the full Conference program and register for the Conference please visit the website www.climatechange2010.org.

Early registration closes on Saturday 3 July 2010

34th IAHR Congress: Abstracts 15th July

The welcome letter from the congress chair is reproduced here with minor formatting changes:

The 34th Biennial Congress of the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR) will be held in Brisbane, Australia, 26 June to 1 July, 2011. The Congress theme “Balance and Uncertainty: Water in a Changing World” focuses on the central roles of hydraulic engineering, hydrology and water resources in our changing world and how these roles link to the broader issues. A balance is continually being sought between competing values in water engineering, including the environment, the economy, tourism, social and indigenous values, health aspects, aesthetics, and the needs of current and future generations.

The deadline for abstract submission is the 15 July 2010. Submit your abstract now!

To submit your abstract, visit www.iahr2011.org and select the “Call for abstracts” option. Once A full list of topics and themes is provided and you can quickly lodge your abstract using the on-line submission system. you submit an abstract, you will automatically receive updates. The notification of abstract will be early September and the deadline for full paper will be in October 2010. Each submitted paper will be peer-reviewed.

The congress is jointly organised by IAHR, Engineers Australia and its National Committee on Water Engineering. It will be held in conjunction with Australia’s two premier hydrology and hydraulic conferences:

the 33rd National Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium and
the 10th National Conference on Hydraulics in Water Engineering.

The integrated event will be attended by a wide range of international and Australasian academics, researchers, practitioners, regulators, infrastructure developers and resource managers with an interest in water . The congress will include the prestigious IAHR plenary lectures, the Munro and Henderson Orations, the Ippen Award Lecture, and announcements of the GN Alexander Medal recipient and John F Kennedy student award.

Presentation: Wetland Restoration

The next presentation will be held on 22nd June 2010, 5:30 for 6pm and is titled Wetland Restoration. The venue is the EA Auditorium, Thomas Street, Chatswood and drinks and nibbles will be available in advance.

The presentation will discuss recent successes in coastal wetland restoration and the relevance of this outcome to development offsets via the NSW bio banking initiative http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/biobanking/. Wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems in the world, yet their extent and health continues to diminish. Australia‟s remaining coastal wetlands are internationally recognized for their unique habitat supporting a range of important local and migratory species. The benefits wetlands contribute are significant. The ecosystem services wetlands provide underpin much of our economic activity and wetlands are recognised as contributing to healthier waterways, fish nursery and habitat areas, drought refuges for stock and wildlife, nutrient capture and recycling, and filtering and capture of sediment. This recognition of the importance of wetlands has led to a concerted effort to restore historical wetland areas to their previous function. This has its challenges as many of these areas have degraded over the years with acid sulphate soils being a specific consideration. Successful rehabilitation has the potential to offset fringe development of other wetland and high conservation areas via the bio banking concept.

A PDF flyer is available for distribution with the full details.

Slides From the Blockage Presentation

Bill Weeks has sent through a PDF copy of the slides from his recent presentation: Blockage in Drainage Structures.

You will need Adobe Acrobat to read this document.

ARR Reports Released

The ARR Technical Review team has just released a series of reports and would like feedback, see their email below:

The Australian Rainfall and Runoff (ARR) Technical Committee (TC) would like to make sure practitioners are aware that stage 1 reports for projects 5, 7 and 11 are now available. Reports can be downloaded from www.arr.org.au. Reports for Project 4 Continuous Rainfall Sequences at a point has recently been made available. The Project 10 report will be online shortly. The TC is interested in industry comments on these reports, which can be sent to arr_admin@arr.org.au.

To date over 90 practitioners from all states have made significant contributions to the ARR revision. The TC would like to reiterate its invitation for individuals to get involved in projects and the whole ARR revision process. Individuals who are interested should contact ARR revision team at arr_admin@arr.org.au or contact individual members of the TC or project leaders directly (this information is available on the website).

We have also established an email list where you will get email notification when new project reports are uploaded to the website or when events are on. Simply email arr_admin@arr.org.au to join. Please forward this information on to anyone who may be interested.

Regards
The ARR Revision Team

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