ISSUE 1 2018WATERLINESEngaging with flood impacted communitiesSt Marys TASMANIA2 : WATERLINES : ISSUE 1 2018Flooding associated with extreme rainfall events can have significant impacts on local communities. Engaging with these communities is essential in the development of targeted flood risk management plans and flood mitigation solutions. In this edition of Waterlines, we describe some of the work we have been doing with the community of St Marys in Tasmania. This work has had a strong emphasis on community engagement and has been aimed at helping them understand local flood risks and to assist in the development of a range of suitable mitigation options.Elsewhere in Australia, and under dry weather conditions, the floodplain of the lower Murray River is a saline environment. Here the close relationship between groundwater and vegetation condition needs to be understood to make best use of environmental water. Water Technology has been undertaking an innovative project in the area aimed at using groundwater engineering to improve the condition of vegetation impacted by salinity. The results of this work could have wide-reaching benefits for how floodplains ecosystems are managed to deliver improved ecological outcomes.ANDREW McCOWAN - Managing DirectorWelcome to our first issue of Waterlines for 2018Other articles from across Australia in this edition include:• Urban waterway works designed for multiple community benefits• Merri River fish hotel update• Assessing levees protecting coastal communities• Opportunity assessments to support integrated water management planning• Improving operational water management with real-time calibrated radar rainfall dataThank you for taking the time to read Waterlines. Please do not hesitate to contact either myself or any of the Water Technology team if you are interested in further information. Redland City is a growing coastal region in South East Queensland, with development progressing to meet housing demands. Maximising land use benefits and balancing the multiple needs of a community within a development site is an important consideration for developments in the region. A rural site with a waterway corridor dissecting it provided an opportunity to link environmental and community open space needs. This required robust flood risk assessments and waterway design due to the size of the catchment and likely rainfall events that would impact the site.Working with the developer to meet the local council’s requirements, Water Technology performed a flood impact assessment of the residential development site and developed a waterway channel design to support safe community waterway connections. The design required a vegetated channel, with the inclusion of a series of rock check dams to minimise the risk of channel erosion and scour, especially in the site establishment period. Designing the position of the low flow channel in the lower reaches of the site enhanced indirect recreational uses within grassed overbank channel areas. Urban waterway works designed for multiple community benefits WATERLINES : ISSUE 1 2018 : 3For more information, contact +61 7 3105 1460 Alister Daly (alister.daly@watertech.com.au) Michael Cheetham (michael.cheetham@watertech.com.au)4 : WATERLINES : ISSUE 1 2018The beautiful town of St Marys in Tasmania is regularly affected by flooding and in recent years three significant events have occurred. Although flooding is a natural occurrence, mitigating risks and optimising outcomes is vital. Working with the Break O’Day Council and the local community, Water Technology is examining the flooding problem and identifying risk mitigation strategies and actions. The St Marys Rivulet (Tasmania) Flood Risk Management Project has had a strong community engagement focus. To engage with the community and to present the study, Water Technology personnel are working with Break O’Day Council to build flood awareness and to obtain community feedback on management options. The project team has gone door to door talking with landholders and business owners, led a walking tour of the floodplain, and recently set up at a community farmers market and invited discussion to ensure a more informed flood study and importantly a better-informed community. A key point of discussion has been the condition of the rivulet, vegetation and debris, and the role it plays in flood risk. The project team has worked with the community to understand how the rivulet responds to change, and why it needs healthy native vegetation, not only for the local platypus and friendly families of resident ducks, but to stabilise the channel form, preventing further erosion and channel change. The flood mapping is available online. Water Technology is developing several mitigation concepts, before taking these back to the community to obtain their feedback.ENGAGING WITH flood impacted communitiesFor more information, contact +61 3 8526 0800Ben Tate (Ben.Tate@watertech.com.au) Julian Skipworth (julian.skipworth@watertech.com.au) WATERLINES : ISSUE 1 2018 : 5For more information, contact +61 3 8526 0800Ben Tate (Ben.Tate@watertech.com.au) Ben Hughes (ben.hughes@watertech.com.au)Past waterway management in the Merri River has resulted in reduced habitat for fish communities. To address this, the CMA sought sponsorship to install ‘Fish Hotels’ for Percy the Estuary Perch within the river channel. Water Technology jumped at the chance to sponsor the project and now has a fish hotel installed in our name.We also assisted the CMA in conducting a risk assessment of the ‘Fish Hotels’ to ensure that the construction method and placement were undertaken to protect community safety and structure resilience during floods. Merri River Fish HotelsCongratulations Glenelg Hopkins Catchment Management Authority in Victoria on a recent initiative aimed at providing fish habitat in the lower reaches of the Merri River through Warrnambool. Working with the Break O’Day Council and the community, Water Technology is examining the flooding problem and identifying risk mitigation strategies and actions. 6 : WATERLINES : ISSUE 1 2018Groundwater management to improve vegetation condition in the Lower Murray FloodplainThe Lower Murray Floodplain is a saline environment. While native vegetation species are salt-tolerant, it is essential that sufficient, appropriate salinity, soil moisture is available to sustain growth and life cycle processes. Low salinity groundwater lenses provide an important source of water and support the ecological function of floodplains in an otherwise dry and saline environment. Water Technology has been involved in a series of projects examining the relationships between manipulation of groundwater lens development and vegetation responses. The Bookpurnong Living Murray Pilot Project is the best example to date of the application of groundwater engineering to deliver ecological benefits in the Murray Darling Basin. This project identified that an alternative approach to floodplain management was to reduce the salinity of the water table, without manipulating the depth to water, thereby reducing the salinity of water in the unsaturated zone. This approach opened the door to a range of new groundwater manipulation strategies that could be employed to facilitate the development of low salinity lenses. The South Australian Riverland Floodplains Integrated Infrastructure Program (SARFIIP) also aims to develop floodplain infrastructure that will address the continuing decline in ecosystem health and deliver improved ecological outcomes for floodplains along the Lower River Murray. Water Technology has been engaged as the Design WATERLINES : ISSUE 1 2018 : 7Contractor to develop groundwater management infrastructure for SARFIIP. The practice of managing long-term salinity risks is well established, but the management of ecological risk and the enhancement of ecological benefit from a groundwater perspective is a relatively new concept, and SARFIIP is the first instance where it has been actively considered in groundwater management along the River Murray. We have also been working with the MDBA and SA Water to review Salt Interception Scheme (SIS) operations to manage instream salinity and vegetation responses as well as undertaking density dependent modelling of low salinity lens dynamics in response to groundwater pumping and or injection. The close relationship between groundwater and vegetation condition needs to be understood to make better use of environmental water. There has been considerable investment in improving vegetation along the River Murray floodplain and groundwater management may provide one of the most cost-effective interventions, especially where there is existing infrastructure.More detail about this project is available here.For more information, contact +61 8 8378 8000Andrew Telfer (andrew.telfer@watertech.com.au) Alison Charles (alison.charles@watertech.com.au)South Gippsland is a predominantly rural area located around 2.5 hours’ drive south-east of Melbourne and is an important beef production and dairying area. Extensive coastal levees have been built to protect both agricultural land and small coastal townships from storm tide inundation. The levee design standards have varied, and many have not been actively maintained since they were constructed. Little was known about their current condition or who was responsible for on-going maintenance works.Water Technology assisted South Gippsland Shire Council by undertaking a detailed analysis of the levee structures to ascertain their current condition, the level of storm tide protection they provide, the tenure and likely management responsibility of each levee, and by developing a risk-based prioritisation approach for further assessments or future works.With approximately 90km of levee to be assessed, we developed a suite of spatial analysis tools to optimise field survey requirements along with undertaking storm tide inundation and risk analyses. Interestingly, wombat holes were a significant point of weakness feature encountered along many of the levees.8 : WATERLINES : ISSUE 1 2018Assessing LEVEESProtecting Coastal CommunitiesCan you find the levee?Look along the crest of the levee.For more information, contact +61 3 8526 0800 Christine Lauchlan-Arrowsmith (christine.arrowsmith@watertech.com.au) WATERLINES : ISSUE 1 2018 : 9The Monash National Employment Cluster (NEC) is one of seven major centres of health, education and employment identified in Plan Melbourne 2017 – 2050. South East Water and Water Technology embarked on an Integrated Water Management (IWM) Study to provide improved value to the local community by identifying and taking advantage of synergies in water cycle planning and management. The study involved state and local government and research organisations who all collaborated to deliver these outcomes. The principal product of the study was an online map of potential IWM opportunities. With employment doubling from approximately 75,000 jobs over the next 35 years, an integrated approach is required to manage existing and future water demands in the area. Successful place-based IWM planning requires all organisations responsible for managing the urban water cycle to be committed to collaboration, sharing data and implementing integrated servicing solutions. Through shared visions and targets for the Monash NEC, organisations were brought together to share opportunities and ideas.Through initial one-on-one consultations, current plans, projects, objectives and targets were collated across each of the organisations and presented in an online GIS environment to aid collaboration. Clicking on a site revealed relevant reporting, project status, corresponding contacts and, most importantly, identified IWM opportunities. Once spatially displayed, it became easier to identify neighbouring opportunities for collaboration compared with the traditional alternatives of sifting through reports and exhaustive consultation. Having all the information from every organisation summarised in one spot was a powerful product of the investigation. A final project workshop was very well attended by all organisations. The workshop aimed to use the online map to find potential opportunities where organisations could work together. It was an outstanding success with many connections made, agreements on working together into the future made and most impressively, early discussions of merging projects from different parts of the water cycle that previously didn’t know about each other. A challenge going forward with the system will be maintaining the momentum and ensuring that the online platform remains current and relevant. For more information, contact +61 3 8526 0800Luke Cunningham (luke.cunningham@watertech.com.au)Opportunity assessment to support integrated water management planningFor more information, contact +61 3 8526 0800Rianda Mills (rianda.mills@watertech.com.au) Next >