Navigating the Currents – Water Chat with Emma O’Neill

This was a very engaging discussion. If you want to have a listen, please visit this link:

https://watercentre.zoom.us/rec/share/jhAvGtiGadN8YWM9EFfH_Od7F2bg6Czazlh1v2Qz_4t3OPK0JeutSB-KVar-ON_q.a4ABoDVepf2IKNRw

Please use passcode: 8eKij%XT

Emma O’Neill is Manager of Environment and Planning at Aurecon, a freelance Communications and Sustainability Strategist, and subcontracts on international projects as an advisor in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) space. Emma comes with a wealth of experience and wears a range of hats spanning the sector. Her expertise provides her a broad perspective when it comes to observing trends in wide-ranging issues, such as climate change and sustainability.

Through the lens of climate change and sustainability – Emma’s core issues for the water sector

To open the conversation, Emma described the status of Queensland’s water sector fluently, painting a picture of the various issues lining up for us all, in climate change and sustainability, in 2022. From her observations, most water utilities and organisations are now approaching program planning through the lens of long-term risk. This appears to be driven from the bottom up, following a massive step change post-COP26, as customers and the community at large are now insisting upon improved practices.

With this movement, it is becoming more and more obvious that issues affecting one part of the sector, overlap with other parts of the sector. Emma sees, for example, issues for water cycle/urban water cycle planning being affected by:

• Catchment health – use, heat, pest, fires, rainfall, etc.
• Water supply and availability concerns due to changing conditions
• Climate shock impacting to critical supply
• Water quality and treatment issues
• Pathogen infiltration potential after intense rainfall
• Increasing need for urban greening for urban aesthetic and comfort (heat regulation), etc.
• Decarbonization, carbon accounting and discussion around net zero

All these issues have components of modelling underpinning them, so what, are the different puzzle pieces? How do they link together and how do they affect outcomes?

Key challenges and opportunities raised by participants:

• The significant risk that a lack of community trust in the modelling or science can have on outcomes.
• A lack of awareness on the critical state of our long-term water planning. How do we best inform the greater community?
• Messaging provided by the water sector is often too technical for the audience to understand, rather than what the audience wants or needs to hear.
• What opportunities are there for multi-functional plans? For example, effluent for hydrogen and oxygen products
• How much additional resilience do we need to create to be resilient?
• Rising concern about the increasing water requirements of a transitioning economy, also be grappling with physical changes (e.g.hydrogen, urban greening, etc). Are additional water requirements being adequately included in consumption projections?

How are we approaching these concerns?

 “When it comes to communicating uncertainty, we have a responsibility to present it in a way that observes what is most important to clients and the community”, Dylan Cain.

Most answers are being discovered through iterative and collaborative change. “Community messaging is something we really need to work hard on to drive policy change and to get people to change”, Emma O’Neill. Deliberate, multidisciplinary collaboration and community engagement has been taking place a lot more across the sector with councils and water organisations engaging with professional and community stakeholders, improving the dialogue and slowly improving trust.

Emma suggests Rebecca Huntley’s book, “How to talk about climate change in a way that makes a difference”, for anyone interested in diving into this discussion.

There are a number of tools and documents now available for professional and public use like the Qld Future Dashboard which is the recommended tool for use by all professionals considering climate issues in Queensland.

Tools and documents shared in our discussion

Use this link to access the Queensland Government’s, Queensland Future Climate Dashboard. It is a comprehensive set of high resolution climate change projections for Queensland and underpin the Queensland Climate Adaptation Strategy. It is publicly available for use now.

The Engineers Australia’s Queensland Water Policy Statement provides a point of view to guide water governance and build a resilient future.

In addition the discussion touched on water and hydrogen futures, the following documents help build an understanding (not just from electrolysis):

https://www.wsaa.asn.au/sites/default/files/publication/download/Water%20fueling%20the%20path%20to%20a%20hydrogen%20future%20Nov%202021.pdf

https://www.ghd.com/en/perspectives/water-for-hydrogen.aspx

For more details and to listen to the discussion, please visit this link:

https://watercentre.zoom.us/rec/share/jhAvGtiGadN8YWM9EFfH_Od7F2bg6Czazlh1v2Qz_4t3OPK0JeutSB-KVar-ON_q.a4ABoDVepf2IKNRw

Please use the passcode: 8eKij%XT