The value of joining our recent QWMN network engagement activities

Recent Focus

During May and June this year, participation in our QWMN LiveStream events has been popular with plenty of interesting highlights from the topic presenters and from your participation.  In this recent lockdown phase many of you have happily joined our events and we hope into the future you continue to participate. We have focussed on themes that the network has said are important and brought together of wealth of expertise to explore the topics and answer your questions.

Climate change impacts on water management planning and water planning continues to be topical with:

• The centre piece of the 14 May event being the evaluation guideline for water models needing to incorporate climate variability and/or climate change. Highlights of the event and the video presentation able to be found here.
• A follow up event in the theme on 15^th June which explored multiple plausible futures as a pathway to better dealing with the deep uncertainty associated with climate change impact forecasts – more outputs from that will come in the near future.

The application of remote sensing for water management and water modelling is a new theme being explored with a focus on:

• Improvements in access and the variety of remote captured data types has been dramatic over the last 5 years and is fuelling this interest to better use it where suitable. Highlights of the 28^th May initial event and the video presentation found here
• A follow on event on 25^th June will further explore smart ways to capture rainfall and soil moisture profiles. More information and link to Eventbrite registration form from here.

Who is active in our network?

With all this healthy discussion and information sharing underway, who is this network of participants and where are they from?  As you are all part of a collective community, there are innumerable connection opportunities for you to take advantage of for learning or professional purposes.

Participants have joined from a wide range of organisations spread across the water management/modelling pipeline and have included the following:

Local Governments – City of Gold Coast, Moreton Bay Regional Council, Wide Bay Burnet ROC, Local Government Association Queensland, Brisbane City Council,

State Governments – Qld: Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Department of Environment and Science, Department of Natural Resources Mines and Energy, NSW – DPIE, Vic DELWP

Water Utilities – Seqwater, Sunwater, Melbourne Water, Sydney Water

Universities – Qld –  UQ – Advanced Water Management Centre, ANU, Australian Rivers Institute – Griffith University, Griffith Centre for Coastal Management, CRCWSC, James Cook University, QUT, The Cairns Institute – JCU, The University of Queensland, University of Southern Queensland, Centre for Applied Climate Sciences – USQ  Victoria  Deakin University, Monash University, University of Melbourne, ACT Institute for Water Futures – ANU, University of Canberra, NSW University of Newcastle, University of New England

Private Companies – AECOM, Aeon Metals Ltd, Alluvium Consulting, Arup, Aurecon BHP, Bligh Tanner, BMT, Calibre Group, Cardno, Catchment Solutions, CDM Smith, Deltares, DesignFlow, DHI, Dropcountr, FloodMapp, HARC, Hydrobiology, Jacobs, JDA Co, Losee Consulting,  Meridian Urban, MPN Consulting, Phoenix Resilience, Water Modelling Solutions, ,  Water Technology,

Other Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO Land and Water, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, IWC, Parramatta River Catchment Group, eWater, Healthy Land and Water, Murray Darling Basin Authority, SQ Landscapes, TERN

International Participants – India – CEEW India; Twinings, Walter P Moore, Banaras Hindu University, Pacques  Pakistan – Medworks;  Bangladesh – Institute of Water Modelling, SriLanka Waterman Environmental Systems  Cambodia  World Bank, Singapore – NUS, Uganda – Kyambogo University, South Africa – University of South Africa,  Aurecon Africa, Ghana – Pos Impact Foundation  Ethiopia – Mettu University  Kenya –  Ministry of Water, Sanitation and Irrigation, Canada  – L’Autre Couleur, USA Northeastern University, Rocky Mountain Institute, NZ –Wainui Consulting, Netherlands – University of Twente, UK – Space Services, SpaceSpecialists

Benefits of your participation in our network activity

All our events are designed to be a knowledge sharing, awareness building and connection opportunity.  Hopefully our presenters are able to effectively share their experiences, insights and practicalities of what is possible in water management and water modelling, and enlighten and maybe inspire as they do.  As you participate in any of our events, you will always be able to query/question, clarify and share comments with presenters – check out the various chat logs from recent events for the rich array of comments.

At recent events, participants have been readily sharing any resources to links to various documents and projects that match the discussion underway.

Also we are getting great feedback from some presenters that post events, listeners have followed up with request for further information or an interest to look at doing joint projects together. This is tremendous and a great reflection of the value of connecting and sharing.

Also at each event we are constantly checking with you on what topics you might like to explore at future events.  The recent 15^th June climate change LiveStream session, did that nicely by exploring how to better deal with uncertainty and we thank for that need being highlighted as important.