On the 21 August 2020, CWI researchers made a submission to the National Water Reform Inquiry, identifying priority areas and making a number of recommendations as to how to achieve a sustainable groundwater future for Australia.
Results published from a research project between the Land Development Department (LDD) Thailand and UNSW has demonstrated how 2-dimensional mapping can be used to understand soil salinity adjacent to a earthen canal in north east Thailand (Khongnawang et al. 2020).
Results published from a Cotton RDC research project by UNSW has demonstrated how 2-dimensional time-lapse images can be used to map soil moisture status beneath an irrigated cotton growing field (Iverach et al 2017; Zare et al 2020).
Recently published results from the Cotton RDC funded research by UNSW and ANSTO has advanced our knowledge about the importance and impact of groundwater discharge from the Great Artesian Basin into the lower Namoi alluvium (Iverach et al. 2017). The research has also demonstrated that methane has migrated from the underlying coal measures into the Namoi alluvium (Iverach et al. 2020).
Are you a fan of ABC's Conversations with Richard Fidler? Well, you might want to take a listen to this episode of the program with subterranean ecologist Stefan Eberhard.
Take a listen to ABC Radio National Breakfast's segment on the controversial $1.5 billion Shenhua thermal coal mine on the New South Wales Liverpool Plains. Research undertaken by UNSW's leading groundwater expert Professor Ian Acworth indicates that the company's water modelling is flawed.
CWI's Professors Cameron Holley and Darren Sinclair and Australian National University's Professor Simon Haberle and Larissa Schneider recently contributed to The Conversation, discussing federal authorities announcement of "an upcoming ban on mercury-containing pesticide in Australia", highlighting Australia is "one of the last countries in the world to do so, despite overwhelming evidence over more than 60 years that mercury use as fungicide in agriculture is dangerous."
The management of withdrawals of ground water in the Central West remains an area of hotly-contested debate. Associate Professor of Hydrogeology Bryce Kelly has spent over a decade studying groundwater in the Central West, and has credited groundwater with “saving rural communities from collapse”, but its potential for future drought-proofing depends on how successfully it’s managed. He says current withdrawals “will only be sustainable if the Narromine region gets flooded frequently enough to balance the volume of groundwater extracted."
The UNSW-GWI Global Water Matters Podcast was launched in 2020 to share interesting and important water-related developments and insights from global experts across the broad spectrum of water-related disciplines. Born from the demand to continue the Water Issues Commentary seminar series under the constraints of social distancing, new episodes are released monthly.
During the past decade, water levels in the Thirlmere Lakes have varied from full in 2016 to completely dry between October 2018 and February 2020. These variations have raised concerns with the local community and left them wondering; "Where has all the water gone in Thirlmere Lakes?"
Thirlmere Lakes National Park, located south-west of Sydney in an ancient river meander, contains five lakes – Lake Gandangarra, Lake Werri Berri, Lake Couridjah, Lake Baraba, and Lake Nerrigorang.
Two WRL research teams (EcoEng and Connected Waters) have investigated the water balance budget and surface-groundwater interaction in Thirlmere Lakes. These investigations were supported by coordinated research projects with ANSTO, University of Wollongong, and the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and the Environment (DPIE). In collaboration with these groups, WRL engineers undertook extensive fieldwork between 2017 and 2020 to monitor the site, including remote sensing bathymetry surveys, deploying micro-meteorological stations for measuring evapotranspiration, and installing a piezometer network for groundwater investigations.
Read more about the research findings here.
Groundwater levels and aquifer storage
There are two common mistakes often made when calculating how much groundwater storage levels have changed.
Quantifying vertical water flow using natural heat as tracer
National Water Reform Inquiry Submission
On the 21 August 2020, CWI researchers made a submission to the National Water Reform Inquiry, identifying priority areas and making a number of recommendations as to how to achieve a sustainable groundwater future for Australia.
