Posted 6 September 2020
On the 21 August 2020, members of the Connected Waters Initiative (CWI) made a submission to the National Water Reform Inquiry. This submission drew upon some of the collective works from the multidisciplinary UNSW Connected Waters Initiative, based in the School of Law, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences (BEES), School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering at UNSW.
The submission argues that while Australia has come a long way in water management under the National Water Initiative (NWI), the design and implementation of the NWI is not sufficient to meet future water challenges, particularly regarding groundwater. The authors submit further reforms and changes are required. The submission highlights a number of issues that have seen slow progress, and identify four priorities that should be considered and addressed by governments, civil society and industries if we are to achieve a sustainable groundwater future for Australia, including:
1. Water quality: improving understanding and integration of water quality in decision making
2. Water planning and energy sector integration: enhancing understanding and management of energy sector impacts on groundwater
3. Compliance and enforcement: increase investment and share learning about intelligent water regulation
4. Strategic monitoring and improvement: rebuild and intensify system wide monitoring and benchmarking
A full version of this submission is available to read here.
Professor Andy Baker features in American Water Resources Association ‘Water Resources Impact’, September 2020 edition.
The Connected Waters Initiative (CWI) is pleased to welcome Taylor Coyne to its network as a postgraduate researcher. If you’re engaged in research at a postgraduate level, and you’re interested in joining the CWI network, get in touch! The CWI network includes multidisciplinary researchers across the Schools of Engineering, Sciences, Humanities and Languages and Law.
The Grand Challenge on Rapid Urbanisation will establish Think Deep Australia, led by Dr Marilu Melo Zurita, to explore how we can use our urban underground spaces for community benefit.
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).
