There were some great technical papers in our November 2021 Water e-Journal. Ahead of Ozwater'22 and the announcement of our Best Water e-Journal Paper at the Australian Water Awards, we highlight six of our November papers and their contribution into expanding the knowledge of people who work in water.
These papers are currently locked as member-exclusive content until the end of July 2022.
Using a Rapid Assessment Tool to improve water quality testing results
S Schroeder A Killeen S Kumarasingham A Davison
Altogether Group have developed a Rapid Assessment Tool (RAT) to assess risk and provide guidance in monitoring water quality. This helps improve the timely understanding of the materiality and reliability of exceedances reported by its laboratory provider, to guide an appropriate incident management response. The RAT has been successfully used following out-of-specification water quality results. Altogether will continue to use and refine the RAT during incident management.
NSW Supreme Court overturns initial Brisbane Flood class action decision
B Ford T Gardner
In September 2021 the NSW Supreme Court of Appeal overturned the decision of the initial class action trial judge who found that three branches of government (QG, Sunwater & Seqwater) were liable to pay compensation (about $800M) for flood damages. Seqwater successfully appealed this decision, with the court determining that the earlier decision be set aside and that Seqwater's cost of appeal be paid by the plaintiff.
Ensuring Perth transitions to a leading water sensitive city
N Riethmuller A Torre S Shepherd W MacLaurin B Rogers C Chesterfield
The climate of Perth, Western Australia, is becoming hotter and drier, while urban development and the demand for water continue to grow. Through a partnership with the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities, Perth stakeholders trialled novel tools to identify the transformative changes required to achieve the vision for the city’s water future. This paper explores how key changes in culture, governance, planning and practice are working to transform urban development and water system management in Perth.
Using chloramine trials to determine the impacts of water disinfection
C Veal C Wong P Sherman P Wetherell D Middleton J Wain
Over 14-weeks during the Queensland summer of 2019/2020, the chloraminated network received an elevated total chlorine residual as part of a trial to determine if this increased residual had any impact on improved disinfection residuals and reduced microbial detections in the Bulk and Water Supply Partners (Urban Utilities, Unitywater and Logan City Council) reticulated networks. The increased chloramine dosing program resulted in an increased number of South East Queensland water customers receiving improved secondary disinfection residuals and associated public health benefits at their meter.
Helping Australian cities transition to more sustainable water system services
B Rogers C Chesterfield K Hammer
Six Australian cities (Perth, Adelaide, Bendigo, Sydney, Gold Coast and Townsville) were examined to provide stakeholders with the insights and guidance needed to provide strategic change toward their water sensitive city vision over the next half century. These insights form a strategic agenda for the next horizon of knowledge generation and collaborative impact work at the Monash Sustainable Development Institute’s Water unit.
Using Digital Twin technology to improve inspection methods of high risk assets
V Coimbatore E Boxall
This paper explores Digital Twin (DT) technology, and how it has changed the way critical in-service assets such as elevated potable water tanks are inspected and condition assessed. With the advent of remote inspection practices, only minimal operational intervention is required to assess the asset deterioration. This facilitates timely asset inspections that can be achieved with a high degree of accuracy in the Operational Asset Management (OAM) process. The in-service assets team at Water Corporation has confirmed the use of remote inspection techniques to produce asset DT improves safety and reduction in inspection cost when compared with conventional inspection approaches.