Smart Water Blog

Partnership with Australian Water Recycling Centre of Excellence

2011-01-05T01:28:28+00:00

The Smart Water Research Centre is a foundation partner in the Australian Water Recycling Centre of Excellence (CoE), which was launched in March 2010. It is funded out of the Australian Government's ten year �Water for the Future� strategy, which aims to secure the long-term water supply for the nation, and includes funding of $1 billion for the National Urban Water and Desalination Plan.

The key objectives of the CoE are to:

provide leadership in accelerating ground-breaking research on water recycling technology;
provide facilities to researchers and industry to support the development and piloting of new technologies; and
commercialise the resultant technologies for the benefit of the nation.

While based in Brisbane, the CoE supports collaborative research based on partnerships across the nation between:

research institutions with expertise in a range of disciplines relevant to desalination and water recycling technologies; and
industry leaders aimed to position Australia as an international leader in these fields.

Along with other industry and research Partners (WaterSecure, GHD, Veolia, Melbourne Water, CSIRO, University of Queensland, University New South Wales) Smart Water Research Centres� CEO Larry Little sits on the CoE�s Research Advisory Committee which guides the CoE�s research direction through its Strategic Research Plan and helps coordinate the CoE�s call for proposals, evaluates research submissions and recommends the CoE�s investment strategy to its Board.

Since July 2010 the CoE has made three calls for research proposals covering $9 million worth.

More information about the CoE can be found at http://www.australianwaterrecycling.com.au

New Program Leader appointed to Smart Water Research Centre

2010-12-02T23:27:15+00:00

Dr Brian S. McIntosh, previously of Cranfield University in the UK, joined the Smart Water Research Centre (SWRC) last month to head up a new research area for the centre on Integrated Urban Water Management.

Dr McIntosh is also a Senior Lecturer at the International WaterCentre in Brisbane, and holds a Visiting Fellowship at the Centre for Water Science in the School of Applied Sciences at Cranfield University in the UK, a BSc in Ecology from the University of Stirling, and a PhD in Ecological Modelling from the University of Edinburgh.

Dr McIntosh has a very successful research career with developed expertise in water and wastewater infrastructure planning and management, water sector sustainability and urban development research, with particular expertise in decision process and support tool development and evaluation.

Brian wil be based at the centre on a part-time basis, and SWRC welcomes the addition of his skills and expertise to the team.

Australian Water Recycling Centre of Excellence Funding Round 3 Opens

2010-11-29T23:53:23+00:00

Funding for Round 3 is now open and the Centre is calling for Expressions of Interest (EoI).

This 3rd Round is focussed on Goal 1 of the Strategic Research Plan - The social/economic/environmental value of water recycling is demonstrated and enhanced.
The objective of this funding round is to identify and support both Applied and Strategic research projects that support this goal.

The Centre will hold an information session in Brisbane on Thursday 9 December 2010 to provide an overview of the Centre and its Strategic Research Plan, and to respond to queries regarding its third call for proposals.

For parties interested in understanding more and registering their interest in submitting an EoI, please contact Sarah Haydon by email or on 07 3015 9708.

For further details see: www.australianwaterrecycling.com.au

Key Funding Round 3 dates are:

Deadline for registering interest in submission of EoI Round 3 is 14 January 2011
Deadline for submission of EoI�s Round 3 is 14 February 2011
Deadline for submission of full proposals Round 3 is 15 April 2011

Activated Sludge Course now scheduled for June

2010-11-17T05:55:11+00:00

ACTIVATED SLUDGE COURSE
Gold Coast, Australia
June 20th - 24th 2011

The Smart Water Research Centre course is designed to provide wastewater industry operators, engineers, scientists, mangers and students with working knowledge of troubleshooting techniques and process optimisation of activated sludge and biological nutrient removal systems.

The University accredited course provides fundamental knowledge of the interaction between biochemical, microbiological, engineering design and operational aspects of the BNR process.

The December 2010 course has now been rescheduled for June 2011.

An updated registration brochure will soon be available and you can email m.harlow@griffith.edu.au to register your interest or for more information.

Dr Vicki Ross Awarded PhD in Psychology

2010-08-13T03:28:29+00:00

Smart Water Research Centre�s Dr Vicki Ross was recently awarded her PhD in psychology from the University of Queensland. Vicki�s research examined the impact of trust in authorities on public acceptance of recycled water, and involved developing a psychological model of the characteristics and drivers of trust and acceptance. The research comprised three large-scale Australian studies that tested the model across three different risk contexts (low, medium and high perceived risk).

Analysis through path modelling showed that in all three contexts trust in the water authority was a significant predictor of acceptance of the water management scheme. Also across the three contexts, greater trust was associated with lower risk perceptions, which in turn produced greater acceptance. In the high perceived risk setting (the proposed indirect potable reuse scheme in Toowoomba), perceptions of risk had the strongest direct effect on acceptance of the scheme.

The findings highlighted the importance of community engagement programs in establishing ongoing public support for water supply schemes. The results also demonstrate that establishing trusting relationships between communities and water authorities is crucial to public acceptance of higher perceived risk schemes such as indirect potable reuse.

Dr Rodney Stewart and Professor Sherif Mohamed Win Grant

2010-07-22T06:44:35+00:00

Senator Kim Karr, the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research released the results of the ARC Linkage Projects Round 2 funding round last month (for funding commencing July 2010).

Smart Water Research Centre�s Dr Rodney Stewart and Professor Sherif Mohamed won a grant for the project Smart metering founding a holistic evidence-based performance evaluation framework and demand forecasting model for diversified water supply schemes.

Griffith University achieved outstanding funding outcomes and was awarded eight grants amounting to $1.63 million in ARC funding, matched by just over $2.6 million in partner contributions. The University was placed 3rd nationally in terms of success rate; 10th nationally in terms of number of awards and 12th nationally for total ARC funding.

Our success rate of 61.5% significantly exceeds the national average of 44.9% and is the best success rate Griffith has achieved since the 2005 funding round.

In terms of the number of applications awarded, the University was the top achiever in its university benchmark group, the Innovative Research Universities Australia.

Jane-Louise Lampard Wins Scholarship

2010-06-25T05:39:15+00:00

Congratulations to Jane-Louise Lampard B Sc (Hons1) who has won the prestigious Nancy Millis PhD Scholarship for 2010.

The Nancy Millis PhD Scholarship is awarded annually and has been established in honour of Emeritus Professor Nancy Millis AC MBE, former Chair of the CRC for Water Quality and Treatment.

Professor Millis is a microbiologist of international repute who has made enormous contributions in agriculture, environmental protection, medicine and engineering. She was only the fourth woman to be appointed as Professor at the University of Melbourne, with her achievements recognised with the award of a personal chair in 1982. From 1980 to 2000 Professor Millis chaired the Federal Government's genetic engineering surveillance committees (RDMC and GMAC) which established guidelines that have become models for other countries in the Asia-Pacific region. As a researcher, she led the field in the early awareness of the importance of clean water and developed techniques to treat industrial wastewater.

Jane-Louise Lampard is a research assistant at the Smart Water Research Centre at Griffith University. She attained her Bachelor of Business (Management)/Bachelor of Science (Public Health) from the University of the Sunshine Coast, which included advanced units in Environmental Epidemiology and Health-related Environmental Microbiology at the University of Kuopio, Finland.

While completing her Honours in Environmental Health at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Jane-Louise was the winner of a WQRA Summer Scholarship, which she completed with Smart Water under the supervision of Associate Professor Heather Chapman, Dr Frederic Leusch and Dr Anne Roiko.

Jane-Louise's honours research involved conducting a screening level risk assessment of the human health hazards associated with the constructed lake system in Chancellor Park Estate on the Sunshine Coast.

In this research, she sought to characterise the range of chemical, biological, physical and psycho-social hazards; potential routes of exposure; self-reported behaviours of residents influencing levels of exposure; and the risks inherent to the Chancellor Park constructed lake system.

Water-related human health risks have become a primary area of interest for Jane-Louise after being involved in several projects in this area.

The WQRA Summer Scholarship Project was Jane-Louise's first introduction to the human health issues associated with wastewater reclamation. This project highlighted for her the very low level of exposure there is to contaminants from recycled water consumption compared to other sources such as food. It also highlighted the challenges risk communicators face in bridging the gap between perceived risk and actual risk and firmly consolidated her desire to continue working in the human health area of water research, with her particular interest being pathogens and the risk to human health.

Jane-Louise will commence her PhD on human health risks associated with stormwater harvesting and reuse in Semester 2 of 2010.

New Water End Use Project

2010-03-31T05:14:37+00:00

A new project under the South East Queensland Water End Use study (an Urban Water Security Research Alliance project) will utilize data collected by Smart Water Research Centre team members Dr. Rodney Stewart and Dr. Cara Beal to build a system to collect data from remote smart water meters and integrate it into data sets obtained from other sources (socio-demographic data and household stock inventory).

EPA to lead water toxicity investigation

2010-03-08T00:10:17+00:00

The chairman of Tasmania's Environment Protection Authority (EPA) will oversee a new investigation into the quality of St Helens drinking water.