annual report 2011-2012
the CRC journey (2005-2012)
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 contents
Contents eWater Ltd is a not-for-profit partnership. eWater Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) was governed and managed by eWater Ltd until mid-2012. The eWater CRC was established and supported under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Program. Further information about the CRC program is available from www.crc.gov.au
Images in this report are courtesy of Andrew Sikorski, (Art Atelier) unless otherwise cited.. Please cite this report as: eWater Annual Report 2011-12. eWater Ltd, Canberra, Australia. © eWater Ltd 2012 This report may be reproduced for purposes of research, discussion, recordkeeping, educational use or other public benefit, provided that any such reproduction acknowledges eWater. ISSN 1834-3279 Design: Giraffe vcm
About us 3 Chair’s Report 4 Chief Executive’s Report 6 CRC highlights 2004-2012 10 2011-2012 achievements 13 our CRC heritage 25 Our new team and partners 34 Our part in Australia’s water science and management 37 Our modelling software 38 Building industry capability 56 Engaging stakeholders 58 Governance 63 Financial summary 67 1
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 about us
eWATER TEAM, CANBERRA, AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 about us
About us eWater is in a new and exciting phase. Having completed the research and development stage, we are now focused on delivering fit-for-purpose water management software and support services. Our agreement with the Australian Government to form the eWater Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) was completed on 30 June 2012. Now, as a not-for-profit partnership company, we continue to work with water organisations in Australia and around the world to extend the water science and modelling capability that was developed under the CRC. Our vision is to be a world-class water resources modelling organisation supporting Australia’s national hydrological modelling platform, eWater Source. We are working to achieve this vision by: providing high quality and cost-effective modelling tools and related services including support for implementation of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) National Hydrologic Modelling Strategy
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providing training and services to support ecologically sustainable water management in Australia and overseas
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building a membership network and modelling community of practice
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ensuring new science and management knowledge is continually brought to our modelling platform to keep it current and valuable to users
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working with other Australian organisations to demonstrate to international audiences the value of Australia’s water reform journey that is embedded in eWater’s modelling capability
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building a diverse and sustainable revenue stream within the areas of our core business, with margin to fund future growth and investment in our public good objectives
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seeking alliances to ensure shortterm project delivery, and long-term integration of new knowledge and innovation into our models.
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Our modelling software integrates current knowledge from the CRC research with a wide range of existing scientific information and natural resources management knowledge. Our team includes people with expertise in the following areas: river systems
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catchments and climate
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urban water systems
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hydrologic and hydraulic modelling
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environmental water and water quality
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software engineering and information technology
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sales, marketing and communications
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business administration and finance
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training and documentation.
Our focus eWater’s expertise is in using science to enable sustainable water management in Australia and overseas. Our focus is to support the development and adoption of the Source hydrological modelling platform as well as continue
to grow the eWater Toolkit suite of water management software and resources. We provide user support and training services to enable best practice in the application of our tools to water solutions. At the same time, we are refining our key products to meet the needs of water managers and the changing practices in integrated water management. We are building a national and international membership network in the Source Modelling Community, and as a key part of this, a modelling community of practice. Our development and facilitation of the community of practice will help to extend Source modelling expertise and capacity within member organisations. It will also support the continual improvement of Source and the application of modelling outputs to policy development or assessment. The eWater Toolkit provides water and catchment management decision and analysis tools, the majority of which are free to access. The Toolkit now has more than 14,000 users across 120 countries. Our stormwater modelling software, MUSIC, is the cornerstone of water quality and land use development planning across much of Australia. We are also supporting MUSIC adoption internationally as water sensitive design practices are evolving. With government backing, our operations will be supported by revenue from membership fees, product sales, support contracts, training and project contracts. 3
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 chair's report
Chair’s Report It is with great pleasure that I write this short note reflecting on the twentyyear journey of the eWater CRC and its predecessors. All CRC participants, funding organisations, research students and staff should be proud of their contribution. Without this consolidated support no one organisation could have achieved this move from concept to delivery and so we can all feel justifiably proud of our combined efforts. In 2012 eWater formally recognised the achievements of the past 20 years. As part of this, I penned the following note which I believe captures the spirit of eWater and its people.
Standing Tall “When the journey of the research and industry partnership which ultimately became eWater CRC began two decades ago, Australia was in critical need of fresh approaches to researching and managing water. The two CRCs which ultimately merged to become eWater got underway with very different destinations in mind. The CRC for Freshwater Ecology was forged to address the clear market failure around how the science relating to freshwater ecology was being applied – a massive and challenging mission. Attending, as a funder, the initial interviews around creation of CRCFE, I made the point that the CRC would need to run for at least three terms before there would be sufficient confidence to rebalance the way we managed our rivers. Tasked with addressing the ecological basis for the sustainable management of Australian waters, CRCFE achieved amazing gains in transforming the research culture, instilling water managers with confidence in the science and injecting hard science into policy making. The CRC for Catchment Hydrology had a very different mission: tasked with expanding on a very strong knowledge base that underpinned engineering design in Australia. Its historic mission was no less than to deliver to resource managers the capability to assess the hydrologic impacts of land-use and water management decisions at whole of catchment scale. The mission recognised that the management issues to be tackled by this predictive
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capability were national ones, involving the direct expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars each year. The achievements of both, of course, are major and a matter of public record. Even so, eight years ago the decision to merge the two CRCs into eWater was both visionary and courageous. We can all be glad that those involved were prepared to take those risks, and be proud of the achievements over the 20-year journey. We now have community acceptance that freshwater ecology and the health of our rivers are important goals. Together we have built one of the world’s great modelling platforms, which will stand Australia in good stead for the next set of water management challenges it faces.
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 chair's report
Please accept my warm congratulations for both your individual and collective efforts. It has been very well done. You should stand tall.� In addition, I would like to make special mention of Professor Gary Jones and the management team who ensured that the CRC remained on track and that its many partners were engaged and understood the mission. Finally, as Chairman I have had the privilege of working with a very professional and committed Board. I would like to thank all Board members for their support and in particular David Wotton for acting as Deputy Chair and Kerry Stubbs as Chair of the Finance and Audit committee and Keith Steele for Chairing eWater Innovation. Again well done and the next stage of the journey commences now as we transition from a CRC to Company delivering water modelling products to our clients. I look forward to a successful transition and wish the organisation the best in the future.
Don Blackmore Chair, eWater CRC
HUME DAM, THE RIVER MURRAY
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 CHIEF EXECUTIVE'S REPORT
Chief Executive’s Report The research and industry partnership known as eWater Cooperative Research Centre completed on 30 June 2012, successfully ending 20 years in the CRC Program. However, on the strength of research and new technologies delivered through the CRC, eWater has received new financial and operational support from Commonwealth and State government water agencies. Consequently, from July 2012, eWater continued as an independent, notfor-profit company supporting the adoption and on-going development of water modelling software developed through the CRC program. eWater’s vision is to be a worldclass water resources modelling organisation supporting Australia’s national hydrological modelling platform, eWater Source. Through its water modelling software, our organisation will support decisionmaking, planning and management for water resources and river basin assets in Australia and overseas. Our overseas work will support Australia’s aid development working closely with AusAid and international development banks wherever possible. Continuing company members of eWater Limited are the governments of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the Commonwealth (through the MDBA).
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eWater and its forerunner CRCs This CRC opened its doors in 1992, under the banner of the CRC for Catchment Hydrology. The CRC for Freshwater Ecology set up operations a year later. Thirteen years on, in 2005, those two CRCs merged to form a single, integrated water science and management CRC—eWater. The research and industry teams from the two former CRCs came together in eWater to blend the best hydrological and ecological knowledge that had arisen since 1992, inside and outside the CRCs. The objective was to integrate this knowledge into a new national ecohydrological modelling system—a system that would support implementation of the (then recent) National Water Initiative and be built not only on the strongest scientific and engineering foundations but on the highest professional software quality and usability standards. It is cause for considerable pride that eWater has not only built on its forerunners’ achievements, but also attained its objectives by June 2012. The many achievements of the CRCCH–CRCFE–eWater pedigree extend across numerous important new research findings, new hydrological and ecological models, influential reports to government and industry, and the influence of our work and by our people on government policy and management, not least in the area of environmental water management.
On the ‘people’ side, the CRCs brought together researchers, industry technical specialists and government water managers to work in collaborative multi-organisation, multidisciplinary teams focusing on real-world water science and management problems. These were people and groups that had not consistently worked together before the CRCs began. This legacy of networks, relationships and friendships, built over the past 20 years, provides an enduring foundation for eWater’s future success.
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 CHIEF EXECUTIVE'S REPORT
The three CRCs also altogether helped train a new generation of nearly 300 postgraduate students who are knowledgeable in real-world water management and well prepared for professional employment within that industry. Nearly 40 of those were in eWater CRC. On the verge of beginning life as a new independent, member-based organisation, eWater CRC celebrated these years of achievement and acknowledged the manifold contributions of numerous partner staff-members and postgraduate students at a gala dinner. On 29 May, 200 current and former staff and supporters of the three CRCs met at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra to recognise the significant achievements made through these years of CRC collaboration. It was a highly enjoyable evening of reminiscing and catching-up with former colleagues. eWater CRC’s task has been both to build the new national water modelling system and to ensure support for its adoption and use by our industry partners. In doing the latter, the CRC has arranged for the system to be adopted, maintained, expanded, and kept up-to-date for many years to come.
Source has been built with the best-available programming and modelling expertise Besides numerous modern practical software tools developed by eWater CRC (as successor to CRCCH), eWater has produced a major enterprise IT platform, Source. Source is an integrated modelling system that brings together best-available science and on-ground expertise in analysing, planning, managing and operating river flows and storages, catchment land-use in relation to rainfall runoff and water quality, groundwater interactions with surface waters, and water security at regional scale for urban areas. Source has been built with the best-available programming and modelling expertise and has been refined through numerous application trials by end-user partners—an essential step that has ensured high standards of both relevance and usability. Valuable acknowledgement of the quality of eWater Source, and the component software now integrated within it, was given at the end of 2011 by the several government steering committees that oversaw the development of eWater’s software, particularly components of Source.
ACT CATCHMENT TOUR
Perhaps the most nationally worthwhile achievement of eWater CRC over its seven-year life is the collaboration that the CRC’s product development and application projects/trials (particularly) have stimulated between water-industry and research organisations. That outcome was acknowledged by several partners in feedback gathered for the CRC’s Exit Report to the Commonwealth CRC Program.
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 CHIEF EXECUTIVE'S REPORT
eWater’s future— life beyond the CRC The CRC Program contract between the Commonwealth, the CRC partners and eWater Ltd is complete. Now, with support from our core government water industry partners, eWater is establishing itself as a commercially viable, not-for-profit organisation. eWater’s first major job is to support the adoption and use of Source as the new national hydrological modelling platform for Australia. To that end, from mid-2012, our COAG company members contracted eWater to drive the uptake of Source as the new, nationally consistent water modelling platform. This $7.8 million contract includes the provision of long-term maintenance and improvements to Source on the same fully professional and quality-assured basis as occurred under the aegis of eWater CRC. From July 2012, eWater opened access to Source to any water, research or educational organisation through membership of the new Source Modelling Community. Members, who pay an annual subscription fee, have unlimited access to Source licences for their staff and students, as well as the opportunity to collaborate with the online Source ‘community of practice’ and to participate in open-source Source software development. Over time eWater is also building strategic relationships with international river- and watermanagement organisations to
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SOURCE 2012 CONFERENCE
facilitate the use of Source and Toolkit models around the world, especially in developing and emerging countries. To support this work, we have been building a collaborative relationship with AusAid. In October 2012, Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced a new Australia-India Water Technology Partnership, with eWater Source training and application being a key component of the bilateral program. It is my absolute ambition that eWater retains the positive research–industry collaborative approach of the CRC. As a mission-driven not-for-profit, public organisation, eWater will maintain its fundamental commitment to ecologically sustainable water management in Australia and around the world, while remaining a highly attractive workplace for innovative scientific and engineering minds.
Acknowledgements It has been a landmark year for eWater, both in completing our objectives under the CRC program and in successfully transitioning to an independent, water technology organisation. None of these things could have been achieved without the efforts and cooperation of many people and organisations. First and foremost, I thank the CRC project leaders and their R&D teams who worked extremely hard to complete all research and products on time. The software application teams from our industry partners were critical in road-testing our new models under different water management and policy settings and scenarios, and the members of our various project governance committees who played
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 CHIEF EXECUTIVE'S REPORT
a key role in keeping project teams focused on the industry’s priorities, as well as being a vehicle for robust exchange of ideas and cooperative decision making. To all the partner organisations and staff who actively participated in the eWater CRC, please accept my sincerest thanks and congratulations for a job very well done.
my sincerest thanks and congratulations for a job very well done On the management side of our organisation, my deepest appreciation goes to the my CRC Executive colleagues—Peter Wallbrink, Ralph Ogden, Gareth Lloyd, Joel Rahman and Aapo Skorulis—for their tremendous contributions to the overall success of eWater. One of the reasons for eWater’s success and there are many, is that we invested in a dedicated and experienced senior leadership team to inspire, guide and, at times, cajole the research and development teams to on-time, on-budget, on-quality project completion.
I thank the team at eWater Innovation (eWI) , the CRC’s software commercialisation company, for their efforts in ensuring commercial discipline and expertise was brought to our software licensing and support services. In particular, I acknowledge former eWI CEO Tim Blackman for his commitment to first establishing eWI, then bringing it to the verge of commercial success by the end of the CRC period. I also thank my eWI Board director colleagues, Keith Steel (Chair), Murray Rankin and Tony McAlister for helping to guide and inspire eWI in what was at times a challenging environment for a small commercial business. All eWI operations have now been resumed back into eWater. And looking to the future, I want to acknowledge my colleagues on the new, post-CRC eWater management team—Robert Carr and Dominic Dolan. Coming on board as Deputy CEO, Robert has brought nearly 30 years of national and international water industry experience to eWater in his role as head of Business Development. Dominic has joined us as Business Manager with many years of experience as a commercial manager and strategic advisor— experience that will stand us in good stead as we navigate the untested waters of independent financial operations. As we now like to say, we may be a ‘not-for-profit’, but ensuring we trade as a ‘not-for-loss’ business is what really matters!
And of course, all our new staff—too many to mention here—who have been passed the baton from our CRC development partners, and whom I am confident will ensure that the CRC’s technology and collaborative legacy is well cared for long into the future. eWater’s Board has played a critical role in providing fiduciary and strategic oversight of all our work and business operations since 2005. Don Blackmore has been Chair for that entire period, and I am pleased to report that at our most recent company AGM, he was re-elected in that role by eWater’s new members. Don’s support and mentoring for my role as CEO throughout this period has been deeply appreciated. Finally I wish to thank our organisational partners for their significant financial and in-kind support. I also thank the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education for providing very substantial funding for eWater’s work from the CRC program, and to the National Water Commission and the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities for providing additional funding that allowed eWater and our partners to accelerate and extend the development of Source. Professor Gary Jones Chief Executive
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 CRC Highlights
CRC highlights 2004-2012 2004
eWater CRC successful in 2004 selection round $400 million CRC grants announced that includes $40.25 million for eWater CRC to build on the success of the existing Catchment Hydrology and Freshwater Ecology CRCs.
2005
eWater CRC established eWater formed with a mission to develop a new generation integrated water resources modelling system that can be used by all governments and sectors.
2006
eWater CRC launched eWater CRC officially launched on World Water Day, 22 March 2006 by Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister with responsibility for water.
eWI Consultation begins Consultation and discussions with partners began on the establishment process for the CRC’s commercialisation company, eWater Innovation (eWI).
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AWR 2005 eWater and Sinclair Knight Merz win an external contract with the National Water Commission to develop the Australian Water Resources 2005 (previously known as the Baseline Assessment of Australia’s water resources). MUSIC endorsed in Victoria In mid-2006, MUSIC is recommended in Victorian planning provisions for sustainable neighbourhoods as a preferred tool to achieve urban run-off management objectives in Water Sensitive Urban Design.
2007
Training and Toolkit membership growth Membership of the Catchment Modelling Toolkit reaches 9000 during 2007 and Toolkit product training courses inform more than 100 water industry practitioners. NWC Grant received eWater awarded competitive R&D grants by the National Water Commission to augment core work in surfaceand ground-water modelling (through the Australian Hydrological Modelling Initiative). Commissioned reports eWater prepares a series of commissioned reports for Commonwealth and State stakeholders, and publishes the CRC Report ‘Afforestation in a catchment context: understanding the impacts on water yields and salinity’ to water and forestry industry stakeholders.
Korean collaboration eWater works with the South Korean Water Resources Corporation (K-water) to develop an environmental flows assessment program for South Korea. Product application projects begin eWater initiates four product application projects, covering several catchments across eastern Australia. Field research gets underway eWater supports model development with new research and field data targeting five priority river systems across eastern Australia to develop the new eco-hydrological relationships necessary to underpin our model development process.
2009
Ecological Tools partner versions released Eco Modeller and eFlow Predictor are released to be tested with partners. eWater Source Our integrated water modelling software, ‘eWater Source’, debuted at the 2009 Riversymposium in Brisbane. Its aims and first iterations were introduced at a feature session - Building Australia’s new river basin model. MUSIC v4 released MUSIC v4, an important new version of our popular stormwater product was released to further improve stormwater management modelling capabilities.
2008
Funding accelerator announced Accelerated development of River Manager made possible by an additional $6 million of funding announced by the federal Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator the Hon. Penny Wong, in October 2008. Launch of commercial arm eWater Innovation Pty Ltd (eWI) commences full operation in April 2009 to focus on the release of the upgraded urban stormwater software MUSIC v4 in October 2009. Improved understanding of groundwater and surface water interactions Improvements to the representation of groundwater and surface water interactions made possible by additional funding provided by the National Water Commission (NWC).
2010
eWater at G’Day USA eWater work presents at 2010 G’Day USA water policy forum organised by AusTrade. Source for catchments launched eWater officially launched Source for catchments. Source for rivers milestone Source for integrated river modelling was released to partners for testing.
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 CRC Highlights
New eWater website The new eWater website ewater.com.au went live, achieving visitor traffic at a level twice that of the old site. Partner version Urban Developer released eWater released the partner version of Urban Developer software for testing. It joins the well-known MUSIC urban stormwater software in the eWater Toolkit. MUSIC endorsed in Queensland The South East Queensland Healthy Waterways Partnership’s, Water by Design program releases MUSIC Modelling Guidelines with funding from the Queensland government. UK market expansion eWater CRC established a two-year reseller agreement with JBA Consulting for a UK version of popular stormwater software, MUSIC. H2O Thinking magazine launched eWater released their revamped water management magazine, H2O Thinking, along with a new, interactive online version. Source for rivers prototype Prototype ‘base’ version of Source for rivers integrated river modelling software was released to partner organisations. Source for rivers beta released In October, the beta version of the trial Source for rivers model was released and endorsed by the user reference group, marking, in conjunction with a comprehensive report on model performance, very important milestones.
Eco Tools released The rollout of the new eWater modelling capability continued with the public release of our Eco Tools suite (Eco Modeller, eFlow Predictor and Concept).
Plans for future confirmed In April, eWater delivers a statement to partners and to the broader water industry confirming a strong continuing role for eWater beyond 2012.
Asian Development Bank presentation Chair Don Blackmore gives presentations to the ADB in SE Asia, highlighting the case for integrated water modelling across national boundaries.
MUSIC UK released In June, the commercial version of MUSIC was launched to the UK market.
Research awarded Science team led by Professor Jon Olley at Griffith University, which included a number of eWater researchers and software developers, won the SEQ Healthy Waterways ‘WaterSecure-Research Award’ for its work in Prioritisation for Catchment Scale River Restoration.
2011
DECCW gets Eco Modeller Eco Modeller product adapted for Lowbidgee wetland complex and delivered to NSW DECCW (now Office of Environment and Heritage). World Bank CEO Gary Jones presents a seminar on eWater to the World Bank’s water team on eWater’s integrated modelling system, Source. This was part of the G’Day USA Australian trade mission for the water industry. waterAustralia In February, eWater subscribes as a foundation sponsor of the new waterAUSTRALIA marketing and promotions initiative, set up with the support of AWA and several other foundation sponsors to promote and facilitate Australian water enterprises internationally.
Urban Developer released In July, the public release of Urban Developer was launched at Singapore International Water Week. Prototype version of Source released In July, the prototype version of our integrated modelling suite, Source, was released to partners. music v5 released In August, the latest version of music was released offering new capabilities that update the science and provide new features. Water Quality Analyser released In September, Water Quality Analyser, an integrated software tool for monitoring and analysing in-stream water quality, was released. Official launch was at Riversymposium in Brisbane. Guidelines for water management modelling published In November, we released guidelines promoting a best practice, quality assured approach to application of modelling tools to water management problems.
2012
Eco Evidence released In February, Eco Evidence was released, a software tool which allows users to defensibly narrow the focus of environmental management to a specific action in order to achieve a desired outcome. Guidelines for modelling rainfall-runoff and groundwater-surface water published In March, Guidelines for rainfallrunoff modelling and Guidelines for modelling groundwatersurface water interactions in eWater Source were released as supporting documents to the Guidelines for water management modelling. NHMP / COAG agreement for Source eWater secured a multilateral agreement with states and territories under the COAG National Hydrological Modelling Strategy to support jurisdictions to adopt Source as the national hydrological modelling platform. Source 2012 Conference eWater hosted the Source 2012 Conference, with more than 180 in attendance. Senator Don Farrell launched eWater Source and announced the new COAG funding agreement. CRC celebration dinner Around 200 past and present staff came together to recognise 20 years of achievement in the eWater, Catchment Hydrology and Freshwater Ecology CRCs. A commemorative book, Evolving Water Management, 20 years of CRC achievement, was presented. Transition to eWater post CRC eWater continued staff transitioning from the CRC including welcoming new team members to take the company forward.
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 CRC Highlights
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 2011-2012 achievements
2011-2012 achievements Our standout achievements in 2011–12 include: ●
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Completing all of the CRC’s research, development, commercialisation and utilisation milestones in the Commonwealth Agreement, including trialling and release of the first versions of all the water modelling software it set out to research and develop; endorsement by COAG of eWater’s Source modelling platform (software) as the new national hydrological modelling platform (NHMP); training of many industry staff in the use of MUSIC and Source;
New tools for water resources modelling We publically released several water modelling software during 2011–12:
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MUSIC UK the version 5 series of the MUSIC software Insight (optimisation software, linked to Source and Urban Developer).
eWater Source (including the first public releases of the rivers planning and operations, and urban water systems capability)
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Urban Developer
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Water Quality Analyser
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Eco Evidence
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publishing major industry-relevant guidelines for best practice use of modelling software, giving added confidence to end-users as they adapt eWater’s modelling to their own regions and data; hosting a successful conference and training event, Source 2012, with the official COAG launch of Source by Parliamentary Secretary Don Farrell in May 2012; celebrating 20 years of work by eWater CRC and its predecessors, CRC for Catchment Hydrology and CRC for Freshwater Ecology with a gala dinner in Canberra, and transitioning from a large, multipartner CRC to a smaller, industryfocused technology adoption and support company.
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 2011-2012 achievements
Delivering world-class water resources modelling capability In May 2012, we secured a $7.8m government funding agreement for the adoption of eWater Source as the National Hydrologic Modelling Platform (NHMP) to aid water planning and management across Australia. In a media statement, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water, Senator Don Farrell said that the adoption of the Source water modelling system would formalise the 2008 COAG agreement to develop a national strategy to help ensure future water planning and management represents best practice. Senator Farrell said that the Source platform will meet the needs of Australian and international governments, agencies and authorities for at least the next decade. “It will provide national consistency in water resource planning across jurisdictions, by integrating the economic and environmental uses of water to better assist how we plan and deliver water for cities, irrigation, industry, mining, wetlands and waterways,” he said.
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“Source links science, policy and management to help policy makers and operators consider future scenarios and alternative water management options for catchments, urban environments and river systems across the nation.” Senator Farrell, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water.
The state and Federal government funding provides for technical and professional capability for the implementation and customisation of eWater’s Source modelling platform for application in selected individual river/basins and valleys across Australia.
Source 2012 Conference Among other valuable collaborations during 2011–12, the first annual conference on Source modelling, ‘Source 2012’, was a great success. Held in May, at the University of Canberra’s new Ann Harding Centre, the conference attracted more than 180 delegates from across Australia and overseas to hear about Source and other major eWater software. Opening Source 2012 Senator Farrell announced the Australian Government’s contribution to our ongoing development of Source, which, matched by a combined New South Wales, Victorian, Queensland, South Australian, Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory government contributions, brought total funding to nearly $8 million.
Key speakers included Dr Jane Doolan of Department of Sustainability and Environment (VIC), Paul Pendlebury of Office of Water (NSW), and David Dreverman of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. All spoke about how their organisations were trialling Source and the respective paths of their organisation’s full adoption over the coming years. The Bureau of Meterology’s Dr Grace Mitchell, Dr Narendra Tuteja and Dr Andrew Frost spoke about the Source modelling platform as part of the Bureau’s water information role. They told how the Bureau’s streamflow forecasts are being coupled with Source, and how Source is supporting their annual National Water Account and Water Resource Assessment reporting. We also heard from CSIRO speakers, Dr Peter Wallbrink, Joel Rahman, Geoff Podger, David Penton and Scott Keyworth on the history, current applications and future opportunities of Source, including the use of Source to model the Murray-Darling Basin and the delivery of environmental flows.
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 2011-2012 achievements
SENATOR THE HON DON FARRELL OFFICIALLY LAUNCHES eWATER SOURCE Kym Wilson from Goulburn-Murray Water told delegates how Source is being used for planning and forecasting of regulated river operations for the Goulburn River system. Philip Pedruco from BMT WBM shared his experience in the use of Source for urban management projects and how the Source platform couples with the Insight tool to provide capability in multi-objective optimisation, uncertainty, risk and multi-criteria assessment to investigate decisions and expose trade-offs.
Sinclair Knight Merz’s Dr Lydia Cetin gave a presentation on the trial applications of Source for modelling catchments and rivers, showing examples from every state and territory of Australia. Dr Cetin told how some Source users are now writing their own plugins to extend the modelling platform to meet specific needs. She said that communication and collaboration amongst the applications groups had led to Source being applied and tested across a broad range of issues and that this collaboration was the beginning of the Source modelling community of practice.
L-R: Chair of the eWater CRC Board Don Blackmore AM, Senator the Hon Don Farrell, UC Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Frances Shannon and eWater CRC CEO Professor Gary Jones.
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 2011-2012 achievements
Source Modelling Community The Source Modelling Community has been established to provide access to the eWater Source modelling platform, along with a connection to other users, through a dedicated Community of Practice (CoP). Source Modelling Community members have the advantage of strengthening their modelling capacity and contributing to the continuous improvement and refinement of Source through the CoP network. As part of this Community, organisations and their people can access and contribute to the latest knowledge and expertise in integrated water resources modelling. The Source CoP has strong foundations in the eWater CRC’s trial application projects for Source. Applications project teams, while working on different scenarios across the country, shared their modelling approaches as well as their knowledge of building, calibrating and applying Source models, including customising Source through plugin development. This knowledge exchange continues to be important in the adoption of Source. It will build capacity within Community member organisations and help to ensure the Source system remains current and valuable to users.
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 2011-2012 achievements
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provide quality assurance, including evaluation of uncertainty improve decision making, including the use of science to improve the quality and robustness of decisions made and outcomes enhance communication with end-users of model results: water managers, decision makers and the wider community; and provide a process that is transparent, robust and repeatable.
First in the suite was the overarching Guidelines for water management modelling: towards best-practice model application (BPM). Released in September 2011, this document was downloaded 1515 times by the end of November 2012. This was followed by more detailed supporting guidelines for model domains relevant to Source: ●
“There’s something in these models for everyone. Decision makers can quickly look at the models and gain insights into the systems such as how it’s connected and view key information. Analysts and modellers can dig through results to expose relationships.” Philip Pedruco, Senior Hydrologist BMT WBM
Best practice modelling guidelines During 2011-12, the Source project team published four guidelines to promote a best practice, quality assured approach to the application of modelling tools for water management. Peer reviewed by international experts, the guidelines provide direction for those using modelling to address various water management problems. The guidelines are intended to help: ●
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Guidelines for rainfall-runoff modelling (RRM, released March 2012, 1505 downloads). Guidelines for groundwater-surface water interactions modelling (GSWI, released March 2012, 1170 downloads) Guidelines for modelling water sharing rules (WSR, released July 2012, 367 downloads)
The four publications are all freely available from the eWater website.
improve modelling practice remove inconsistencies between model applications 17
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 2011-2012 achievements
software application projects Our work with CRC partner organisations during the year saw the completion of a number of water management projects that encompassed the trial, testing and improvement our models for freshwater ecology and the management of rivers, catchments and urban water, including the management of the social, economic and environmental uses of water.
Ecological modelling for the River murray The Living Murray program aims to achieve a healthy, working River Murray through a range of initiatives, including returning water to the river’s environment. Six ‘icon sites’ are the focus for the program, chosen for their high ecological and social value: ●
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Barmah–Millewa Forest (Victoria, New South Wales) Gunbower–Koondrook–Perricoota Forest (Victoria, New South Wales) Hattah Lakes (Victoria) Chowilla Floodplain and Lindsay– Wallpolla Islands (South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales) River Murray Channel (South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales)
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Lower Lakes, Coorong and Murray Mouth (South Australia).
In late 2011, eWater, together with the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, the Murray Darling Freshwater Research Centre, Griffith University, the University of New South Wales and Yorb Pty. Ltd, completed a project to test and refine models of habitat suitability for key species that depend on the habitat within these icon sites. A previous project focussed on improving eWater’s Eco Modeller software which houses ecological response models (ERMs) and also allows ERMs to be built along with metadata describing the scientific rationale of the model. It also involved building and refining a generic species based model to predict habitat availability under different watering scenarios, as well models of habitat requirements for 15 individual species. This latest project used biological datasets to test the habitat suitability models so that they can be considered in the comparison of alternative watering regimes for the Living Murray icon sites. PARTNERS
Murray-Darling Basin Authority Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre ● Griffith University ● University of NSW ● Yorb Pty Ltd. ● ●
THE RIVER MURRAY FROM HUME RESERVOIR, NEW SOUTH WALES
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 2011-2012 achievements
Water Quality Analyser Water quality assessments for Mount Lofty Ranges, South Australia The catchments of the Mount Lofty Ranges (MLR) provide a crucial water resource for the rural and urban community of Adelaide. The region features both unspoilt bushland and a diverse mix of land uses, including agriculture, horticulture and urban usage. It is the most biologically diverse region in South Australia and contains many species unique to the region. Mixed land use in the region leads, at times, to water contamination and complicates environmental flow management, demanding a multilayer management approach. Until recently, authorities working on local water quality and management issues in these critical and highly complex catchments have lacked both local data sets and easy means for estimating nutrient loads entering the water supply. eWater’s Water Quality Analyser and Source software are being applied to predict the movement of runoff, sediment and nutrients for a range of scenarios. Water Quality Analyser allows sers to visualise, process and validate their water quality data and estimate pollutant loads in streams. It highlights water trends and makes
MOUNT LOFTY RANGES, SOUTH AUSTRALIA it easy for water managers to check and compare their outputs to common water quality guidelines like ANZECC. This work in the MLR has used the Event Mean Concentration/Dry Weather Concentration (EMC/DWC) method to characterise pollutant concentrations in receiving waters from a runoff event. This involves taking water samples in proportion to the flow rate (proportional sampling) then compositing these into a single sample for analysis. Water Quality Analyser has allowed teams to develop locally derived Event Mean Concentrations (EMC)/Dry Weather Concentrations (DWC) values for Total Suspended Solids (TSS), Total Nitrogen (TN) and Total Phosphate (TP). The comprehensive analysis of up
to 30 years of composite sampler flow and load data using a range of tools (including Water Quality Analyser) has produced high quality event and baseflow data for 14 functional units (land use types) specifically in the MLR, but also for greater South Australia. The localised data has increased the confidence placed in outputs produced by Source models produced in South Australia. This project built on the work of a previous project in the MLR which was a combined application of both the Source and Eco Modeller software to model the relationship between land use, climate, water quality and flow, and the likely impact these have on supporting viable fish populations. PARTNERS
CSIRO Environment Protection Authority South Australia ● South Australian Water Corporation ● South Australian Research and Development Institute ●
“Water Quality Analyser is proving a handy way to apply known and trusted analysis methods to data sets, without demanding scientific expertise.” Nigel Fleming, South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI)
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 2011-2012 achievements
Multi-objective optimisation methodology for the Canberra water supply system Making decisions for management of urban water supply headworks systems is a complex task, requiring consideration of multiple users, with different objectives, as well as multiple sources with different levels of quality. These variables mean there
is a very large number of available infrastructure and operating policy options. For a multi-objective problem, there is usually no single solution for which all objectives are optimal. The challenge is to identify a set of alternative solutions and assess the risks and trade-offs for each solution in order to decide on the best solution. A study of the Canberra water supply system was conducted to determine the applicability and efficacy of the multi-objective optimisation, using various scenarios. The study demonstrated that multi-objective optimisation methods have a key role to play in providing decision support for the planning and operations of an urban water supply system. This finding supports the application of eWater’s Insight tool, a multiobjective optimisation decision support framework that works with both Source and eWater’s urban modelling software. Insight provides functionality for determining which sets of decision variables among a large variety of decision options achieve optimal outcomes. It works by repeatedly running the models, given the user-defined objectives and decision variables. Insight enables a more thorough and efficient examination of potential planning scenarios and the resulting trade-offs between desired outcomes. PARTNERS ● ●
LAKE BURLEY GRIFFIN, CANBERRA
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The University of Newcastle The University of Adelaide
Urban water modelling for system planning in Canberra In many parts of Australia, the reliability of surface water resources is increasingly coming under scrutiny due to increasing population and climate change. The Australian Capital Territory Government has identified three main goals to help maintain the reliability of surface water resources; minimise potable water demand, minimise overall consumption and minimise cost. Our Urban Developer software, together with the Insight tool, were used in urban water system modelling to determine an optimal operating strategy for the Canberra water system at a cluster scale. By exploring a set of possible scenarios, this study highlighted the possibilities for multi–objective optimisation for urban water resources management. It also highlighted how multi-criteria decision analysis can be employed to choose between potential optimal solutions, showing the different trade-offs associated with different options. PARTNER ●
The University of Adelaide
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 2011-2012 achievements
eWater Source trial projects A number of trial application projects aimed to assess the capabilities of Source to meet the needs of Australian state jurisdictions and agencies, with the ultimate intention of replacing existing modelling platforms with Source. Findings and recommendations resulting from these projects are informing the continued development of the Source software.
Source modelling for Murray-Darling Basin management The River Murray is an iconic Australian river with headwaters that rise in the Snowy Mountains of southern New South Wales and flows 2580km to discharge in the Southern Ocean, south east of Adelaide in South Australia. It is the central river of the Murray-Darling Basin which covers over 1 million km2 in south-eastern Australia. The River Murray supplies, on average, more than two-thirds of the Basin’s water resources. Of the total amount of water drawn from the Murray-Darling Basin, New South Wales draws about 49%, Victoria about 35% and South Australia along with Queensland draw about 8%.
The River Murray is a highly regulated system, which is managed to meet demands from communities, agriculture irrigation and the environment. The river crosses three state boundaries (New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia) and water sharing arrangements are outlined in the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement.
2. The Upper River Murray, upstream of Yarrawonga Weir. This trial application of Source by the MurrayDarling Basin Authority focused on:
Source was trialled to simulate two areas of the Basin and outputs were compared to the existing MSMBIGMOD models.
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1. The River Murray from the Lower Lakes barrages in South Australia to Colignan in Victoria. The Department for Water (SA) used Source to model flow volume and salinity, reproduce storage and weir operations, model storages with multiple outlets, model wetlands (allowing for conveyance flow), and model time series water user diversions. Modelled results were compared and replaced with observed values at gauging stations. Salinity has been a significant management issue for the MurrayDarling Basin authorities as salt tends to accumulate in the lower reaches of the River Murray in South Australia. On average, about 75% of the water taken from the river by South Australia is used for primary production such as livestock, dairies and crop irrigation. The non-irrigation use in the State is for towns, metropolitan Adelaide and the environment.
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trialling the rules based ordering approach to perform ordering between multiple upstream flow paths and storage modelling constituent routing trialling the systems planning resource assessment functionality of Source to calculate a resource assessment and undertake systems planning at a monthly time step testing the regulated weir functionality of Source modelling the interchange of flow between the river and wetlands (and between wetlands) based on hydraulic conveyance modelling environmental demands tracking the movement and ownership of water between different owners in an ownership system and also pass orders and flows between different owners in separate ownership systems.
Using these models, operators can compare the way water moves through the river system in response to different inflow and operational scenarios over a range of time scales
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 2011-2012 achievements
In general, Source compared well with the MSM-BIGMOD models for the River Murray. The aim of Source modelling for the River Murray is to explore how changes in policy and management will effect the behaviour of the river system in the longer term. It will help to assess the impact of actual or potential changes to the behaviour of the river system and the probable affect on system storages, flows and water shares. By exploring the options, river planners can decide on which management actions will optimise river performance to meet planning objectives.
Yarra River, Victoria
The upper reaches of the Yarra River flow through forested, mountainous areas, while the middle and lower reaches flow through the Yarra Valley district and Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, discharging into Port Phillip near Melbourne’s CBD. Home to nearly 2 million people (around one third of Victoria’s population), the Yarra catchment also incorporates extensive parklands. A large variety of aquatic life inhabits the river, including several native fish species, frogs, water birds and platypus. Total annual stream flow volumes can vary greatly in the Yarra River, from over 1000 GL in a wet year to less than 200 GL in a dry year. Flows in the Yarra River (and many of its tributaries) are highly regulated, with numerous farm dams and several major water storages to meet urban and agricultural water demands. Water is extracted via weirs as well as a 1000 ML/d pumping station in the mid Yarra (Yering Gorge Pumping Station). eWater worked with Melbourne Water, the Department of Sustainability & Environment (Arthur Rylah Institute), the Environmental Protection Authority (VIC), Sinclair Knight Merz, Monash University and Southern Rural Water on a project to investigate the relationships between stream flows, dissolved oxygen, water temperature and the behavioural responses of native fish.
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Modelling using Source was undertaken to predict the hydrological behaviour of the Yarra catchment and help derive flow-water quality relationships. A whole-of-catchment model of the Yarra River was built to help inform the revision of environmental flow thresholds, as well as determining how and when to augment flow in the river to reduce the likelihood of low dissolved oxygen events and associated ecological impacts. The modelling also enabled scenario testing to explore implications of various management interventions and future threats, such as climate change, urban expansion and water extraction regimes. PARTNERS
Environmental Protection Agency (VIC) ● Department of Sustainability and Environment (VIC) ● Melbourne Water ● Monash University ● Southern Rural Water ● Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) ●
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 2011-2012 achievements
Goulburn-Broken-LoddonCampaspe, Victoria The Goulburn-Broken-CampaspeLoddon (GBCL) river system is located in north-eastern Victoria. The GBCL system is especially complex, with multiple sources of supply under complicated operating and management rules. In this region are nationally important wetlands and floodplains, and the internationally significant Kerang Wetlands Ramsar Site. Water from the Goulburn-Broken region provides flows to the Barmah-Milewa forest and Gunbower forest wetland Ramsar sites along the River Murray. Both the Loddon River and Boort district wetlands support flora and fauna of international, national, regional and local conservation significance, including two waterbirds listed under international agreements.
Modelling of this regulated system is designed to support planning and operational aspects of river system management. Source was used to simulate the GBCL system at a monthly time step and results were compared with the existing REALM Goulburn Simulation Model (GSM). The outputs from the Source modelling were also assessed against historical data. The Source model was built with all features of the GSM model to provide confidence that Source Rivers software will be able to replace the GSM in the future for the planning and policy development activities in the GBCL catchment. The focus of this trial was to apply the planning mode of Source to the modelling of a regulated supply system including rural and urban demands and multiple supply options. Using Network Linear Programming (NetLP) optimisation, the aim was to arrive at optimum distribution of water in the system based on high level priorities for water supply.
Namoi River, New South Wales The Namoi River catchment, located in north-western NSW, occupies around 5% of the State. Here, a team led by CSIRO has been testing the Groundwater-Surface Water (GW-SW) link model in Source using real world data. The trial results confirmed that the GW-SW link model, unlike other models, takes explicit account of groundwater processes rather than grouping them in with ‘unaccounted losses’ and ‘ungauged residual inflows’. The model predicts the exchange flux between a river and the underlying aquifer at any time step while explicitly accounting for the time lags associated with groundwater processes. This has the effect of enhancing river model forecasting capability. More information on the Source trial application projects can be found at www.ewater.com.au
PARTNERS
Department of Sustainability and Environment (VIC) ● Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) ●
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 2011-2012 achievements
International projects Water resources lie at the heart of poverty alleviation, economic development and geopolitical stability in many areas of the world where river basins and catchmentscross political and administrative boundaries. Prosperity and security in many regions are strongly linked to choices made about sharing, developing and managing water to produce food and energy, sustain livelihoods, and maintain vital ecosystems. Australia’s journey in addressing contested water management within the Murray-Darling Basin from the 1990s onwards led to the understanding that the chain of governance from best available science through to implementable, sustainable and practical policy outcomes could only be reflected through models which supported the entire process and communication with stakeholders. Ultimately, this understanding lead to the funding for the development of eWater Source, Australia’s first national hydrological modelling platform for advanced water management modelling. Internationally, our activities have centred on capacity building around transboundary contested basins, working with regional water resources agencies and researchers. The unique combination of institutional water experience in the development of Source, and its
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fit-for-purpose modelling framework, offers a significant opportunity for the improved governance of internationally contested river basins. As an example, Australia recently agreed to a Water Technology Partnership with India which was outlined in a Joint Statement issued by the Prime Ministers of Australia and India. As part of this Partnership, Australia will collaborate with India’s Ministry of Water Resources to pilot the eWater Source river basin modelling platform. While the journey within Australia continues to further refine and fully implement the science-to-policy process, international activities have significantly increased following the release of Source and the offer to share these advanced technologies to improve the world’s understanding of the challenges associated with contested river basins. Since the beginning of 2012 our international collaborations have included: ●
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Bangladesh, worked with SEWPaC, AUSAID, eWater, CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology to explore the applicability of Australia’s policy, planning, and operational responses technologies to water problems. The panel concluded that eWater Source is an effective platform to analyse climate implications for river basins. Source was also seen as being an appropriate tool to support a shared-vision basin planning and management approach ●
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an intensive capacity building effort in South Asia to work with regional partners in the Mekong River Basin, Bangladesh, India and Nepal participation in an international workshop on potential applications for Australia’s water management tools. Senior technical representatives of the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Indian Institute of Technology and the Institute of Water Modelling,
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participation in a workshop on frameworks for Thai-Australia Cooperation on water resources management in Bangkok. Meetings were held with several Thai Government Departments which has led to further cooperation. Memorandums of Understanding have been developed with several leading Thai Research organisations participation in a workshop in Nepal to work with regional partners in developing a plan to assist the Koshi River Basin participation in a workshop hosted by India on Integrated Water Resources Management and Planning as a significant step towards the development of a Brahmani–Baitarani IWRM basinlevel plan. The workshop produced a series of concrete outcomes and commitments for the IndiaAustralia Joint Working Group; and hosting several international delegations including Africa, China and South America.
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 our CRC heritage
Our CRC Heritage eWater CRC The eWater CRC built on the partnerships and intellectual property of the former CRC’s for Catchment Hydrology (CRCCH, 1992-2005) and Freshwater Ecology (CRCFE, 1993-2005), along with several new research and development participants. Together these predecessor CRCs brought more than 25 years of experience in water management, hydrological and ecological research, and software development to eWater. The eWater CRC was established in September 2005 as a technology development initiative set up by Australian water industry and water research organisations, in partnership with the Australian Government through the Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Program. It has since established a recognised national and emerging international brand and is at the forefront of water management technology in support of Australia’s National Hydrologic Modelling Strategy.
A customer support subsidiary company, eWater Innovation (eWI), was established by eWater CRC to provide professional software distribution, user support and customer services. The role of eWI included a focus on training and product improvement to ensure eWater’s products were appropriately supported and had long-term value.
Based on new knowledge and innovative thinking, science, engineering and management practice, the eWater software portfolio now includes:
During its term, the CRC delivered world class intellectual property including Australia’s first nationally consistent and applicable, integrated water cycle management modelling platform, Source. It also continued the highly popular Toolkit, which originated under the CRCCH. The eWater Toolkit now hosts more than 25 hydrological, ecological and catchment management models, software tools, databases and other resources, many of which are freely available. The Toolkit is useful to those involved in land and water management or related areas of research and development. By mid-2012, the Toolkit had more than 14,000 users across 120 countries.
2. urban water management products, MUSIC and Urban Developer
1. eWater Source, an enterprise modelling system, designed to facilitate integrated management of water
3. ecological tools (Water Quality Analyser, Eco Modeller, Eco Evidence, eFlow Predictor and Concept). These products assist those involved in managing rivers, water supplies, flood and drought security, environmental flows, wetlands, catchment runoff and salinity, urban waters, monitoring programs and catchment restoration programs. They provide solutions to integrating the environmental management of water quality and quantity, as well as river health, with day-to-day water resources planning and operation. eWater ceased operating as a CRC in July 2012 and continues as eWater Ltd, a not-for-profit, government owned partnership.
“We collaborated with DERM in Queensland and BMT WBM on a number of activities. We have also collaborated with a range of organisations in South Australia. These collaborations are unlikely to have occurred without the eWater CRC.” Environmental Protection Authority South Australia
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 our CRC heritage
Celebrating 20 years of CRC success eWater as it is today, capitalises on much of the work of eWater CRC to ensure its software and resources are widely available and industry partnerships remain strong. In May 2012, during the ‘Source 2012’ event, we hosted a gala dinner in recognition of the work of the eWater CRC, the CRC for Catchment Hydrology and the CRC for Freshwater Ecology. The event, held at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, was attended by more than 170 guests who had contributed to the success of these CRCs over the past 20 years. A commemorative publication, Evolving Water Management: 20 years of CRC achievement, was distributed at the dinner as a memento. The publication listed and thanked more than 1500 people who were involved in the CRCs and highlighted their key contributions to water resource management science and practice. Also recognised were the exceptional contributions of the late Professor Peter Cullen AM, Professor Richard Norris, and Dr Christy Fellows.
PROFESSOR JOHN LANGFORD CHAIR, CRC FOR CATCHMENT HYDROLOGY AND FRESHWATER ECOLOGY
CRC CELEBRATION DINNER, 29 MAY
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 our CRC heritage
eWater CRC Partners (2005-2012) ACTEW Corporation Pty Ltd
BMT WBM Pty Ltd
Queensland Government through: Department of Natural Resources and Mines, and Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts Sinclair Knight Merz
Brisbane City Council
Bureau of Meteorology
South Australian Research and Development Institute South Australian Water Corporation
CSIRO
Southern Rural Water NSW Government through: Office of Water, and Office of Environment and Heritage
SunWater
Environment and Sustainable Development Directorate (ACT)
Environment Protection Authority South Australia
State Water Corporation Sydney Catchment Authority The University of Adelaide University of Canberra
Goulburn-Murray Water
SA Department of Water
Griffith University
La Trobe University
Lower Murray Urban and Rural Water Corporation
Melbourne Water Corporation
Monash University
Murray-Darling Basin Authority
The University of Melbourne The University of Newcastle The University of Queensland Victorian Government through: Department of Sustainability and Environment Department of Primary Industries Environment Protection Authority Victorian Catchment Management Council Corangamite Catchment Management Authority East Gippsland Catchment Management Authority Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority Glenelg Hopkins Catchment Management Authority Mallee Catchment Management Authority North Central Catchment Management Authority North East Catchment Management Authority Wimmera Catchment Management Authority West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 our CRC heritage
eWater CRC Executive Team (2005-2012) Professor Gary Jones Chief Executive After a distinguished research career in Australia and overseas, Gary became the Chief Executive of the CRC for Freshwater Ecology in 2002 and CEO of eWater CRC at its establishment in 2005. Gary continues to lead eWater.
Gareth Lloyd Executive Manager, Marketing and Communication Gareth brought to eWater his 20 years’ of experience in both marketing and communications in the corporate and not-for-profit sectors in the United Kingdom and Australia. Prior to joining eWater he was Head of Communications for BBC English Regions. Gareth led the Marketing and Communication team until April 2012.
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Dr Ralph Ogden Executive Manager, Urban / Ecology / International Ralph led eWater CRC teams to create decision support software to help city planners manage urban water, whether in suburbs, regions or river systems. He was formerly the Director of Knowledge Exchange in the CRC for Freshwater Ecology, forerunner of eWater CRC. Ralph is now eWater’s Principal Scientist and Director of the Source Community, Toolkit, Training and Documentation.
Joel Rahman Technology Manager Joel has more than 10 years’ experience in model development and software engineering and is leading the development of broad-scale hydrological modelling tools. He has been involved in the development of several integrated hydrological delivered via the Toolkit website. He has also been involved in the development of hydrological tools for modelling water quantity, water quality and ecological condition in rural and urban catchments. Joel is now a senior consultant and his company, Flow Matters, is a Source Modelling Community member.
Aapo Skorulis Executive Manager, Business Operations Aapo was responsible for eWater’s business operations from late November 2006 until early 2012. He joined eWater from the University of Wollongong where he held various research related roles including General Manager of Innovation and Commercial Development, Director of Research Office and Director of Incubator Initiative.
Dr Peter Wallbrink Executive Manager, River Systems / Catchments and Climate Peter led a multidisciplinary team developing the Source platform. Peter was formerly the Deputy Director of the CRC for Catchment Hydrology. He has led diverse teams—drawn from many agencies and disciplines—working on issues of national significance. This includes leading teams on behalf of CSIRO, the Land and Water R&D Corporation, Melbourne Water and the Sydney Catchment Authority. Peter continues to play a lead role in supporting the application of eWater Source through his role at CSIRO.
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 our CRC heritage
eWater CRC Research and Development Leaders We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the following team leaders and indeed all those whose work has contributed to the product development and industry knowledge that are the hallmarks of eWater’s success to date.
Dr Matthew Bethune Matthew is with the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, he was seconded to eWater CRC to manage the delivery of the River Systems project. He has 17 years of experience leading, developing and delivering projects that deal with water resource management issues in Australia.
Dr Nick Bond Nick is with the Australian Rivers Institute at Griffith University, with 15 years of experience in freshwater ecology. His primary research interests are in the effects of flow variability on stream biota, and integrating this knowledge into catchment scale planning and restoration. Nick led eWater’s freshwater research team.
Dr Guy Burkitt Guy as software developer with engineering and environmental consultants BMT WBM, led the software team for Urban Developer, eWater’s urban water modelling application. Guy’s experience includes the development of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software for mobile devices and drowsiness detection technology. Guy has a PhD in neuroscience and began his software career making neuroscience instrumentation.
Dr Freeman Cook Freeman is an environmental physicist with Freeman Cook & Associates and was research team leader for eWater in the Aquatic and Catchment Modelling Group. His group studied constituent dynamics and transport in catchments. Their work provides the science behind these processes in the Source software. Freeman has worked on a wide range of environmental physics problems from microbial respiration in soils to catchment hydrology.
ProfESSOR Graeme Dandy Graeme is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Adelaide. He led the University of Adelaide’s involvement in the Decision Sciences Team of the eWater CRC and was involved in the development of multi-objective optimisation tools and their integration with Urban Developer and other eWater products. He has 40 years of experience in research into the application of optimisation and artificial intelligence techniques to water resources planning and management and has more than 180 publications in this field.
Dr Matthew Hardy Matthew is with BMT WBM and was product leader for eWater’s Source Urban software. He worked on generating knowledge and tools to support integrated total water cycle management in urban areas and in regions surrounding them.
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 our CRC heritage
Mathew J Hardy Mathew was the Urban Systems Project Manager for the eWater CRC, managing research and development projects to deliver scientific, decision-support hydrological modelling tools including Urban Developer. His background includes extensive study in terrestrial, evolutionary and behavioural ecology, conservation and natural resource management. Prior to working at eWater, Mathew worked for both the commercial and not-for-profit sectors.
Dr Phillip Jordan Phillip is a senior hydrologist with Sinclair Knight Merz and was a project leader with eWater, involved in developing the catchment modelling and rainfall-runoff model calibration capabilities within Source. His research and consulting interests include flood hydrology, rainfallrunoff modelling and applications of meteorological radar in hydrology. He has 16 years of experience in hydrology and water resources modelling and has applied Source and its predecessors to several water quality modelling projects in Australia.
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Alistair Korn Alistair is a hydrological modeller with the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. He assisted the eWater CRC with the design and delivery of hydrological and water resource management functionality in the River Systems project. He has 10 years of experience in hydraulic and hydrologic modelling in the UK, Vietnam and Australia.
Professor George Kuczera George is Professor of Water Engineering in the School of Engineering at the University of Newcastle. His research interests cover a range of areas including Bayesian calibration and testing of hydrologic models, stochastic hydrology and risk assessment, water resource systems analysis and multi-criteria optimisation. He has published extensively on these topics and has developed a range of software for use in research, education and industry. George has been recipient of the G.N. Alexander and Warren Medals from Engineers Australia and has served as chairman of the National Committee on Water Engineering.
Dr Nick Marsh Nick is a physical process scientist with a keen interest in providing science based tools to support natural resource managers. Nick was project leader with eWater’s restoration, planning and prioritisation products, which include the tools Eco Modeller and Catchment Planner. Nick is based at CSIRO Land and Water and Griffith University in Brisbane. Previously, he was Chief Scientist for Freshwater and Marine Sciences with the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency.
Sue Nichols Sue is a researcher and lecturer with the Institute for Applied Ecology, University of Canberra. Sue has 17 years of experience in freshwater ecology with particular interest in biological assessment of river condition. She has worked extensively on the development of the Australian River Assessment System (AUSRIVAS) and software to assess the biological health of Australian rivers. Her research focuses on the scientific principles underpinning ecological assessment for river management, and the use of causal criteria techniques to promote the application of ecological knowledge in managing the
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 our CRC heritage
environment. eWater’s Eco Evidence tool is based on these causal criteria techniques, to make better use of the vast pool of scientific research to aid informed management decisions concerning our natural environment.
Philip Pedruco Philip is a hydrologist with BMT WBM who has been involved in water engineering throughout Australia and internationally for over a decade. He has undertaken research for organisations such as Melbourne Water and National Parks and Wildlife (NSW). As well as undertaking research for various organisations he has been part of the team responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Thames Water network. Philip led the Regional Urban Team to develop the urban aspects of eWater’s Source modelling platform to assist water resources managers in their operational and planning capacities. This includes the development of tools to assess the needs over the coming decades such as the impacts of alternative water sources and climate variability.
Geoff Podger Geoff is a principal research scientist with CSIRO Land and Water and was research program leader within eWater’s River System Modelling project which is developing the next generation of Australian hydrological models. Geoff has 28 years of experience in hydraulic and hydrologic modelling, including 9 years in coastal engineering and 19 years in river basin management and planning. He has been involved in the development of numerous hydraulic and hydrologic computer models and is principal author of the well-known Integrated Quantity and Quality Model (IQQM).
Dr Jai Vaze Jai is a principal research scientist in CSIRO Land and Water in Canberra where he leads the catchment hydrology team within the surface water hydrology research program. Jai has more than 18 years of experience in water resources management, inland landscape modelling, distributed hydrologic modelling, predictions in ungauged basins, hydroclimate modelling and spatial modelling and he has published more than 70 scientific papers and reports. Jai has worked on various projects that contribute to key national initiatives including the CSIRO Sustainable Yields
projects, the eWater CRC’s Source for rivers project and the South Eastern Australia Climate Initiative.
David Waters David is a senior hydrologist with the Queensland Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts (formerly Department of Environment and Resource Management). He led the eWater CRC Source for catchments applications projects. He has worked for a number of years undertaking runoff, erosion and water quality research work for the grazing, cotton, and cropping industries. David also has first-hand experience applying the Source model across Queensland, assessing water quality impacts due to on ground works investment.
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 our CRC heritage
Dr Angus Webb Angus is a senior research fellow in the Department of Resource Management and Geography at the University of Melbourne. Angus has more than 10 years of experience in the study of landscape scale impacts on freshwater systems, focusing on the ecological impacts of flow regulation and restoration. His principal research interests are the application of novel analysis techniques to make better use of the data and pre-existing knowledge on these systems. This includes the use of Bayesian modelling techniques for analysing large-scale environmental data sets, and the use of Causal Criteria Analysis—through Eco Evidence—to systematically analyse the literature.
Dr Wendy Welsh Wendy is a river system and groundwater modeller, and a research team leader with CSIRO Land and Water Division. Wendy has been involved in developing the Source modelling system since 2007. She led the eWater CRC hydrology and specifications team. Wendy recently co-authored a paper on the Source modelling system and its individual modelling components (W.D. Welsh et al.,2012, An integrated modelling framework for regulated river systems).
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eWater Innovation
Professor Gary Jones
eWater Innovation (eWI) was established in 2009 as a customer support subsidiary company of eWater Ltd to provide professional product distribution, user support and customer services to the CRC. Its operations were merged with eWater Ltd during 2011-12.
eWI Board Dr Keith Steele Chair Keith is Managing Director of Steele Business Solutions, Chair of the Board of eWater Innovation, Deputy Chair of Beef CRC, and a Case Manager for Commercialisation Australia. He was Chief Executive Officer of AgResearch Ltd (1997 – 2003), and Chief Scientist and then Executive Director of Primary Industries for the Victorian Department of Natural Resources and Environment (1991 – 1997). He has more than 30 years of experience in commercialisation of new products and services in more than 80 companies across a diverse range of industries.
Gary, also Chief Executive of eWater CRC (now eWater Ltd), has extensive experience in environment and water management. He took over as Chair of eWI from January 2012. He chaired the Living Murray Scientific Panel and was a member of the 2006 Australian State of the Environment Committee. He is Director and chairman of the International Riverfoundation.
Tony McAlister As Managing Director of BMT WBM, Tony oversees more than 185 staff within the company’s six Australian and two international offices. He has been with the company for 24 years, in which time he has been actively involved in water quality and environmental management studies in Australia, the UK, the Middle East and south-east Asia. He is industry leader of eWater CRC’s Urban Water program. Tony has considerable experience in the areas of numerical modelling, data collection and assessment, urban and non-urban diffuse source pollution assessment and management, integrated water cycle management, and sewerage and water supply investigations.
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 our CRC heritage
Murray Rankin Murray founded The Distillery Software in 1997 and, as Chief Executive Officer, grew it to 130 staff globally with operations in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Africa and Asia. He has won numerous national business awards including the Telstra Small Business of The Year. He is an occasional lecturer in business strategy at the Australian National University, Macquarie University and Melbourne Business School. Murray is a director and Chair of numerous boards of innovative Australian companies and also sits on a number of Government boards as a technology adviser. Murray was awarded an Australia Day Medal for achievements in the national security and intelligence sector.
eWI Executive Tim Blackman Chief Executive Tim has a background in online/digital services, software and database development and commercialisation. He has worked for a number of major companies including Nine-MSN, Telstra Bigpond and Optus, where he was responsible for several successful commercialisation projects. Tim holds a degree in oceanography and computing science (University of New South Wales), and a Masters of Business Administration (Australian Graduate School of Management). His early career included five years with the Navy as a ship’s executive officer, navigator and gunnery officer. Tim resigned from eWI in mid 2012 after leading the merger of eWI with eWater Ltd.
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 Our new team and partners
Our new team and partners eWATER LTD EXECUTIVE TEAM (FROM 2012) Professor Gary Jones Chief Executive Gary has extensive experience in environment and water management. After a distinguished research career in Australia and overseas, he became the Chief Executive of the CRC for Freshwater Ecology in 2002 and Chief Executive of eWater CRC after its establishment in 2005. Professor Jones chaired The Living Murray Scientific Reference Panel and was a member of the 2006 Australian State of the Environment Committee. He has been Chair of eWater Innovation since the beginning of 2012 and is also Chair of the International Riverfoundation.
Dr Robert Carr Deputy CEO Robert is an experienced hydrologist and hydraulics expert with 30 years of expert review, project, software development and management experience. Robert is a researcher, trainer and practitioner in the water science-to-technology field, particularly in the field of simulation tools for integrated water management for Australia and internationally.
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He has extensive experience in managing urban, riverine, estuarine, and groundwater data collection and modelling projects. Robert was formerly President of the USA arm of DHI Water and Environment and director Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Formerly Business Development Manager for eWater, Robert became Deputy CEO in 2012 and is now in charge of new business and membership, along with product development.
Dominic Dolan Executive Business Manager Dominic has more than 20 years of experience in senior management positions in the UK, USA and Australia. He has worked for rapidly growing companies in the IT, biotechnology, manufacturing and service sectors. In recent years he has been a Business Advisor on the Enterprise Connect program providing strategic and operational advice and guidance for companies in ACT and surrounding region. Dominic has been involved in the establishment and development of many companies in Australia and overseas, including successful grant funding applications and capital-raising.
Team leaders Dr Geoffrey Adams Principal Hydrologist – Rivers Geoff joined the eWater team in 2012 and leads eWater’s science and engineering team. He has significant experience in water resource planning and risk management through Director roles with Murray-Darling Basin Authority and with the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Authority. As CSIRO team leader, Dr Adams managed testing of Source for rivers, now part of eWater’s Source modelling platform. He was also Manager of Water Resources and of Water Systems Operations with GoulburnMurray Water.
Geoff Davis Software Team Leader Geoff has significant experience in both the management and technical disciplines of agile software development. Geoff has managed a successful team of more than 30 developers, testers and hydrologists on the Source modelling platform project for eWater CRC. Prior to joining eWater he worked as a software development team leader at CSIRO.
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 Our new team and partners
Emma Betts Manager Training and Documentation Emma coordinates product training development and technical documentation for eWater’s suite of modelling tools. She has worked for more than 10 years in water resources research, education and communication in Australia and the United States. Emma’s experience includes tertiary education, professional development, and communication of scientific concepts to a range of audiences. Her research activities include investigation of the impact of fire, permafrost and irrigation on surface and groundwater quality. She has a special interest in online tools for communication, education and professional communities of practice.
Dr Ashis Dey Principal Hydrologist – Urban Ashis joined eWater in early 2012. He is a highly experienced urban hydraulics and flood engineer, joining eWater from Cardno Ltd (XP Solutions), where he was Principal—Water Engineering and Team Leader—Engineering Software Development. Ashis also worked as a consultant and researcher in Japan and as a trainer in modelling software to professional engineers in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea and Malaysia. He recently co-authored
Engineers Australia’s Project 9-Urban Drainage System Hydraulics – the new National Guideline. Ashis oversees eWater’s urban product development and training.
Mehul Dhanesha Finance Manager Mehul is a Chartered Accountant. As Finance Manager he is responsible for establishing and maintaining financial management procedures and making regular reports to the Board and Executive on income, expenditure and any variations from budgets. Mehul joined eWater in 2009. His previous roles include Financial Controller for organisations in Oman and India in the petroleum and ceramic industries.
Colin Feilen Head of Sales Colin brings more than 10 years of sales and business development experience gained in startup companies and new market environments within the water and health and technology sectors in Australia and the UK. Colin holds a degree in Systems Agriculture and his early career included the running of his own recruitment business and involvement in his family wool and beef production property in southern NSW.
Dr Ralph Ogden Principal Scientist, Director of Source Modelling Community Ralph was formerly the Director of Knowledge Exchange in the CRC for Freshwater Ecology, forerunner of eWater CRC. He has held research positions with CSIRO Land and Water and the University of Canberra and has extensive experience in translating science into a form useful for water managers. Ralph studied the impacts of resource development on billabongs, influences driving physical habitat in rivers, and flooding effects on floodplains. He has a special interest in how scientific knowledge becomes embedded into policy and management.
Felicity Paul Office Manager Felicity has worked in office administration for more than 20 years, with 10 years corporate knowledge of eWater and its operations. She worked previously as Executive Assistant to Gary Jones (Chief Executive), initially with the CRC Freshwater Ecology then eWater CRC. In her present role as Office Manager for eWater, her goals are to develop a professional and approachable culture, with quality customer service. Her current focus is ensuring that eWater fulfils the requirements to achieve ISO 9001 accreditation.
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 Our new team and partners
Joel Rahman Source Project Director Joel is a consultant to eWater through his company, Flow Matters. During 2011-12, Joel oversaw the formation of the eWater’s in-house technology capability and contributed to the delivery of the Source NHMP agreement. Formerly Team Leader, Environmental Information Systems, Joel was involved in the development of several integrated hydrological models including EMSS and E2.
Jo Webb Communications and Marketing Manager Jo has more than 15 years of experience in marketing and communication across a number of sectors. Prior to joining eWater, she worked in corporate communications for the Water Corporation of Western Australia, leading publications development, branding and online communications. Jo has worked on public relations and marketing campaigns for state, local and Federal government agencies in Australia. Her early career included work for market research and advertising agencies in the United Kingdom.
New partners From July 2012, eWater, as a government-owned, not-for-profit partnership, is supported by the following company members: ●
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Commonwealth Government (Murray-Darling Basin Authority) Queensland Government (Department of Natural Resources and Mines) Government of New South Wales (Office of Water)
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Government of Victoria (Department of Sustainability and Environment) Government of South Australia (Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources).
These organisations provide governance and funding to support the implementation and use of Source as the new national hydrological modelling platform in Australia. Source Modelling Community member organisations, comprised of international and Australian private companies and local and state government agencies, also support the development of Source and eWater’s water industry capacity building work, including access to free tools and resources
MANAGEMENT AND STAFFING CHANGES In 2011-12 eWater’s transition from the CRC program to operations as a not-for-profit company included the following staff changes:
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Many staff at eWater centre office found jobs elsewhere, leaving a lean corporate team eWater recruited an inhouse software development team to replace the distributed team in the CRC. This new team, led by Geoff Davis, is made up of staff with significant previous experience in the eWater CRC projects, as well as some new staff from diverse professional backgrounds Dr Robert Carr was appointed Deputy CEO of eWater. Robert had been part-time with eWater in a sales development role during 2010–11 Business Executive Manager, Aapo Skorulis resigned and Dominic Dolan was recruited for this role in early 2012 eWI Chief Executive Tim Blackman led the merger of eWI with eWater Ltd, successfully managing the transition of cultures, staff, finances and contracts. Tim resigned in early 2012, handing over to Dominic and Robert in June Communication and Marketing Executive Manager Gareth Lloyd found a new career opportunity and his role is now carried by Jo Webb who was previously managing communication in eWater CRC Finance Manager Karl Caig resigned and his deputy Mehul Dhanesha has taken on the role Executive Manager for Rivers and Catchments, and then for Source development, Dr Peter Wallbrink, left eWater and returned full time to CSIRO.
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 Our part in Australia’s water science and management
Our part in Australia’s water science and management Water use in Australia is undergoing a revolutionary transformation, with public concern about water security, flooding and river health decline driving generational change in policy and management. More than any time in our history, it is fundamental that water is used and managed more wisely and more efficiently, for both human and environmental purposes. To do so requires the ability to understand the myriad physical, environmental and socio-economic interactions influencing modern water resources management. The need to repeatedly, transparently and efficiently analyse different water management and climatic scenarios is greater than any point in our history. Hydrological modelling has become a mission critical tool to support these objectives. The daily, seasonal and long-term planning and scenario analysis that must be undertaken by water managers is just too complex to do without models.
Since the early 2000s it has become apparent that existing models, developed independently by different organisations, have struggled to cope with the emerging range and complexity of policy, management and environmental requirements. Moreover, with changes to strategic priorities within government departments, it has become increasingly difficult for every jurisdiction to maintain its own extensive in-house model development and support capability. With agreement on the National Water Initiative in 2004, and the increasing role of the Commonwealth in guiding and funding better water use, it was clear that a consistent national approach to modelling and prediction was no longer just desirable, but essential. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) recognised this as long-term need that will require an enduring strategy. In November 2008, COAG committed to the implementation of a National Hydrologic Modelling Strategy (NHMS) that would guide the development and maintenance of a “...modern and evolving hydrological modelling platform and support network that
meets the needs of current and future water management across Australia” beyond 2011-12. In May 2012, eWater secured an agreement with the Australian Government and states to support the ongoing development and implementation eWater Source, as the national hydrological modelling platform under the NHMS. We also continue to offer free environmental and water management software tools, via the eWater Toolkit. Our market leading stormwater management software, MUSIC (Model for Urban Stormwater Improvement Conceptualisation), underpins water sensitive urban design for compliance with water quality policies across Australia. It is also used in the United Kingdom, Europe, Singapore, Malaysia and Korea. Our Urban Developer software, released in late 2011, is establishing its place in the design and approvals process for allotment to suburb scale urban water systems. Similarly, our new Water Quality Analyser software is finding good market uptake. This tool helps to identify water quality trends, estimate pollutant loads, or set water quality targets.
“The Source framework will deliver some significant water reform achievements. It recognises the complexity of modern adaptive management processes and encompasses critical aspects such as the integration of disciplinary areas, the bringing together of the latest scientific knowledge, and addressing water sharing to deliver a flexible and robust national framework.” Kerry Olsson, National Water Commission Deputy CEO
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 Our modelling software
Our modelling software Our software tools are used to support water management around the world.
Australia’s first national river basin scale water modelling system, eWater Source is an enterprise platform which supports Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). It is a flexible and integrated enterprise product which can be configured to the needs of each organisation. For example if the initial need is urban, Source will be configured to model the urban water cycle. Later on if it becomes necessary to model the catchments which are close to the urban area, Source would then be configured to model both the catchments and urban requirements. Organisations using Source can choose the urban, catchment or river planning and operations configuration. With a holistic approach to water management, including human and ecological impacts, Source can integrate existing models. This means users can build on, rather than replace existing models. It also allows for plugins to be developed that meet project specific or need-based modelling capacity.
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Example applications of eWater Source For more information, visit www.ewater.com.au/source
It has been developed to address water sharing and savings for entire river and connected groundwater systems including cities, agricultural and environmental demands. Its groundbreaking capability links science, policy and management, allowing decision makers to consider future scenarios and alternative management options for catchments, urban environments and rivers systems.
We gratefully acknowledge the financial and technical contribution and collaboration by many government, industry and research organisations to the development of Source.
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 Our modelling software
The core development of Source was undertaken in the eWater Cooperative Research Centre, which was supported by the Australian government, through the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education.
Development was accelerated by Australian Government funding support from the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities and the National Water Commission.
eWater CRC partners also contributed substantial funding and in-kind support.
climate land use ecological assets
dams & weirs
irrigation cities
“Underpinned by cutting edge science, Source has the ability to holistically address water sharing for entire river and connected groundwater systems. It takes into account urban, agricultural and environmental concerns – which lie at the heart of more effective and transparent water management and planning.” James Cameron, CEO National Water Commission
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 Source Application
Catchment and River System Modelling in Queensland Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is a World Heritage Area with biodiversity of international significance. Its vast interlacing web of organisms all have a vital role to play in keeping the ecosystem healthy. Declining water quality in nearby catchments—much of it brought about by human activity—is now posing a long-term threat to the Reef. Fertilisers, pesticides, sediments, nutrients, toxic chemicals, sewage, oil, heavy metals and detergents running into the GBR lagoon all endanger its indispensable plants and animals. To address these threats, the Commonwealth and Queensland governments developed the Great Barrier Reef Rescue Plan and a Reef Water Quality Protection Plan which aims to dramatically improve the quality of water entering the reef. The Queensland Government is using Source in an intensive modelling effort to assess progress towards achieving Reef Plan (2009) water quality targets by 2013, spanning 35 priority GBR catchments. The catchmentscale modelling component has been funded by the Queensland State Government, which will invest significant money over coming years.
“Source flexibility has allowed us to adapt the software to meet the specific project objectives.” David Waters, Senior Hydrologist, Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines
This collaborative program has several components which include the monitoring and modelling of a range of attributes including management practices and water quality at the paddock, subcatchment, catchment and marine scales. This approach requires the ability to link the monitoring and modelling outputs at each spatial scale and then across scales.
area of 423,000 km2. The modelling approach is repeatable and aligned with previous modelling, for consistency. The modelling covers nine major land use categories and 17 constituents.
To develop an explicit representation of the erosion process, a model was required to be spatially distributed to represent land use, climate and soils. It also needed to represent average annual estimates of sediment, nutrients and pesticides, as well as to reflect land use or management changes. A plugin to Source was developed (Dynamic SedNET) that combined eWater’s SedNet (free Toolkit software) with other water quality models. This ensemble of spatial and point models was run and outputs were fed into Source for load generation. The models were validated against in-stream monitoring data.
Macintyre Brook
A consistent modelling approach was taken across all regions, using six models, based on the six natural resource management regions of Queensland, which cover a total
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This application of Source is helping to assess the impact of investments in land management changes to reduce pollutant loads to the Reef.
The Macintyre Brook catchment is located in the northern region of the Murray-Darling Basin; it is a subcatchment of the Border Rivers region (along the border of Queensland and New South Wales). It lies in the Queensland segment of the Border Rivers region, approximately 90km east of Goondiwindi and 270km west of Brisbane. The Macintyre Brook system is distinctive in that it uses a different approach to resource assessment and allocation when compared to most other water supply schemes in Queensland (and Australia as a whole). The alternative water allocation approach used in Macintyre Brook is known as continuous sharing and essentially gives individual users the
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 Source Application
SEDIMENT FLOWING INTO PRINCESS CHARLOTTE BAY (FEB 2007) © Robert Packett
© LCDR Eric Johnson, NOAA Corps
© LCDR Eric Johnson, NOAA Corps
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 Source Application
ability to manage their ‘share’ of water independently of other users. Each water user is allocated a share of the system storage capacity (based on a number of factors) and a share of the inflows to the system; users can independently determine the quantity of water to use from their share without affecting, or being affected, by other water users. In conjunction with the Queensland Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts (DSITIA), eWater is trialling the planning component of the Source software platform in the Macintyre Brook system. The focus of this testing has been to apply Source to the modelling of a river system with a continuous sharing water resource assessment and allocation system. The aim is to improve water management, resource assessment and delivery in the Macintyre Brook system.
Pioneer River The Pioneer River system is a small regulated catchment near Mackay in mid-north Queensland. Located in a relatively high rainfall zone, the total catchment area (1580 km2) is regulated through the operation of two major dams (Teemburra Dam, Kinchant Dam) and three weirs (Mirani Weir, Marian Weir, Dumbleton Rocks Weir). Several water products are managed in the scheme, including unsupplemented entitlements, two classes of supplemented entitlements and groundwater entitlements. Most water diversions are for sugarcane farming and town water supply. The Pioneer River system includes ecological assets, such as the freshwater eel tailed catfish, that are protected through environmental flow rules.
The system has complex rules for water-sharing between the various users. Each time a new Water Resource Plan is released, the rules are remodelled by DSITIA. For many years, the Queensland Government has used the Integrated Quantity and Quality Model (IQQM), a hydrologic (surface water) model with limited representation of groundwater processes. In August 2011, DSITIA began a project to establish and compare two parallel hydrologic models for the Pioneer River system, the eWater Source modelling system and IQQM. The project will continue until the release of the upcoming Pioneer Valley Water Resource Plan in 2013. The trial application is testing a wide variety of Source functionality, such as rainfall-runoff modelling, flow routing, inflows, losses, storage operation, water accounting, demands, groundwater interaction, data imports and exports, and statistical analysis of results. DSITIA is also testing and comparing two approaches to annual accounting resource assessment systems (also known as ‘water sharing’), using an external plugin and the annual accounting GUI (graphic user interface) form.
MACINTYRE BROOK DAM
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 Source Application
Since the Source trial started, DSITIA has built a schematic of the Pioneer River system, defined storage-level and rating tables for all the major physical works, implemented the Pioneer’s water-sharing rules using the plugin interface, and undertaken routing and inflow derivation (including rainfall runoff modelling and storage inflow derivation) for 30% of the catchment.
PIONEER RIVER, QUEENSLAND © Nickj, Wikimedia Commons The Pioneer River project was groundbreaking amongst the trial applications of Source for managing rivers in that DSITIA used Source to develop a new hydrologic model; other trials converted existing models. This tested Source’s capabilities in the areas of data preparation, inflow calibration and routing calibration. To calibrate the model, DSITIA has tested Source’s inbuilt Sacramento rainfall-runoff model (a catchment water balance model that relates runoff to rainfall with daily data). The model was found to compare sufficiently to the IQQM platform. The Department anticipates that calibrating Source’s Sacramento model will be easier, making it the preferred rainfall-runoff model for Queensland catchments.
Advantages of Source The advantages that DSITIA identified with Source over its existing IQQM model included: ●
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the user-friendly interface, allowing models to be built quickly and transparently the graphing tool, making it easier to visualise and export model results
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a common cross-agency platform
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enabling sharing of methodologies
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the plugin interface, to create different custom pre- and postprocessing tasks.
Source offers powerful and flexible tools on a modern software platform. DSITIA’s testing of the platform has led to their decision to use it to model Queensland’s river systems in the years to come. The information on the use of Source in Queensland was provided by the Queensland Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts, and the Department of Natural Resources and Mines. The trial projects were initiated under the former Department of Environment and Resource Management. The Queensland Government is an eWater company partner and has committed to adopting Source as part of the COAG National Hydrological Modelling Platform (NHMP) agreement. PARTNER ●
Queensland Government
“Source is extremely valuable to use as a guide to future investment.” Dr Chris Carroll, Reef Scientist, Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines.
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 source application
Source applications in Western Australia Lower Blackwood Nutrient Modelling
HARDY INLET, WESTERN AUSTRALIA © Simon Neville / DoW
AVON CATCHMENT, WESTERN AUSTRALIA © Jenny Davis / DoW
Avon Catchment Nutrient Modelling The Avon Catchment in Western Australia (WA) is about the size of Tasmania and flows into the Swan River, through Perth. The WA Department of Water are using eWater Source together with the Large Scale Catchment Model (LASCAM) hydrological plugin to calibrate the model at approx 12 gauging stations. Landuse mapping and point source analysis will also be employed to include phosphorus and nitrogen constituent modelling.
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LASCAM was originally developed with the aim of predicting the impact of land use and climatic changes on the daily trends of streamflow and water quality in large catchments over long time periods. By developing the LASCAM hydrological code as a Source plugin, the Avon Project is utilising the well-tested LASCAM hydrology in conjunction with the Source functionality that was not available to the initial LASCAM model (including the superior Calibration Tool and various node models). The Avon Project will assist catchment managers by identifying subcatchments and land uses that export excessive nutrient loads, which will assist in the selection and prioritisation of remedial activities.
A similar nutrient modelling exercise to the Avon is being undertaken on the Lower Blackwood River. The Blackwood is the largest river in the South West of WA at approximately 300 km long. It flows in a south-westerly direction, discharging into the Southern Ocean via the Hardy Inlet at Augusta. The Hardy Inlet is an iconic estuary valued by many for its exceptional beauty, ecological values and recreational opportunities. The inlet is one of only two large permanently open estuaries on WA’s south coast, and is an important nursery for marine finfish. Resident and migratory waterbirds feed and seek refuge around the inlet, and a wide variety of aquatic fauna and plants are also supported. The long-term protection of the estuary’s water quality is vital if such values are to be preserved for future generations. This modelling will be used to examine land use and water quality to develop Stage II of the Hardy Inlet Water Quality Improvement Plan.
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 source application
Decision Support for Farm Dam management The South West of WA has a large number of private earth dams, or farm dams, capturing water for stock, domestic or commercial use. These distributed storages support a range of high-value agricultural activities such as viticulture and fruit and vegetable cultivation. In order to assist planners, agriculturalists and water authorities to calculate the impact of farm dams on rivers and the reliability of their water supply to agricultural land, Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) and Department of Water (DoW), with the support of the National Water Commission (NWC), developed the Planning and Allocation Tool (P&AT) to extend the functionality of Source for this particular need. The tool won the Spatially Enabling Government category in the Western Australian Spatial Excellence Awards 2012.
FARM DAM IN SOUTH WEST WA © Ashley Ramsay / DoW
“The application of Source, along with SKM’s award-winning suite of plugins, helped answered a number of key questions concerning farm dams in WA.” Joel Hall, Department of Water, Western Australia
As a series of plugins to Source, the tool provided new functionality that allows farm dams to be added as a node model analysed individually or as a dam network. The technology has already been used to help stakeholders and the community understand the hydrology and reliability of farm dams through spatial and visual mediums. Proposed new dams can, for the first time in Australia, be assessed for their effect on the reliability of supply to other water users downstream. The DoW is in the process of groundtruthing and improving the models using local scale rainfall-runoff modelling and new streamflow information, before rolling out to 17 subcatchments in the South West of WA.
COMMUNICATING WITH GROWERS © Ashley Ramsay / DoW The project was successful because Source allowed custom outputs to be developed that were specific to the WA policy and planning context. Being based on the flexible TIME framework, Source lends itself to further customisation to meet future hydrological modelling challenges, many of which may be currently unforeseen. In producing the custom functionality of Source for this tool, SKM found that many of the ‘building blocks’ of the tool already existed as elements in the framework and that the writing of plugins was largely an exercise in linking these elements together into a customised process.
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 source application
Northern Gnangara Local Area Groundwater Model The Gnangara groundwater system covers an area of approximately 2200 Km2, bounded by the Swan River to the south, Gingin Brook to the north and between the coast and the Darling fault. It is a major source of potable water for public water supply in the South West of WA. It also supports an extensive horticultural industry, urban parks and recreational areas, industrial activities and a range of unique ecological systems.
In the last 30 years, and particularly the last decade, there has been less rain to recharge groundwater, which has had a direct impact on the groundwater stored in the system. Source is being used to conceptualise the surface water gains and losses to the Northern Gnangara Groundwater Area in Perth. Source is used to provide inflows to the model domain, and then to quantify the conceptual losses or gains to and from the groundwater within the model domain. The results will be used to inform a hydrological model that is being developed for this area, and will utilise Source’s groundwatersurface water interaction processes.
LUCICAT Plugin Development The Land Use Change Incorporated Catchment (LUCICAT) model is a dynamic water-balance model that simulates daily streamflow and salt load for given rainfall, evaporation and land use. The model simulates large catchments by breaking them down into smaller response units. DoW use LUCICAT for hydrological and salinity modelling and are developing a plugin for this model to Source. The information on Source applications in Western Australia was supplied by the Department of Water, Western Australia (DoW). DoW and SKM are Source Modelling Community members who are undertaking a variety of projects using the Source platform. members ●
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LAKE GNANGARACAPTION © Frederik Vanrenterghem
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Department of Water, Western Australia Sinclair Knight Merz
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 source application
Improving River Operations and River Health in Victoria Goulburn River The Goulburn River is the River Murray’s largest tributary in Victoria. Its regulated system supports approximately 1100 GL of high reliability irrigation, urban water and environmental entitlements and 440 GL of low reliability entitlements. Source is being used in the Goulburn River system for planning and forecasting of regulated river operations, including: ●
river flows
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storage levels
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environmental flows
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harvesting to off-stream storage.
The system begins at Lake Eildon in the headwaters of the Goulburn River. Lake Eildon is the primary storage; supplying irrigation water to the Goulburn–Murray Irrigation Area, the largest area of irrigated farmland in Australia. Regulation of the Goulburn River also occurs at Goulburn Weir near Nagambie, one of Australia’s oldest reservoirs built specifically for irrigation. By raising the level of the Goulburn River, the weir allows large volumes of irrigation water to be diverted by gravity along Stuart Murray Canal, Cattanach Canal and the East Goulburn Main Channel.
GOULBURN RIVER, VICTORIA River operations involve the management of water stored in and released from dams, the regulation of water through the river system, the management of bulk and private diversions from the river for consumptive use, and environmental flows. Forecasting and planning is an important part of this work.
Kym Wilson, Water Resources Officer with Goulburn-Murray Water said that in forecasting river flows, Source had produced more accurate river flow forecasts with less user input and reduced the reliance on the user to directly control variables such as travel time and flow attenuation.
“The advantages of the Source modelling system include how it displays information, its ability to incorporate planning and forecasting requirements into a single model and the ease of incorporating logic into a model.” Kym Wilson, Goulburn-Murray Water
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 source application
“When forecasting releases from storage, Source uses information on system travel times, flow constraints, river losses, tributary inflows and demand inputs to determine the volume of water to be released,” he said. He added that incorporating all of this information into the forecasts had not been achieved with a single spreadsheet model. “We also use recession models in Source to forecast tributary inflow, which can allow us to improve the efficiency of river operations and increase water harvesting ability.”
“The functionality within Source is superior to that available through spreadsheet based models, which has made the Source model a more efficient planning tool for us. The ability to manipulate the Source model to reflect what we expect to occur on the ground also provides a big advantage.” Kym Wilson, Goulburn-Murray Water
In terms of future applications, Mr Wilson said that Goulburn-Murray Water hoped to use Source as their primary river operations and planning tool for the Goulburn River system. He said that they intend to explore the practicality of building environmental accounting processes into the Goulburn Source model and may look to build Source models of other river systems they manage.
“The functionality within Source is superior to that available through spreadsheet based models, which has made the Source model a more efficient planning tool for us. The ability to manipulate the Source model to reflect what we expect to occur on the ground also provides a big advantage,” he said. This information on the application of Source for Goulburn River management was provided by Goulburn-Murray Water. GoulburnMurray Water was an eWater CRC partner and is now an observer in the COAG National Hydrologic Modelling Platform agreement. PARTNER ●
GOULBURN WEIR
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Goulburn-Murray Water
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 our modelling software
Commercial software eWater offers both free and commercial software products. Licence fees for our commercial products provide important revenue to support product development and and services that are part of our not-forprofit mission.
Our MUSIC (Model for Urban Stormwater Improvement Conceptualisation) software is Australia’s benchmark tool for stormwater quality management and improvement. It can accurately simulate real-time water sensitive design and allows urban stormwater professionals to visualise possible strategies to tackle urban stormwater hydrology and pollution impacts. MUSIC enables: ●
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design and assessment of development proposals to meet water sensitive urban design standards evaluation of a wide range of stormwater treatment options and flooding management initiatives
The software has been used by thousands of professionals working in private practice and in state, regional and local government agencies throughout Australia. In late 2011, MUSIC was launched in the United Kingdom, as ‘MUSIC UK’, in partnership with JBA Consulting. Revenue generated from MUSIC and the associated online product listing service helps to support the ongoing maintenance and support of the product.
Our Urban Developer software is a flexible and modular modelling environment for the simulation of urban water cycle services systems (potable water supply, stormwater, and wastewater). It enables the simulation of these systems at a range of spatial and temporal scales and allows urban water managers to compare integrated water management options. Urban Developer allows users to: ●
pollutant and water balance modelling
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simulation of rainwater and stormwater harvesting
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life cycle costing examination of water quality pre and post development.
clearly represent all three urban water cycle services and the interaction inherent between them – potable, waste and stormwater deal with probabilistic demand and end-use simulation analyse models using either continuous rainfall and climate data over long periods, or using design storm events
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integrate systems at a range of spatial scales explore the effects of rainwater harvesting.
Urban Developer is built on the TIME framework and shares core functionality with eWater Source. This software will be further refined over time with input from its early adopters.
Water Quality Analyser Water Quality Analyser is a software tool for water managers, scientists and engineers who need to monitor in-stream water quality, estimate pollutant loads, or set future water quality targets. It provides a simple interface to any text-formatted database, making it easy to access and scrutinise the required water quality data from multiple sources. It also enhances the ability to effectively share data within and between organisations. Water Quality Analyser brings together a collection of analytical and statistical tools, databases, a knowledge base, electronic documents (such as water quality guidelines) and a decision support system. It builds on default guideline values from ANZECC and ARMCANZ as well as some state-specific values (for example, Queensland Water Quality Guidelines 2006).
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 our modelling software
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 our modelling software
Total Water Cycle Management Planning in Queensland At more than 3.1 million people, and expected to rise to around 4.4 million by 2026, South East Queensland has one of the fastest growing populations in Australia. Projected population expansion will further pressure the region’s waterways, which largely drain into Moreton Bay. To facilitate sustainable development and planning, the Queensland Environmental Protection (Water) Policy 2009 (EPPWater) prescribes that all Local Government Authorities (LGAs) of a certain size must develop and implement a Total Water Cycle Management (TWCM) Plan prior to July 2014. For South East Queensland (SEQ), the timing deadline was July 2012. Moreton Bay Regional Council (MBRC) was the first LGA in Queensland to commence the process of TWCM planning in response to this legislative requirement. Engineering and environmental consultancy, BMT WBM assisted MBRC in developing a TWCM strategy for the region as a first phase of the overall TWCM Plan. The outcome of the strategy was a list of solutions for investigation in the subsequent detailed planning phase.
The planning process was instrumental in identifying the specific water cycle management issues within each catchment and the preferred management scenarios to address these issues. eWater’s suite of modelling tools including Source, Urban Developer and MUSIC, were employed as part of this process, to quantify the performance of individual solutions and ultimately, management scenarios. The results of this modelling were used in extensive consultation workshops to improve understanding of the benefits, constraints, risks and opportunities associated with all of the solutions or to highlight where further investigations were warranted. PARTNER ●
BMT WBM Pty Ltd
MAROOCHY RIVER, QUEENSLAND © Eason Creative Photography
“Without Source we could not have been able to so clearly understand the influence of the land on the receiving environment.” Tony Weber, BMT WBM
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 our modelling software
Urban water planning in South Australia “It is now certain that global climate change is happening. What is less certain is how climate change impacts at a local level...The role and responsibility of all levels of government is to ensure we are fully informed, ready to act and work with our communities to address the risks, threats and opportunities.”
A BIO RETENTION BASIN, CITY OF ONKAPARINGA © Fyfe Earth Partners
Lorraine Rosenberg Mayor, Onkaparinga City
The City of Onkaparinga, on the southern fringe of Adelaide, is South Australia’s most populous council and is projecting its population will grow by 40,000 over the next 20 years. To cope with such rapid growth sustainably in a region where water scarcity is always an issue, the Council is implementing the Water Futures water management strategy as part of a comprehensive climate change strategy. In 2011, the City of Onkaparinga Council contracted The Fyfe Group, South Australia to undertake a hydrological investigation for several smaller subcatchment areas of 290-300 hectares which drain to the sea at the Gulf of St Vincent.
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The Council aimed to improve the quality of stormwater runoff to the sea and to protect the area from flooding by expanding the stormwater drainage capacity. To complete that analysis Fyfe used eWater’s urban stormwater modelling software, MUSIC (model for urban software improvements conceptualisation).
of water generated by each individual catchment was determined by MUSIC and indicated in the report for Council consideration.
With the help of MUSIC, the annual volume of water which can be harvested was determined and a water balance was defined.
The details of this application of MUSIC was provided by The Fyfe Group.
MUSIC was used to determine the effectiveness of the existing treatment trains within each of the sub-catchments. The quality of runoff being discharged into the gulf was found to be of poor quality and did not meet the expected runoff quality standards. The annual runoff volume
For this project Fyfe used MUSIC v5, the latest version of the product, making good use of its enhanced bioretention functionality.
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 our modelling software
eWater takes MUSIC to international markets eWater Innovation partnered with UK water engineering group, JBA Consulting to introduce eWater’s MUSIC software to European, North American and Asian markets. A grant from Commercialisation Australia helped us to fund the development of MUSIC to tailor it to UK conditions and we launched MUSIC UK in late 2011. A comparative study undertaken on a development application using MUSIC against current UK storm water design methods showed it could achieve around a 40% improvement in pollutant reduction. To support the introduction of MUSIC into this market and the development of best practice in sustainable drainage and water sensitive urban design, JBA and eWater sponsored a scoping study to inform the development of a vision for Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) in the UK.
WATER SENSITIVE URBAN DESIGN IN THE UK © JBA Consulting The study, being undertaken by the Construction Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA), will explore the application of international experience, guidance, identifying and evaluating the broader benefits. It will draw on case studies from other countries and provide a UK context.
PARTNER
JBA Consulting
●
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 our modelling software
eWater Toolkit The eWater Toolkit is a web-based distribution point for hydrological, ecological and catchment management models, databases and other resources useful to all involved in land and water management or related areas of research and development. It offers more than 24 tools, most of which are free to download. The Toolkit, which has no fee for membership, provides water and catchment management decision and analysis tools, backed by a library of technical information. The tools have been developed by eWater and its forerunner organisations over many years. They are designed for analysis of catchments, rivers, terrain, ecological response, urban water, vegetation, water quality and quantity and water trading.
With more than 14,000 users in over 120 countries, the Toolkit was visited by nearly 32,000 unique visitors in the financial year to June 2012
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The eWater Toolkit has analysis tools for: ●
catchments
●
rivers
●
terrain
●
ecological response
●
urban water
●
vegetation, and
●
water quality and quantity.
TIME MODELLING FRAMEWORK eWater’s key software tools have been built using The Invisible Modelling Environment (TIME). This environmental modelling framework supports several key stages of model development. It supports the development of new model components, using one of a number of software programing languages, along with the testing of those model components in a generic test-bed, providing a high level of data handling, analysis and visualisation. TIME also supports the integration of modules into applications with highly customised, visually rich user interfaces. It uses a number of reusable components for data handling, visualisation and high level model processing. The framework includes support for a number of key data abstractions for environmental modelling, including Rasters, Time Series, Points, Lines and Polygons and Node Link Networks.
Ecological Tools
Concept
Concept is a conceptual diagram drawing package that can be used to communicate dynamic relationships between the environmental factors and activities of multiple stakeholders. It is useful to stakeholder consultation by giving visual answers to different scenarios.
Eco Evidence provides robust capability for using the atomised information extracted from scientific papers for an evidence-based systematic literature review or causal assessment.
Eco Modeller is used for forecasting likely effects from particular management activities with natural resources. Eco Modeller applies ecological response models to time series data (e.g. flow; snag density over time) that you enter for your situation. After you have chosen an appropriate model, Eco Modeller runs your data and produces summary results of the predicted ecological response.
eFlow Predictor, giving managers of environmental water allocations a speedy way to determine the impact of a given flow on environmental as well as human objectives. It can be used whether or not there is enough water in your catchment.
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 our modelling software
TOOKIT DOWNLOADS TOOLKITSOFTWARE software downloads 339 / 3189
RRL 242 / 2641
RAP 308 / 2048
TREND CLASS
120 / 1653
SCL
187 / 1640 156 / 1607
CHUTE
189 / 1546
IHACRES
152 / 1516
RIPRAP
58 / 1281
SEDNET
88 / 1185
Aquacycle 54 / 855
SHPA
150 / 768
Concept
46 / 480
MELS
69 / 432
MCAT
58 / 389
NSFM
21 / 337
CMSS LIZA
24 / 299
eFlow-Predictor
83 / 287
Eco-Modeller WRAM
113 / 159 0 / 155
BC2C
0 / 88
Eco-Evidence
44 / 55
FCFC CatchmentSIM
All Other (21.5%)
0 / 39 0/1
Brazil (1.5%) Peru (1.7%) Thailand (1.8%) Malaysia (2.5%)
SOFTWARE USERS GLOBALLY (2011-2012)
Australia (50.8%)
UK (2.9%) Iran (3.6%) China (3.8%) India (4.5%) USA (5.4%)
2011-2012 ALL TIME
For more information on these tools, visit www.toolkit.net.au
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 Building industry capability
Building industry capability Training eWater has trained hundreds of water industry practitioners over the years. Our training courses not only teach attendees how to use our models, but often start with the basics, providing a holistic education in such topics as best practices in water sensitive urban design, catchment management, river systems management and the impact of catchment land-use and other human activities. We offer both online and face-toface courses and can also tailor courses for organisations that have special requirements. Our training is given by leading industry practitioners and is available in different packages and levels.
Stormwater management and Water Sensitive Urban Design Water sensitive urban design (WSUD) guidelines in Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne specify that planners use MUSIC to model stormwater quality and WSUD elements of their developments, and our training is keeping pace with demand.
MUSIC is also named as the model of choice for WSUD assessments in a national guide for urban planners and development assessors (Evaluating options for water sensitive urban design – a national guide), jointly developed by the Australian Government and state and territory governments as part of the National Water Initiative. In 2011-12, 20 face-to-face courses were held on using MUSIC for stormwater modelling. This included introductory and advanced workshops and bespoke courses for local governments on assessing the water sensitive urban design characteristics of development applications (Development Application Assessment using MUSIC). 221 people were trained through these commercial courses offered by eWater Innovation. eWI also hosted four workshops, attended by 280 people. Participants came from both the public and the private sectors, aiming to understand the functionality and benefits of MUSIC within their own water industry contexts.
Source training During 2011-12, internal training was held for the teams running application trials of the Source modelling platform. These training sessions brought together staff from different states as the foundation of a national community of practice that is essential to the long-term success of Source as the national hydrologic modelling platform. ‘Introduction to Source’ training workshops were held for CRC partners in late 2011. Participants included SA Water and SA Department for Water, Queensland’s Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts (formerly Department of Environment and Resource Management), Sinclair Knight Merz, Bureau of Meteorology, NSW Office of Water, State Water, Murray-Darling Basin Authority, ACTEW, CSIRO and the Federal Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. Source for Rivers Trial Application workshops were held in August and November 2011. These twoday workshops were to cultivate a community of practice for the people who were engaged in the application trials. Already familiar
“Goulburn-Murray Water has benefited from the eWater partnership model through participation in the range of eWater events—from staff conferences, participant forums and seminars, and training sessions—all have provided value exposure to the water and ecology research communities and providing GMW opportunities to present the views of a water management agency.” Goulburn-Murray Water
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 Building industry capability
with the main software, participants of these workshops were updated on knowledge they needed to run the trials. The workshops were important to introduce the teams to new functionality and facilitate their transfer of feedback to the software developers as to future priorities for Source functionality. We also hosted ‘How to write a Source plugin’ workshops for CRC end-user staff in Canberra, training approximately 30 participants. Presenters and participants came from CSIRO, BMT WBM, Murray-Darling Basin Authority, the University of Melbourne, University of Canberra, Sinclair Knight Merz and Moroka (a non-partner company). As part of the ‘Source 2012’ conference we ran a two-day training workshop with 20 participants. Organisations attending included GHD, Alluvium Consulting, WRM Water and Environment, Fitzroy Basin Association, Sydney Catchment Authority, SA Water, ACTEW, NTEC Environmental Technology, Southern Rivers CMA and Commonwealth Environmental Water.
SOURCE MODELLING WORKSHOP, CANBERRA
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 engaging stakeholders
Engaging stakeholders We continued to engage with the Australian and international water industry by hosting, exhibiting and presenting at a number of workshops and events. We spoke with industry colleagues to promote best practice water management, present research and showcase our products. We also took a number of opportunities to promote Australia’s water expertise to international audiences.
National Hydrologic Modelling Platform agreement The COAG National Hydrologic Modelling Platform (NHMP) agreement has endorsed eWater Source as the modelling software to be adopted toward a consistent national approach to eco-hydrologic modelling, particularly for water resource planning. The NHMP Steering Committee and Technical Working Groups have endorsed eWater’s project plans, software development priorities, activity directions and progress to date. Work within the NHMP and associated Source projects have seen improvements in the software usability, data management, performance and stability allowing for greater flexibility and model configuration.
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Our Source project team has received positive feedback from several agencies regarding our conduct of the new NHMP project. Particular recognition was given to our work to capture corporate knowledge in the transition from the eWater CRC to a not-for-profit partnership.
Source Modelling Community The Source Modelling Community is being established to support the implementation and development of Source and will help to facilitate our capability building endeavours. We announced plans for the Community and sought feedback on its aims and design at the ‘Source 2012’ workshop and at informal meetings with partners. eWater is facilitating a Source community of practice to encourage discussions and collaborations amongst Source users, and to provide support for writing plugins and for model linkages. An online forum space has been developed and knowledgesharing amongst Community members has begun.
Stakeholder Communications We kept partner representatives and staff informed of general news and changes via a quarterly email, eNews. For communication with the wider water industry, a monthly email newsletter, Science in the Real World, was sent to around 7000 subscribers. Our social media presence via Facebook and Twitter was used to engage people about new products, applications of our products and relevant industry news. We also share information about events and training, while engaging in conversations within the water space. These avenues continued to attract followers and interactions, and by 30 June 2012, eWater had 550 followers on Twitter and 100 followers on Facebook. The main eWater website continued to draw new and returning visitors. Through 2011–12, visits averaged 4000 per month until April–June 2012 when there were over 9000 visits in April, almost 12,000 visits in May, and 9500 visits in June. The Toolkit website also averaged around 4000 visits per month all year.
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 engaging stakeholders
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Vaze, J; Perraud, JM; Teng, J; Chiew, FHS; Wang, B and Yang, Z (2011). Catchment Water Yield Estimation Tools (CWYET).
eWater also exhibited and sponsored Riversymposium in September 2011. We launched Water Quality Analyser on the first day of the conference. Professor Gary Jones chaired the Rivers Debate and our modelling software was highlighted in some of the sesions.
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF RAIN BANK, BRISBANE © Michael Marston, The State of Queensland
Industry events We were proud to be associated with the 2011 Healthy Waterways Awards, as sponsor of the Water Sensitive Urban Design Award. The winner was South Bank Corporation, for its innovative urban stormwater harvesting and reuse centre, Rain Bank. Her Majesty The Queen opened the Rain Bank, in October 2011, during her visit to Brisbane. In mid 2011, eWater exhibited and presented at the 34th World Congress of the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR), held in Brisbane. Research papers relating to eWater models presented at this event included:
LAUNCH OF OUR SOFTWARE AT RIVERSYMPOSIUM
TIM BLACKMAN
●
Barlow, KM., Weeks, A., Githui, F. (2011) Investigation of the Use of PEST to Optimise a Source Catchments Model of Streamflow in the Ovens River, Australia.
New findings relating to the use of eWater models were presented at the International Congress on Modelling and Simulation (MODSIM) in Perth in mid-December 2011. The papers included: ●
Barbour, E.J., Driver, P.D., Kuczera, G.A., Blakers, R.S. and Croke, B.F.W. (2011) Optimizing environmental flow rules – a conceptual model. In Chan, F., Marinova, D. and Anderssen, R.S. (eds)
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 engaging stakeholders
Chen J, Kim SSH, Penton DJ, Kinsman D and Welsh WD. (2011) Visualising equivalent system networks in the NetLP optimisation of water distribution systems. Christy, B.P., McLean, T., Rancic, A. and Weeks, A. (2011) Changing landuse based on location in landscape affects catchment water yield.
●
Cook, F.J., Rohde, K.W. and Silburn, D.M. (2011) Pesticide transport in runoff comparison with Convolution Model for Mackay Whitsunday Region.
Packett R, Waters D and McCloskey G. (2011) Increasing confidence in model prediction: a case study on water quality data collation for model validation in the Great Barrier Reef catchments.
●
Penton DJ, Leighton BP, Stenson MP, Rahman JM and Bethune M. (2011) Linking hydrological simulation models with workflow and optimisation software.
●
●
Driver PD, Barbour EJ and Michener K. (2011) An integrated surface water, groundwater and wetland plant model of drought response and recovery for environmental water management.
●
●
Dutta, D., Welsh, W.D., Vaze, J., Kim, S.S.H. and Nicholls, D. (2011) Improvement in short-term streamflow forecasting using an integrated modelling framework.
●
●
Kim, S.S.H., Dutta, D., Singh, R., Chen, J. and Welsh, W.D. (2011) Providing flexibility in GUI-based river modelling software: using Expression Editors and plug-ins to create Custom Functions in Source IMS.
●
●
McCloskey GL, Ellis RJ, Waters DK, Stewart J. (2011) PEST hydrology calibration process for Source Catchments – applied to the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland.
●
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●
Snowdon, D., Hardy, M.J. and Rahman, J.M. (2011) Urban Developer: A model architecture for manageably building urban water cycle models spanning multiple scales. Storr, E., Adams, R. and Western, A.W. (2011) How can data from headwater catchments be used to improve runoff and nutrient predictions at larger scales? Thomas, S., He Y., Fleming, N. (2011) Use of a PEST calibrated Source Catchments model and regional water quality data to improve the predictive capacity of constituent load generation in the Torrens River Catchment. Vaze, J. Perraud, J. Teng, F. Chiew, B.Wang.(2011) Estimating regional model parameters using spatial land cover information – implications for predictions in ungauged basins.
In February 2012, Dr Robert Carr presented on eWater Source to the Singapore-Delft Water Alliance (SDWA), hosted by National University of Singapore. The SDWA is a multi-national, interdisciplinary research Centre of Excellence for Water Knowledge. In July 2012, eWater launched Urban Developer to an international audience at Singapore International Water Week and answered around 100 enquiries. The eWater display was part of the Australian industry exhibit. Other events at which our research and product applications were shared include: ●
●
●
●
Congress of the Australian Society for Limnology, September 2011 Australian Stream Management Conference, February 2012 International Conference on Water Sensitive Urban Design, February 2012, Practical Responses to Climate Change Conference, May 2012
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 engaging stakeholders
SOURCE 2012 CONFERENCE, CANBERRA
eWater hosted events
In late 2011, water sensitive urban design and stormwater management workshops held in Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney, attracted more than 200 participants in total. These sessions were offered at no charge and aimed to share knowledge on current practice in urban water management, increase industry awareness of our urban products, and gain product feedback to inform development.
An integrated water management information session held in conjunction with Blacktown City Council was attended by representatives from local and state government as well as consultants, and utilities from across New South Wales. Presentations highlighted relevant applications of our software and free Toolkit resources. Our key industry engagement event was the ‘Source 2012’ conference, held in Canberra in May 2012. At the two-day conference more than 180 delegates heard from experts in water information, ecology, rivers and urban
water management. Speakers from our some of partner organisations shared information on how Source and our urban and ecology tools are being applied to their work. Among them were AECOM, CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology, BMT WBM, Department of Sustainability and Environment (VIC), Murray-Darling Basin Authority, Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre, NSW Office of Water, SKM, Griffith University, Goulburn Murray Water (VIC), Queensland Government and University of Melbourne.
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 governance
LAKE BURLEY GRIFFIN, CANBERRA, AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 governance
Governance Changes to eWater’s governance this year were part of our transition from the CRC program to a stand-alone organisation.
eWater CRC
From 2005 until 30 June 2012, eWater CRC was an unincorporated joint venture between the Commonwealth Government (through the CRC Program) and 45 Australian partner organisations. eWater CRC was governed and managed by eWater Limited, a company with 27 members from among the CRC’s core participants. The CRC partners comprised leading water cycle management, research and consulting organisations. Of the partners, 41 were core participants in the CRC and four other organisations were Associate Partners. These partner organisations are based in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory. All eWater CRC partners had input into the strategic direction and management of eWater through the Participants Forum, which advised the Board.
eWater Innovation
eWater Innovation (eWI), the company’s wholly owned commercialisation subsidiary, was operational until June 2012, when it was merged with eWater Ltd (eWL). Its purpose was to provide products and support, train users and focus on product development of eWater products launched in the market. Since its beginning in 2009, eWI was governed by a four-member Board of Directors, all of whom, except Professor Gary Jones, represented the private sector. eWater retains eWI on a nonoperational basis with Gary as Chair and the Board consisting of Murray Rankin, Tony McAlister, and Keith Steele.
Governance changes eWater Ltd had a nine-member Board of Directors until the last Board meeting in December 2011, when four members resigned in preparation for the closure of the CRC on 30 June 2012. From January 2012, Board reporting for eWI was through the eWater Ltd Board.
Our Board of Directors The eWater Ltd Board governs and manages the company in accordance with its constitution and the Corporations Act 2001, and, to July 2012, in accordance with the provisions of the CRC Participants Agreement and Commonwealth Agreement. The Board sets and oversees strategic direction and goals, monitored performance, ensured compliance with all laws, regulations and contracts, and managed strategic risks. They were responsible for, and had the authority to determine, all matters relating to the policies, practices, management and operations of former eWater CRC and eWater Ltd. In assuming these responsibilities, the Board: ●
●
●
●
●
acted as an interface between eWater and its members and stakeholders determined the overall strategic direction of eWater and sets short-, medium- and long-term objectives, consistent with the Commonwealth Agreement approved the budgets agreed policies and procedures for the conduct of eWater activities and for the governance and management of eWater appointed and managed the performance of the Chief Executive; and
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 governance
reviewed the annual progress and performance of eWater in meeting the objectives of the company, including statutory and contractual reporting of the outcome of such reviews.
●
The Board has developed a corporate governance charter that outlines a code of conduct for directors, the requirement to avoid conflicts of interest, expectations of directors in Board processes, and expectations towards induction and continuing education of directors.
Chair Don Blackmore AM Don has chaired the Board since the formation of eWater in 2005. He was Chief Executive of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission (MDBC) from 1990 to 2004 and has been Deputy Chair of Land and Water Australia. In 2004, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to the environment. Don has advised The World Bank on river basin management. He also Chairs the Advisory Council of CSIRO’s Water for a Healthy Country flagship program and sits on a number of other boards.
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GOVERNANCE / OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS Name of Director
Tenure through 2011-12
Don Blackmore AM (Chair)
Entire period
Dr Keith Steele (Deputy Chair)
Entire period
Hon. David Wotton (Deputy Chair)
Until 31 Dec 2011
Dr Jane Doolan
Until 30 Nov 2011
Mr David Dreverman
Entire period
Mr Garry Smith
Entire period
Ms Kerry Stubbs
Entire period
Professor Rob Thomas
Until 30 Nov 2011
Dr Rob Vertessy
Until 30 Nov 2011
Deputy Chair DR KEITH STEELE Keith is Managing Director of Steele Business Solutions, Chair of the Board of eWater Innovation, Deputy Chair of Beef CRC, and a Case Manager for Commercialisation Australia. He was Chief Executive Officer of AgResearch Ltd (1997 – 2003), and Chief Scientist and then Executive Director of Primary Industries for the Victorian Department of Natural Resources and Environment (1991 – 1997). He has more than 30 years of experience in commercialisation of new products and services in more than 80 companies across a diverse range of industries.
Deputy Chair Hon. David Wotton For 27 years, David Wotton was a member of the House of Assembly in South Australia, where he held various ministerial portfolios including Environment and Natural Resources (including water resources). He was lead minister for South Australia on the Murray-Darling Ministerial Council from 1993 to 1997. Following his retirement in 2002 David was appointed Chair of the River Murray Catchment Water Management Board, and in 2004 he was appointed Chair of the South Australian MurrayDarling Basin Natural Resources Management Board.
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 governance
Dr Jane Doolan Jane is the Deputy Secretary, Water Group, Department of Sustainability and Environment (VIC). Prior to her current position, Jane was Executive Director, Sustainable Water Environments with the Department since 2008. She has provided expert advice to Government on environmental issues associated with water resource management, including protecting and improving the condition of Victoria’s high value rivers and managing the environmental water reserve to maximise environmental outcomes. Jane has more than 20 years of experience in the field of waterway management, as an exponent of Australian river health, driving key policy in issues of environmental water allocations and river-related catchment management, both in the state and at the national level. She retired from the eWater Board in December 2011.
David Dreverman David is the Executive Director, River Murray at the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. David joined the former MurrayDarling Basin Commission (MDBC) in 2000 as Manager, Assets, and was appointed General Manager, River Murray Water in 2003. David transferred to the Authority in late 2008, when the functions of the former Commission were subsumed by the Authority. David has worked in the consulting engineering industry with SMEC; the Hydro Electric Commission, Tasmania; and Australian Power and Water. For more than 35 years he has been involved with large dam and hydro power projects, both in Australia and overseas, and more recently in the management of the River Murray System.
Garry Smith Garry is the Managing Director of DG Consulting. He has had 30 years of experience in the water industry, both with DG Consulting and Goulburn-Murray Water and its predecessor organisations. This experience covers a wide range of managerial and engineering activities associated with the delivery of rural water services, and includes specialisation in water resource assessment, irrigation supply management, salinity management and community participation in decision making. He has also contributed to Victorian Government water policies such as its Northern Region Sustainable Water Strategy. Garry is a member of the advisory Board of the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training.
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 governance
Kerry Stubbs Kerry was appointed the first Corporate Human Resources Manager of Sydney Water in 1998 and from there moved to a number of operational roles in the water industry. In 2007 Kerry was the New South Wales winner of the Community and Government Award in the Telstra Business Women’s Awards. In 2008 Kerry commenced a new role as Chief Executive Officer of Northcott Disability Services, a leader in the provision of services to people with disabilities in New South Wales. Prior to her appointment at Northcott, Kerry was the Executive Director of St. Vincent’s Hospital and Sacred Heart, where she was responsible for overseeing significant increases in services, funding, new technology and improvements in patient care. Kerry has significant governance experience and serves as a Director on the boards of several companies including NAATI, Ability First Australia Ltd, and Cerebral Palsy Australia.
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A ssociate Professor Rob Thomas A/Prof Rob Thomas is the Chief Scientific Advisor for the Olympic Dam Task Force, responsible for coordinating assessment, approvals and indenture for the BHPB Olympic Dam Expansion Project, involving potential expenditure of $20B over 11 years. He has 35 years’ experience as a consultant, environmental regulator, natural resource manager and research manager. His previous roles include Chief of two divisions of SARDI; Chief Executive of the South Australian Department for Water Resources; Commissioner of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission (MDBC); and Executive Director and founder of the South Australian Environment Protection Authority. Rob has played a leading role in developing SARDI’s Sustainable Systems Division (including water resources and climate applications) and its specialised capability in biofuels and microalgal production systems. He is also a director of Blue Sky Water Partners.
Dr Rob Vertessy Rob Vertessy is Acting Director Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) and recently Deputy Director (Climate & Water). Prior to joining BoM, Rob worked for 20 years as a Research Hydrologist at CSIRO Land and Water. From 1992 he led a research team in the CRC for Catchment Hydrology and was its Deputy Director from 1996 and it’s Director from 2002. Rob was Chief of CSIRO Land and Water from 2004 to 2007. In 2006 he was seconded to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to advise the Government on a national water information strategy. In 2007 Rob joined BoM to implement the new Government policy that arose from that assignment.
eWater Annual report 2011-2012 Financial Summary
Financial summary Consolidated Income and Expenditure Report July 2011 – June 2012 2011-12
2010-11
Note
Commonwealth Grant earned
4,083,032
5,000,000
1
Participants’ Contributions earned
3,651,859
5,968,965
Contract income earned
3,054,575
4,281,635
57,365
221,872
1,031,336
906,175
11,878,167
16,378,646
8,771,708
13,632,525
Project Support
956,381
832,942
Marketing/Communication
137,297
125,328
Business Operations
196,765
611,676
1,467,022
1,385,571
4
11,529,173
16,588,042
2
348,994
-209,396
5
Income eWater Limited/eWater CRC
Interest received eWater Innovation Pty Ltd Total income
2
Expenses eWater Limited/eWater CRC Salaries Operating
eWater Innovation Pty Ltd Total expenses Net surplus/deficit
3
Notes 1. Commonwealth Grant amounts decreased in 2011-12 in accordance with the CRC agreement. 2. Income and expenditure in 2011-12 was lower than the previous year was largely due to the wind up of CRC R&D projects in December 2011. 3. Operating total includes cross-organisational expenditure. 4. eWater Innovation (eWI) was a customer support subsidiary company of eWater Ltd, providing commercial software licences, support and training. 5. The net deficits for 2010-11 and 2011-12 are from the operating results of eWater Innovation. eWater Limited and eWater CRC have had no net operating deficits.
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eWater Annual report 2011-2012 notes
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eWater Ltd Governing and managing eWater Cooperative Research Centre www.ewater.com.au