Environmental Engineering Seminar Series - Groundwater Modelling For Australian Water Resource Management

McDonnell Douglas Engineering Auditorium (MDEA)
Rebecca Doble, Ph.D.
Groundwater Researcher
Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
Adelaide, Australia
 
ABSTRACT: The Australian Millennium Drought, from 1995 to 2009, was the catalyst for a major water resources reform, and a large research effort was directed at water resource assessment and management, and determining the impacts on water dependent ecosystems. In the groundwater research sphere, this has led to better quantification of recharge and surface water interactions and improved predictions of the effects of climate change and variability. Advances have also been made in integrating management decisions into hydrogeological models and the resulting environmental and socioeconomic impacts from these decisions. Recently, the impacts of resource extraction on aquifers and groundwater dependent ecosystems have become a key focus. Underlying all of this has been the continual improvement of groundwater model conceptualization and development, and the use of uncertainty analysis. Rebecca will be presenting on some of these issues within an Australian water resources context.
 

BIO: Rebecca Doble has been a groundwater researcher with the CSIRO in Adelaide, Australia since 2004. With a degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Adelaide and PhD in Earth Sciences from Flinders University, Rebecca has worked on developing novel methods of modeling surface water – groundwater interactions including evapotranspiration, groundwater recharge during floods, and recharge in areas with shallow water tables. Underpinning this is the use and evaluation of complex, regional groundwater models.