Presentations kindly made available by the speakers for member's information are listed below:
When available, video streaming of the presentations and panel discussion will be available on Engineers Australia's website.
Living with Floods: Some History and Future Prospects
Barrie’s work as a climate scientist has taken him from studies of climate variability such as the El Nino-La Nina cycle which is so critical regarding our country of droughts and flooding rains, to human-induced climate change. Barrie will quickly summarise the latest findings on what might happen to extreme events, especially heavy rains, under global warming scenarios, with some reference to the sceptics. While it is still too early to be certain that floods will get worse it ill behoves us to wait for absolute proof. By the time there is statistical proof the changes will have happened and we will be living with the consequences. Failing to act now is like waiting for proof that our house will burn down before insuring it. By then it will be too late.
Dammed if we do, damned if we do nothing
"I think it’s time that as a nation we put new dams back on our agenda and I think that the Queensland flood disaster makes this very timely indeed because dams can be flood mitigation devices as well as water storages. They can be a potential source of zero emissions power as well as water storages. They can be a source of environmental flows in dry times as well as just water shortages.”
These were the words of one senior politician following floods in the past year, but would more dams really make sense in an era of climate change? After more than twenty years involvement in policy debates over water infrastructure in Australia and abroad, Dr Jamie Pittock argues that populist policies that confuse water storage and flood control, and promote more of the same water infrastructure technology would be a grave mistake. Instead, he argues that society’s responses to climate change and for better freshwater ecosystem management require a new approach to water infrastructure. These will increase the demand for engineers for work on more diverse and rewarding projects. He will argue that under conditions of changing hydrology and different demands for water services, that water engineers will need to deploy new technologies and develop more flexible infrastructure, as well as frequently adapting the management (or removing) existing infrastructure. Periodic infrastructure relicensing, pumped storage hydropower and potable reuse will be three of the solutions that he will propose.
For more information see the FLYER.