Board news
The second Board meeting for 2010 was held on 18 May and discussion centred on refocusing the research program in response to the significant change in the water situation in SEQ and the outcomes of the strategic planning workshop held in March.
At that workshop, key stakeholders and members of the Research Advisory Committee discussed how UWSRA should respond to the major shifts in SEQ’s water situation and the revised SEQ Water Strategy.
The Board decided to refocus the program around three core program areas:
1. Reducing Water Grid Demand
With less focus on purified recycled water and new dams in SEQ’s water strategy, greater emphasis has been given to stormwater harvesting and rainwater tanks, and how we can maintain the water-conserving behaviour that the SEQ community has been displaying. UWSRA will focus this research program on projects in:
- Stormwater Harvesting and Reuse
- Decentralised Systems
- Demand Management and Communication Research
- Residential Water End Use Study.
2. Water Quality of Water Sources
Under the new Water Grid, water is being drawn from a range of sources: desalination plants, dams, water treatment plants using chloramination and others using chlorination. This program aims to enhance community confidence in the quality of our water supplies by investigating the potential health risks of combining water sources, and from contact with stormwater and rainwater. The new program will include projects in:
- Hospital Wastewater
- Pathogens and Trace Contaminants in Dams
- Bioassays and Risk Communication
- Health Risk Assessment of Local Source Waters
- Enhanced Treatment
- DBP Formation in Alternate Source Waters.
3. Total Water Cycle Planning and Management to Enhance Sustainability and Efficiencies
This program area takes a wider consideration of not just the amount of water we can provide but of the impacts of supplying and using that water. The following projects will investigate those impacts and apply research findings to real case studies in SEQ:
- Climate and Water
- PRW in the Lockyer
- Evaluation Methods for Evidence-Based Total Water Cycle Planning
- Water Quality Monitoring Technology and Information Collection System
- Evaporation Loss.
The next Board meeting will be held on 17 August 2010.
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