Water proofing the north
by Rodney Magazinovic
A
$90 million government initiative to recycle stormwater in Adelaide’s
northern regions will see UniSA take a leading role in the development
and implementation of the strategy.
With water reserves in the River Murray and local Adelaide reservoirs pushed to the limit, the focus of the Water Proofing the North scheme recently announced by Prime Minister John Howard will be to try and make use of the estimated 17 gigalitres (about 7500 Olympic swimming pools) of stormwater that flow into Gulf St Vincent every year.
It is expected that up to 12 gigalitres a year of the recycled stormwater can be used for irrigation and by industry in place of the mains water that is currently used.
David Pezzaniti, Senior Research Engineer at the SA Water Centre for Water Science and Systems says a critical part of the research is to investigate the most effective strategies for harvesting, storing, treating and distributing stormwater runoff from catchments in Adelaide’s Northern Region.
"Modifying existing drainage systems for stormwater harvesting needs to be carefully designed to ensure the capacity to manage large flows is maintained," he said.
Studies will investigate the average annual stormwater runoff volume generated by catchments that have the potential to be harvested. Techniques for maximising this potential will involve cleansing the runoff to a suitable standard so the abundant winter stormwater can be stored in aquifers (an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock) and then extracted in the summer months when demand associated with irrigation and industry is generally high. In some instances, where high water quality is not important, harvested runoff can be treated and delivered directly to users as an alternative to mains water.
Initial discussions with a consortium of the three councils involved in the project (the Cities of Salisbury, Tea Tree Gully and Playford) have focused on a locally developed water resources planning model called WaterCress. For several years UniSA has been closely linked with the development of WaterCress, which is also extensively used by the Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation for water resource allocation planning. A formal arrangement to provide ongoing development support to WaterCress through research and training programs has now been planned. The first of these training programs will be delivered by UniSA staff in Sydney in November 2006.
UniSA will also develop a strategic research plan with the consortium
that identifies the councils’ needs and research projects over the short and
long-term future.
"The resulting strategic research plan will strengthen and formalise UniSA’s relationship with the three councils and the plan will extend beyond water-related research to include other research concentrations within the University," Pezzaniti said.
The bulk of the project will be funded by the federal government ($38 million), state government ($16.4 million) and the three council consortium ($21 million) with a further $14.1 million contribution from private investment.
UniSA has a long history of involvement with water-related research through various Cooperative Research Centres and the establishment of the SA Water Centre for Water Science And Systems – a joint venture between the South Australian Water Corporation and UniSA – at Mawson Lakes campus in 2004.