Description:
Water of adequate quality and quantity is the key to health and integrity of the environment and fundamental to good water supply. Achieving water quality and quantity objectives can conflict and has become more complicated with challenges like, climate change, growing populations and changed land uses. Therefore, a multi-objective optimisation strategy is required for achieving optimal water quality and quantity outcomes from a water resources system. This study uses a multi-objective optimisation approach to illustrate the trade-offs occurring when water quantity and quality in a reservoir system are optimised. Taylors Lake, part of the Grampians Reservoir System in Western Victoria, Australia was chosen as the case study for this research as it is quite complex and includes many contemporary water resources challenges seen around the world, such as high turbidity and salinity. The objective functions are set in a way to maximise the water quantity available for supply, while minimising the deviation of quality parameters from the accepted limits. The water system is modelled using eWater Source® modelling platform, while optimisation is undertaken using NSGA-II optimisation technique. Daily time step data over a ten-year period was used in this work. Various optimisation runs were performed with different population sizes and generations to seek out the best trade-off curve. The optimisation results indicate trade-offs between salinity, turbidity, and quantity. Key findings for this case study show that through optimisation, stored water never exceeded 19,000 ML even though the storage capacity was 27,000 ML indicating a significant loss of water to improve quality, or alternatively, a potential asset re-design opportunity.
Description:
Being a significant stakeholder in the graduates' employment outcomes, it is vital to understand employers' perceptions of graduates' work-readiness. However, existing information systems (IS) literature focuses mainly on the perceptions of students or universities. This paper aims to fill this gap by analysing scoping interviews conducted with graduate recruiters and industry experts in Australia regarding attributes that can improve graduates' employment prospects in the information and communication technology industry. A preliminary investigation based on grounded theory identified three emergent themes from the data: behaviors, skills, and knowledge levels. Based on the findings, this study proposes an IS graduate work-readiness framework that can help universities to develop academic programs aimed at enhancing desirable skills and attitudes among IS graduates' employment.
Description:
Deep reservoirs are known to undergo thermal stratification driven by seasonaltemperature changes across the year. Stratified conditions can encourage poor waterquality at depth, particularly with low dissolved oxygen and associated implications fordissolved manganese, iron and other water quality parameters. Ecological impactsdue to cold water discharge can also be exacerbated where stratified conditionsprevent the water column from mixing and thus keeping temperatures artificially lowcompared to warmer surface waters.This study presents the first ever comprehensive information for Lake Bellfield, a keywater supply reservoir located in the Grampians National Park, Victoria, Australia.Three years of temperature monitoring data has been recorded, along with three yearsof meteorological data from a nearby weather station. The thermal profile over time ispresented, along with the associated weather information.Results show that the reservoir does indeed undergo stratification, and that ‘turnover’or mixing event typically occur in late April or early May of each year. The magnitudeof stratification is also shown with temperature extremes between the hypolimnion andepilimnion shown. Further information is presented on the likely predictors of thoseturnover events using the nearby weather station information.Discussion is provided on possible strategies to mitigate water quality and ecologicalissues associated with the thermal stratification.