Adaption to water shortage through the implementation of a unique pipeline system in Victoria, Australia
- Mala-Jetmarova, Helena, Barton, Andrew, Bagirov, Adil, McRae-Williams, Pamela, Caris, Rob, Jackson, Peter
- Authors: Mala-Jetmarova, Helena , Barton, Andrew , Bagirov, Adil , McRae-Williams, Pamela , Caris, Rob , Jackson, Peter
- Date: 2010
- Type: Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at Hydropredict' 2010, 2nd International Interdisciplinary Conference on predications for Hydrology, Ecology, and Water Resources Management
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: Abstract Water resource development has played a crucial role in the Grampians, Wimmera and Mallee regions of Australia, with the main source of surface water located in several reservoirs in the Grampians mountain ranges. Historically, water was delivered by gravity through a vast 19 500 km earthen channel system from the reservoirs to the townships and farms. As a result of the severe and protracted drought experienced in the region over the past 13 years and the projected drying climate, there have been fundamental changes made to the management of water in order to better cope with water scarcity. The primary strategic effort to sustainably manage water resources was by removing the unsustainable transport of water via the open channels which resulted in very high losses through seepage and evaporation. This inefficient system has been replaced by a pressurised pipeline, the largest geographical water infrastructure project of its type in Australia, spreading across an area of approximately 20 000 km2. To manage the change in water balance as a result of the pipeline and drying climate, the regions water corporations and environmental agencies have designed a scheme for water allocations intended to sustain local communities, allow for regional development and improve environmental conditions. This paper describes the unique pipeline system recently completed, provides a brief summary of water sharing arrangements and introduces the research program currently underway to optimise the performance of the pipeline system.
- Authors: Mala-Jetmarova, Helena , Barton, Andrew , Bagirov, Adil , McRae-Williams, Pamela , Caris, Rob , Jackson, Peter
- Date: 2010
- Type: Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at Hydropredict' 2010, 2nd International Interdisciplinary Conference on predications for Hydrology, Ecology, and Water Resources Management
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: Abstract Water resource development has played a crucial role in the Grampians, Wimmera and Mallee regions of Australia, with the main source of surface water located in several reservoirs in the Grampians mountain ranges. Historically, water was delivered by gravity through a vast 19 500 km earthen channel system from the reservoirs to the townships and farms. As a result of the severe and protracted drought experienced in the region over the past 13 years and the projected drying climate, there have been fundamental changes made to the management of water in order to better cope with water scarcity. The primary strategic effort to sustainably manage water resources was by removing the unsustainable transport of water via the open channels which resulted in very high losses through seepage and evaporation. This inefficient system has been replaced by a pressurised pipeline, the largest geographical water infrastructure project of its type in Australia, spreading across an area of approximately 20 000 km2. To manage the change in water balance as a result of the pipeline and drying climate, the regions water corporations and environmental agencies have designed a scheme for water allocations intended to sustain local communities, allow for regional development and improve environmental conditions. This paper describes the unique pipeline system recently completed, provides a brief summary of water sharing arrangements and introduces the research program currently underway to optimise the performance of the pipeline system.
Crisis Simulation Exercises of terrorist incidents in the Australian water industry
- Crowe, Jamie, Birkett, Dave, Mala-Jetmarova, Helena
- Authors: Crowe, Jamie , Birkett, Dave , Mala-Jetmarova, Helena
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Conference proceedings
- Full Text: false
- Description: Australian water organisations currently rank within the nine sectors identified by the Federal Government under the category of Critical Infrastructure (CI), as designated by the Attorney General's Department. As such, water from a CI protection perspective is considered to be a vulnerable target for terrorism. Major global terrorist incidents such as the attack in New York in 2001 coupled with the media interest and associated amplification have highlighted the need for organisations to protect water infrastructure from future attacks. The Victorian Government is leading the path to terrorism risk reduction of CI by the introduction of an Act of Parliament Terrorism (Community Protection) Act 2003, assuring that risk mitigation is in place across the state. One requirement under this Act is to annually practice plans and procedures in the form of scripted Crisis Simulation Exercises (CSE). These CSEs are to ensure that water organisations are more resilient to meet the challenge and maintain business continuity during any future terrorist incident. This includes the interactions and timings of available resources, logistics with appropriate personnel as required and to the appropriate level indicated in the plans. These CSEs can incorporate live actions, testing equipment and personnel within all organisational levels. It is considered that CI organisations which adopt these strategies enhance business survival and continuity, producing a resilient entity prepared for and resistant to penetration by an organised terrorist group or radical cell. This paper provides an overview of a simulation framework to ensure preparedness suitable for mitigation of risk of terrorism in relation to the Australian water industry.
- Mala-Jetmarova, Helena, Schwarz, S., Barton, Andrew, Le Roux, S, Smalley, P., Gerke, S.
- Authors: Mala-Jetmarova, Helena , Schwarz, S. , Barton, Andrew , Le Roux, S , Smalley, P. , Gerke, S.
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Conference proceedings
- Full Text: false
- Description: Hydraulic simulation models have become a valuable tool to manage water distribution networks commencing from their initial design through their operation, assessment of the level of service to customers, system performance improvement, analysis of planning alternatives, to system optimisation. The development of hydraulic models can be a time consuming task with complex and large scale water distribution networks being particularly challenging. The Wimmera Mallee Pipeline (WMP) in Western Victoria, Australia is a recently constructed and unique regional scale water distribution system which consists of over 8,800 km of pressurised pipelines spreading across an area of approximately 20,000 km 2. Currently, the WMP provides water to 34 townships, rural farms and other water users across the Wimmera Mallee region with an annual design capacity of 31.6 mil. m 3. The WMP sources its water from multiple reservoirs in the Grampians mountain ranges in the south and the River Murray in the north. Grampians Wimmera Mallee Water (GWMWater) is the local water organisation responsible for managing the WMP. GWMWater is currently initiating the development of a water market to generate and support growth, and to ensure that water is available for the highest value social, economic or environmental use. The hydraulic models discussed in this paper will assure that informed decisions are made by GWMWater regarding the capacity to deliver water through the pipeline system, and therefore the extent of trade by customers. The philosophy for development of the WMP hydraulic models was to replicate the real system as credibly as possible into the level of required accuracy for decision making, yet enable simple model operation, maintenance and update. The network is modelled to the individual customer level in order to accommodate small diameter pipes. Modelling at this level simplifies the future model maintenance and updates, and also ensures the compatibility with other GWMWater's systems such as Geographic Information System (GIS) and the customer database. A major part of the model development consisted of data preparation. This was undertaken by using "as constructed" GIS asset data captured during the WMP construction and entered into a GIS database (ArcGIS by ESRI). Due to the scale of the system and associated amounts of data, it was essential to develop sophisticated data transformation and validation procedures to simplify the model build which thereby minimised manual data entry and potential sources of errors. This paper focuses on the methodologies and techniques used in data preparation for hydraulic models and development of hydraulic models. An example is also provided of how the models will be used as a decision support tool in water supply and allocation planning.
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