Environmental Tracers in Groundwater Hydrology: Tools for Improved Process Understanding

Tired of attending courses crammed full of theory, only to return to your daily work and struggle to remember what you learnt or how to apply it?

This course will help you to use appropriate sampling methodologies to acquire reliable data, as well as how to interpret and model analytical results. The knowledge will lead to you making meaningful improvements in your understanding of hydrogeological processes and conceptual groundwater models. The course will review the basic principles of environmental chemistry and tracer hydrology, and is aimed primarily at hydrogeologists and environmental scientists in the public and private sectors. It assumes prior knowledge of the basics of groundwater hydrology, and will include numerous case studies and worked examples, including many local studies that have been conducted by the internationally recognised presenters.

Australian Groundwater School
Brisbane 2018

NCGRT's flagship course, and the premier course of its type in Australasia, the Australian Groundwater School provides participants with a broad but rigorous introduction to groundwater.

The Australian Groundwater School provides participants with a broad but rigorous introduction to groundwater. Introducing hydrogeology, assessment methods, modelling, managed aquifer recharge, management, governance and more, the course truly encompasses the fundamentals of groundwater.

Introduction to Aquifer Pump Test Analysis 

An introduction to the essential basics of conducting an aquifer test and analysing the testing data.

It will teach you very important background information to allow defendable interpretations of aquifer testing data using traditional methods and state-of-the-art software. A hands-on application of skills learnt is also part of this course. The course will be given in three components:

1. Introduction pumping test fundamentals, types of aquifer tests, parameters, aquifer conceptual models
2. The pumping test: design, undertaking, data preparation and management
3. Analysis: identify conceptual model, pracs, case studies

Free Webinar: The Australian Groundwater Explorer

Access a wide range of Australian groundwater data without specialised software

Publicly available through the Bureau of Meteorology website, the Australian Groundwater Explorer is a web-based mapping application that allows you to visualise, analyse and download groundwater information for an area of interest without needing specialised software. The Explorer ensures that nationally consistent data is freely available online so that better informed decisions can be made around how we manage vital groundwater resources.

Groundwater for Sustainable Development

Groundwater is the world’s largest store of unfrozen freshwater. It underpins a vast set of ecosystem services on which nature and people depend.

ICE WaRM has brought together Groundwater Solutions Initiative for Policy and Practice (GRIPP) and the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training (NCGRT) to provide an interactive webinar series on Groundwater for Sustainable Development.

In 2018, the series will discuss the global significance of groundwater in sustainable development through the topics below and explore innovative groundwater solutions with wider applicability.

2018 IAH / NCGRT Distinguished Lecture Series 

Groundwater Quality: An Ecotoxicology Perspective

Groundwater ecosystems contain a unique suite of microbes and invertebrates that provide valuable ecosystem services, including maintenance of aquifer porosity and flow, and breakdown of many contaminants.  Regulation of groundwater systems has previously focused on the effects of groundwater extraction on beneficial uses, or as a source of contaminants to surface waters, rather than on the protection of groundwater ecosystems themselves.  Gaps in our knowledge of groundwater processes and ecology have hampered our understanding of what governs groundwater quality, i.e. its physical, chemical and biological properties, at various scales. Major contaminant threats to groundwater quality include increased levels of salinity, nutrients, acidity, metals, pesticides and other organic chemicals, from both diffuse and point sources.