NCGRT Newsletter | Q1 2022Groundwater: making the invisible visible
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Free online public lectureProf Peter Cook will be presenting a 30-min groundwater talk on World Water Day Tuesday, 22nd March 2022. |
Groundwater fast factsNCGRT's PhD students from around the country will be raising the awareness of groundwater this WWD through fast fact videos. Check them out on our social media, you never know what you might discover about this vital resource! IAH Oz Art and Culinary CompetitionEncouraging kids of all ages to produce a piece of groundwater related artwork to join in on World Water Day activities.
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Groundwater makes up about 17% of Australia’s accessible water resources, and up to 30% of our water consumption in certain regions. Droughts and climate change place pressure on critical groundwater reserves; it is therefore important that Australia has a well-informed workforce that is ready to tackle these challenges.
WHY IS THE COURSE IMPORTANT?
The Australian Groundwater School is vital for professionals working with groundwater. Our 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 is a topic of the Flinders University Postgraduate Graduate Certificate, Diploma and Masters of Science (Groundwater Hydrology) for those seeking accreditation.
PhD scholarships - Groundwater Management Modelling and Coastal HydrogeologyNCGRT are seeking two full-time PhD students for ARC Linkage projects, Hydrogeological drivers and fate of spring flow in a semi-arid setting and Sustaining intensive agriculture through droughts and floods. Students will contribute to research activities, including examining coastal zone systems and spring-aquifer interactions and collaborate with project partners from Flinders University, Monash University, Charles Darwin University, Queensland University of
Technology and industry partners from Queensland. |
You heard it here first: SWIM2022 is coming!The 26th SWIM was scheduled to be held in San Diego in 2020 until the COVID-19 pandemic threw a spanner in the works. Because the next live, in-person SWIM meeting will not occur until October 2023 (the provisional date for the SWIM in Israel), we decided to organize a series of online sessions in 2022. The aim is to keep the community connected and give researchers a platform to present their work – including students and postdocs who have otherwise had limited opportunities to engage with the international body of experts on coastal groundwater. SWIM2022 will not just be another online event, we plan to do things differently. If you are interested, please visit the SWIM2022 website for more information. |
With heavy recent rain across the country, we are fielding questions about how this is impacting groundwater. This is not easy to answer, and we still don’t have a good understanding of how much recharge occurs during and after floods. In arid areas, ephemeral river floods are often the main recharge mechanism. But perennial rivers are different and are usually sites of groundwater discharge. High river flows will undoubtedly lead to water moving into adjacent aquifers, but this water may only travel a few tens or hundreds of metres and may return to the river when water levels subside. Also, widespread areas of inundation may indicate low permeability soils, and not necessarily translate into large recharge volumes. So, while we know that recharge occurs after high rainfall events, floods might not necessarily provide as much recharge as we might think. Flood recharge can be difficult to study as instrumentation is often destroyed or lost during river floods but is an important area for future research. Click below for more information on NCGRT’s current research on the connection between groundwater and rivers that can also be found in NCGRT's biennial report.
Australasian Groundwater Conference - PerthThe Scientific Committee for the upcoming Australasian Groundwater Conference are pleased to invite abstract submissions for inclusion in the 2022 program. Key DatesAbstracts and Registration: |
Submit a NominationThe IAH executive is inviting nominations for its Groundwater Industry Awards. The awards will celebrate, honour, and support IAH members for their outstanding contributions to the industry. This includes:
Nominations by 6 August 2022 |
Groundwater Modelling Decision Support Initiative
If you haven't caught up on the latest GMDSI outputs or if you are interested in home tutoring, check out the GMDSI website today. The team has been busy developing educational tutorials and videos, worked examples, reports, and more, with new outputs on the way.
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