CNAS

The Murray-Darling River Basin is subject to periods of protracted drought with two decade- long droughts in the last century Since 2001 it has been experiencing the worst drought in recorded history System inflows in the three years ending October 2008 were almost half the previous three-year minimum and less than a quarter of the long-term average. In response, Australia is in the process of a major reorganization of way the water in the basin is managed, to balance ecological, drinking water, and irrigation water requirements.

Team Members

Agronomy

 

Peter Hayman, South Australian Research and Development Institute

Peter Hayman is the Principal Scientist in Climate Applications at the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI). He is an agricultural scientist with an interest in applying climate information to dryland and irrigated farming systems. Since the early 1990s he has worked with farmers in managing climate risk on a range of projects in Australia, Cambodia, and the Philippines. (See abstracts)

Ecology

 

Ian Overton, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

Ian Overton is the Leader of the Environmental Water Stream within the Healthy Water Ecosystems Theme of the Water for a Healthy Country National Research Flagship. He is a Principal Research Scientist working on spatial ecohydrology within the CSIRO Division of Land and Water. He has 24 years' experience in ecology, hydrology, and spatial information science with particular expertise in spatial modeling of environmental systems and the Murray-Darling Basin. Ian's current research is on the assessment, valuation, and analysis of water-dependent ecosystems including surface water, groundwater, and coastal systems. His recent projects include the River Murray Floodplain Inundation Model, spatial modeling of ecosystem response to flow regimes, floodplain health assessment model from groundwater and surface water management, and a predictive vegetation health model for the lower River Murray Floodplain. (See abstracts)

Economics

 

Jeffery Connor, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

An Environmental Economist, Jeff Connor is a scientist with CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems and research group leader for the Water for a Healthy Country, Water Policy Options Assessment (WPOA) Project. His main research interests are in the areas of integrated biophysical - economics modellng for basin and catchment scale water policy analysis; assessing potential for and design of market-based policy for natural resource management; and the economics of water allocation, water quality, and salinity in the Murray-Darling Basin and elsewhere. He has extensive experience advising Commonwealth, state, and local water management agencies on water resource policy and economics. (See abstracts)

Hydrology

 

Mac Kirby, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

Mac Kirby has 30 years' research and consultancy experience within Australia and internationally in environmental impacts of land and water management, including managing research programs on these issues. He is currently leading teams in assessing water availability and water use, the impacts of climate and land use change, and the economic and social implications in the Murray-Darling Basin, Tasmania, Northern Australia, and Western Australia, and internationally in the Lower Mekong Basin and other major river basins. He is the author or coauthor of more than 270 journal and conference papers, articles, and commercial reports. (See abstracts)

Policy

Matt Kendall, National Water Commission

Matt Kendall is the General Manager, Water Science Group with the National Water Commission (NWC). The NWC is the body that sets water management and planning guidelines at the national level in Australia. He leads the commission's scientific activities to support implementation of the National Water Initiative and is responsible for implementation of the National Groundwater Action Plan. He has previously held roles in the public and private sector, and most recently was the Salinity Program Manager with the Murray-Darling Basin Commission. He has a master's degree in Engineering Science (Water Resources & Environmental) from Monash University and an MBA (Technology Management) from Deakin University. (See abstracts)

Technology – Water Supply

Holger R. Maier, University of Adelaide

Holger Maier is Professor of Integrated Water Systems Engineering in the School of Civil, Environmental, and Mining Engineering at the University of Adelaide. Prior to joining the university in 1999, he worked as a consultant in the private and public sectors in South Australia, as Senior Civil Engineer with the Western Samoa Water Authority and as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia. His research is focused on developing improved techniques for the sustainable management of water resources and infrastructure in an uncertain environment and includes elements of modeling, optimization, and multicriteria and uncertainty analysis. He has coauthored more than 10 book chapters and in excess of 100 refereed papers and has received a number of national and international awards for his teaching and research. (See abstracts)

Water Management

David Dreverman, Murray-Darling Basin Authority 

David Dreverman is the Executive Director, River Murray at the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. He joined the former Murray-Darling Basin Commission in 2000 as Manager, Assets, and was appointed General Manager, River Murray Water of the Commission in 2003. Hetransferred to the Authority in late 2008, when the functions of the former Commission were subsumed by the Authority.

Mr. Dreverman has worked in the consulting engineering industry with SMEC, Hydro Electric Commission, Tasmania and Australian Power and Water. For more than 35 years he has been involved with large dam and hydro power projects, both in Australia and overseas and more recently in the management of the River Murray system. (See abstracts)

 

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