UNSW Water Research Laboratory

Engineering is proud to share 75 stories in 75 days to celebrate our university's 75th Foundation day.   Our second week of stories celebrates one of our great citizen science projects monitoring coastal erosion, looks at the legacy of securing water supply for millions through treating wastewater, and profiles one of tomorrow's leaders currently on campus today.   See all that and more at our special website: https://lnkd.in/gthRiZnj #UNSWEng75

🌊“With Australia’s coastline surrounded many thousands of km's of sandy beaches, we've tackled the challenge of forecasting localised coastal storm erosion over very large regions. The end goal is to support the roll-out of a national-scale coastal erosion early warning system.” Prof Ian Turner’s research has recently been published in the journal of Coastal Engineering. Alongside a team of researchers and PhD candidates, the study has created 7-day real-time forecasts, that are currently up-and-running at several hundred kilometres of beaches along the Pacific and Indian Ocean of Australia. The latest forecasts can be found here 🔗 https://lnkd.in/guE88sPd The full paper “A framework for national-scale coastal storm hazards early warning” by Ian Turner, Chris Leaman, Mitchell Harley, Mandi Thran, Daniel Raj David, Kristen Splinter, Nashwan Matheen, PhD, Jeff Hansen, Michael Cuttler, Diana Greenslade, Stefan Zieger and Ryan Lowe, can be accessed here 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gQwbf4a3 UNSW | UNSW Engineering | UNSW Civil and Environmental Engineering | UNSW Global Water Institute | Australian Research Council | The University of Western Australia | The UWA Oceans Institute | Bureau of Meteorology | #CoastalEngineering #EWS #EarlyWarningSystem #Erosion

🌧 🚗 If it's flooded, forget it… “Seven years on and we’re still chatting to people about cars floating and the risks associated with that. We’re still talking to people about how to stay safe in floodwaters. It’s great to see that the work has such longevity, lifespan and relevance with lasting impact. I don’t think I would have foreseen that at the time.” As UNSW Engineering celebrates 75 years of research, Principal Engineer Toby Tucker talks about our unforgettable testing using actual cars to accurately demonstrate how cars behave in floodwaters. Results from the testing (and the videos 😉), remain a constant source of interest and have continued to be repurposed for education, awareness and safety campaigns. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/g5QzbyB5 UNSW | UNSW Civil and Environmental Engineering | #IfItsFloodedForgetIt #15toFloat #Floodwater #UNSWEng75

UNSW engineers have developed the framework for a national early warning system to forecast erosion and flooding impacts of storms approaching Australia’s sandy coastlines. ⛈️ The system predicts the severity of impacts every 100 metres alongshore and delivers rolling seven-day forecasts to local and regional coastal managers and emergency response agencies. Read more 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gBt577hQ

🌊🌊🌊Happy #FlumeFriday! PhD researcher Nadav Cohen has set up a trailcam in the wave basin to record this mesmerising timelapse of his Wave Energy Converter (WEC) experiments, covering a 5-month test and rebuild period. WEC arrays have the potential to provide coastal protection from beach erosion by partially absorbing and deflecting incident wave energy prior to it reaching the shoreline. A total of 224 individual tests spanning 28 WEC array configurations, were completed using a generic oscillating water column device to test individual WEC performance and wave shadowing. This clip shows testing of lightweight sediment being used to explore the contrasting effects of six WEC array configurations on beach erosion/accretion and shoreline realignment. UNSW | UNSW Engineering | UNSW Civil and Environmental Engineering | #WaveEnergy #Erosion

Coastlines never cease to amaze me in how they are continuously changing - not only in how waves and currents shape the beach morphology, but also how humans interact with the coastline. These two images taken 6 months apart at the new #CoastSnap stations in Løkken (northwest Denmark) capture two seasonal cycles. The first is the natural erosion and accretion of the beach typical of winter and summer seasons (in this case following a large winter storm 3 days before Christmas). The second is the annual construction of beach huts along the coast for locals and tourists to enjoy the summer months. You can see the full selection of images taken at this station here: https://lnkd.in/grS6S7a9 Per Sørensen | Kystdirektoratet - Danish Coastal Authority | UNSW Water Research Laboratory

It has been a terrific 10th International Symposium on Hydraulic Structures of the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR) Committee on Hydraulic Structures. The event took place at ETH Zürich this week comprising a packed program of four key notes, 72 presentations, a full day field trip including a visit to the construction site of the replacement of the Spitallamm Dam in the Swiss Alps, social networking events and the 9th Junior Workshop on Hydraulic Structures which is still ongoing. It has been a pleasure to interact with many of my colleagues from around the world including the Symposium Chairs Robert Boes and ismail A. and my fellow leadership members of the Hydraulic Structures Committee Sean Mulligan, Ph.D , Brian Crookston , Elena Pummer , Daniel Valero , Fabian Bombardelli, Jose Carillo, Dr Valentin Heller , ismail A. , Zulfequar Ahmad and Hang Wang as well as many other hydraulic structures engineering experts. Very happy to have been joined by Hiruni Kammanankada from UNSW Water Research Laboratory who presented her research on field trials of tube fishways at low-head weirs.

💬 “I live in Sydney, and am happy for myself and my family to drink tap water. I encourage Australian water utilities to monitor the broad range of PFAS that are regulated around the world to help reassure us”. Professor Denis O'Carroll speaking out about the fear generated by recent reports on PFAS the 'forever chemicals', found in tap water. UNSW | UNSW Engineering | UNSW Water Research Laboratory | #PFAS #ForeverChemicals #DrinkingWater

🌊It's a well-known fact that at WRL, every day is a celebration of #WorldOceansDay. We live and breathe all things ocean, even while we are not working in amongst it, you will rarely find us far from it! Here is a selection of photos taken by our very talented photographers (Engineers), doing what they love, where they love to be! #AwakenNewDepths | UNSW | UNSW Engineering | United Nations

🌊🌊🌊Happy #FlumeFriday! In 2010 we were testing a 2D physical model of the Mornington Pier, located on the eastern side of Port Phillip Bay in Victoria. The aim was to improve public safety and provide a new safe harbour behind the Pier during storm events. The results from this testing allowed several improvements to the initial desktop-based design and created a more economical outcome. The effect of wind on wave overtopping using several differing wave deflectors was also investigated. Onshore winds were shown to increase overtopping flows, in some cases to levels deemed dangerous to human safety. Using these results, an optimal deflector shape was identified to minimise risk to human safety in all but the most extreme storm conditions. UNSW | UNSW Engineering | UNSW Civil and Environmental Engineering