The Centre For Water Research

by Jorg Imberger, Lee Goodyear, Clelia Marti and Caroline Wood I will introduce the concept of a domain and its objective function. Then show examples of how, in the Swan canning river basin, a start has been made to connecting people to the environment using real time management systems; Cockburn Sound and the Swan Estuary. This will be followed by introducing the schools programme where a start has been made to bring the school histories and their relationship with the environment into the realtime management system. The remainder of the presentation will highlight our plans for extending the domain to the full river basin and extending activities to individual, schools, enterprises, cars, boats and ships, emergency services and fire fighting. At the end I will outline our ideas about a new news media format, based on the realtime managements system for the basin.

Coffee and tea are both consumed in most countries. Worldwide, approximately three cups of tea are drunk for every cup of coffee. Almost three quarters of tea consumption takes place in developing countries with tea drinking dominating throughout Asia, the former Soviet Union and Africa. In contrast most coffee consumption takes place in developed countries. Tea is refreshing beverage and the basis of much social interaction. In recent years the health benefits of tea have been documented . We have reviewed the literature and have conducted our own research projects. Studies based at Curtin have shown the value of tea in the prevention of prostate and ovarian cancers and ischaemic stroke. UWA is undertaking research into breast cancer and other cardiovascular benefits. Current evidence on the health effects of tea does not meet the NHMRC's level for clinical practice guidelines. Tea consumption is possibly protective against several cancers, stroke and cardiovascular disease. Tea is a great beverage as a part of a healthy diet and as a superior choice to coffee despite the fact that levels of intake cannot currently be recommended. “Would you like tea or coffee?” The public health answer is - we would like tea please.

This talk presents the results of a research project recently completed in South Africa, the objective of which was to produce a classification which would allow soils information to be taken into account in assessing the threat to groundwater posed by various activities, especially those such as mining and industrial development that require environmental impact assessments. The classification indicates the degree of protection of groundwater from contamination by different categories of pollutants and is based on soil properties that are commonly determined either in the field or in routine laboratory analyses, meaning that no specialised analyses need to be conducted in order to use the system.

We develop and deploy an optimal control approach to the machine design of renewable energy systems. The problem is formulated via input/output equations of motion, with capacities of various subsystems available for purchase, and conservation laws explicitly enforced. We present some example designs and discuss variations available for future work. In contrast to the Design by Darwin moniker given to genetic programming approaches to optimal design problems, we label our approach Hatching with Hamilton.

I will present an overview of work that uses Australian honeybees, European bumblebees and Panamanian leaf cutting ants to study social insect reproduction and immunity. I will give an overview of how modern biochemical technologies such as proteomics are able to help evolutionary biologists, for example to understand the rules and the history of sexual conflicts. I will also introduce CIBER, the Collaborative Initiative for Bee Research (see www.ciber.science.uwa.edu.au) that was recently initiated at the University of Western Australia in response to the dramatic world wide declines of honey bee populations. CIBER is dedicated to facilitate interdisciplinary research on honeybees and offers a working platform for scientists to perform collaborative bee research alongside industry partners. New Website: http://www.ciber.science.uwa.edu.au

Our Galaxy has been forming stars continuously since just after the Big Bang. Its stars form in fairly large groups but they do not stay together. The groups of stars soon dissolve and their stellar debris is spread right around the Galaxy. The goal of Galactic archaeology is to use the fossil remnants of these past star formation events to probe the history of our Galaxy. The problem is to identify the fossil remnants. How do we find stars that were born together but have since drifted apart ? We use chemical techniques: stars that formed together have very similar element abundances over a wide range of chemical elements. There are at least 7 groups of elements which vary independently from star to star. We can think of the stars populating a 7-dimensional 'chemical space' of element abundances: the debris of an individual star-forming event lies in a clump in this chemical space. The approach is called chemical tagging. To make it work, we need to measure abundances of many chemical elements in about a million stars. Until now, this has been impossible. The new HERMES instrument for the AAT is the first of a new generation of high resolution multi-object spectrometers built for this purpose. We hope to start observations in 2012. The survey should take about four years.

Conventional pipeline design assesses hydrodynamic stability of offshore pipelines without taking into account sediment transport occurring around the pipeline (e.g. DNV-RP-F109). There is a growing concern that such a design approach is flawed (Palmer 1996). It is evident that the seabed that supports the pipeline will become mobile well before the extreme design condition for the pipeline is reached. Sediment transport (scour) may lead to pipeline natural self-burial. Pipeline embedment gained through burial process increases pipeline stability due to the increase in lateral soil resistance and decrease of hydrodynamic loading. Field observations have shown that certain levels (from 1/3 of the pipeline to full burial) of embedment occurred to almost all of the existing pipelines laid on the North West Shelf (NWS) of Western Australia within the first couple of years after installation. It is speculated that ignorance of sediment transport processes leads to conservative designs. There are insufficient knowledge and analytical tools available to address this problem. Further research work is urgently needed. With a number of major projects in the NWS being planned, the cost benefits of such research will be significant. Physical processes that are crucial to hydrodynamic stability of offshore pipelines will be discussed in this presentation. The emphasis of the presentation will be on the recent related work carried out at UWA by the Prof. Cheng's group.

As water resources around the globe come under increasing pressure due to continuous population growth, economic development, and climate change, it is critical to adopt new management practices that lead to more efficient and sustainable use of the water resource, reconciling the demand for water by the human environment with the supply for water by the natural system. In such a context the integration of quality and quantity issues into the planning and management of water systems is emerging as a key issue. In this seminar, a reinforcement learning approach is introduced to design efficient management policies for multi-purpose selective withdrawal reservoirs with the aim at meeting established water quality/quantity targets both in-reservoir and downstream. Structured design of experiment simulations are performed of a 1D coupled hydrodynamic-ecological model (DYRESM) to generate a learning dataset over which a daily management policy is trained using a fitted-Q algorithm based on extremely randomized trees. The approach is demonstrated on the management of Tono Dam, a Japanese artificial reservoir affected by water quality problems (turbidity and algal blooms) and used for multiple operational objectives, including drinking water supply, irrigation and hydropower production.

A multi-scale methodology for the study of the non-local geometry of structures in turbulence will be described. Starting from a given three-dimensional field this consists of three main steps: extraction, characterization and classification of isosurfaces. Extraction is done using the curvelet transform, which produces a multi-scale decomposition. Characterization and classification are defined using differential-geometry properties of scale-dependent isosurfaces and their representation in a 'feature-space' of reduced geometrical parameters. Application to fields of enstropy, dissipation and a passive scalar obtained from direct-numerical simulation of homogeneous turbulence will be described. These show a transition, with decreasing scale, from blob-like shapes at forced scales, to tube-like and sheet-like structures in the inertial range and finally pancake/sheet geometry at dissipation scales. The geometrical evolution of Lagrangian structures in turbulence will also be discussed. While these examples are straightforward, the methodology developed can, in principle, be applied to any turbulence field or any volume-rendered data set for which the the fast Fourier transform can be utilized.

Improved data collection techniques as well as increasing computing power are opening up new opportunities for the development of sophisticated models that can accurately reproduce hydrodynamic and bio-chemical conditions of water bodies. While increasing model complexity is considered a virtue for scientific purposes, it is a definite disadvantage for management (engineering) purposes, as it limits the model applicability to ‘what if' analysis over a few, a-priori defined interventions. Lately, this is becoming a significant limitation, particularly considering recent advances in water quality rehabilitation technologies (e.g., mixers or oxygenators) for which many design parameters have to be decided. In this paper, a novel approach to integrate science-oriented and engineering-oriented models and improve water quality planning is presented. It is based on the use of few, appropriately designed simulations of a complex process-based model to iteratively identify the multi-dimensional function (Response Surface) that maps the rehabilitation interventions into the objective function. Based on the Response Surface, a greater number of interventions can be quickly evaluated and the corresponding Pareto front approximated. Interesting points on the front are then selected and the corresponding interventions simulated using the original process-based model, thus obtaining new decision/objective samples to refine the Response Surface approximation. The approach is demonstrated in Googong Reservoir (Australia), which is periodically affected by high concentrations of Manganese and Cyanobacteria.

It is argued that adaptation to climate change and other hazards is likely to be more successful if more is known about how local communities and societies are affected and respond to climate variability. Bangladesh is particularly susceptible to climate variability and a range of other hazards. It is one of the poorest countries in the world in which twenty eight percent (37 million) of the population live along the coast. Of this, twenty eight million (75 percent) live rurally though by 2050 fifty percent of the coastal population will be urbanised. The coastal zone is subject to hazards caused by climatic volatility such as cyclones, storm surges, flooding and attendant hazards, which have had devastating impacts on coastal populations. Their vulnerability has grown over the past fifty years as a result of, inter alia, population growth and population movement to coastal areas, increasing social and economic inequalities among coastal populations, intensified resource extraction with concomitant environmental degradation, fragmented planning leading to a lack of adequate physical and human infrastructure and a national policy emphasis on rapid economic growth over environmental and social protection. This vulnerability is likely to be increased as a consequence of the effects of climate change. The Bangladesh Government is well aware of the threat of climate change to the country's very survival and has committed itself to a major program of adaptation. However, this program is in its early stages and it will be some time before any assessment of its impact can be properly assessed. This talk discusses how coastal dwellers are seeking to adapt to existing local natural and human-induced hazards and the relevance of such adaptation to the wider issue of climate change. The talk is divided into the following sections: 1. The role of adaptation in dealing with climate change 2. The impact of climate change on Bangladesh 3. Bangladeshi responses to climate change 4. Community-based adaptation in coastal Bangladesh

The Conservation Council is Western Australia's peak environment group, representing over 95 community-based environment and sustainability groups throughout the state. In this seminar, the director of the council Piers Verstegen will discuss some of the key policy challenges facing the environment in WA, and provide insight into the critical failure of political leadership in addressing the climate and sustainability emergency at a local and global scale. The discussion will cover the role and future of non-government environment (eNGO) sector and strategies for more effective environmental advocacy and community action around environmental issues. Opportunities for partnership between the eNGO sector and universities to support innovative and transformative policy approaches to the most critical challenges of our time will also be discussed.

This seminar will give a glimpse of the work carried out in Rostrata Primary School by Richard Johnson, winner of the Premier's Prize for Excellence in Primary Science Teaching in 2008. Ric believes the universal appeal of science learning poses no boundary to any child. The secret to children learning sciences is in the ability to engage them at their own level and that a hands-on activity, experience or demonstration can be created to support the achievement of any primary science learning outcome. In this seminar, Ric will share what he does in his world of science and children as a scientific passion raiser; including demonstrations of experiments and hands on activities.

The world's appetite for energy continues to expand. While we contend with the challenge of global warming, this demand ensures that hydrocarbon resources, including natural gas and oil, will remain a major source of energy into this century. Combined with the depletion of reserves in shallow waters and traditional regions this demand is resulting in offshore developments moving into deeper waters and untested environments. These environments often present problematic seabed soil conditions requiring engineering solutions to new technical challenges. In this seminar the presenter will discuss how UWA's physical testing facilities, such as Australia's only geotechnical centrifuge, are being used to address these challenges. Analysis models that have been developed at UWA and are now being used by civil engineers in predicting foundation and structural failure will be discussed. A review of Australia's deep water future will also be provided.

The radio-quiet skies in Western Australia make it an ideal place to set up the next generation of low-frequency radio telescopes. These telescopes are being designed to pierce deep into Universe to hopefully reveal the secrets of its formation and to test our understanding of the laws that govern its nature. I will give a brief introduction to the science of radio astronomy and describe what radio astronomers actually 'do' when they point their telescopes to the sky. I will show recent results from existing telescopes, and describe the concept of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and the role Australia may play in its construction.

Carbon Neutral, a non profit organisation, works with hundreds of organisations and thousands of individuals to measure, reduce and offset greenhouse gas emissions and support revegetation projects. Started in 2001 by Men of the Trees, Carbon Neutral services include a Four Step Carbon Reduction Programme, carbon calculators and information on climate change, provision of carbon offsets, carbon sink establishment and revegetation projects. To date Carbon Neutral has planted over 1.5 million trees in Australia. This presentation will cover how Carbon Neutral taps into individual and business concerns about climate change and delivers revegetation projects to address this issue along with the considerable and increasingly urgent problems facing our rural areas. Native forests can be established through funding from carbon markets and help combat a range of environmental issues, many linked specifically to water. A disconcerting lack of leadership from government and business has seen trust in business deteriorate with a corresponding increase in trust in the NGO sector. There is an urgent need for business to understand the concept of true sustainability and more effectively internalise what has traditionally been an externality addressed only to satisfy minimum requirements from legislators, stakeholders and society. Carbon Neutral seeks to bridge the divide between business and the environment to meet urgent environmental challenges head on.

Western Australia's marine environment is unique, reflecting its lengthy geological isolation and the presence of the Leeuwin Current, the only poleward running current on a continental western margin. This seminar will identify some of the marine biodiversity values of WA's southwest corner and present the research undertaken to map marine habitats between Abrolhos and Esperance. Benchmark data will be presented on the fish assemblages of these areas and an argument put forward for the benefits of no-take marine parks as part of a broad strategy to protect and manage our marine environment.

The interaction of multiple inflows entering into Thomson Reservoir (Australia) is investigated with a field experiment and three-dimensional numerical simulations. The focus is on the mixing and transport patterns of the inflowing water within the reservoir. Data from the field experiment showed the existence of multiple inflows intruding horizontally into the reservoir immediately below the thermocline and selectively propagating into the reservoir at a depth determined by the individual density of each inflow. The results serve to show that inflows slot into a reservoir in an orderly fashion, their depth dependent on the separation of inflow densities. Inflows thus do not take their nutrient load into the reservoir as a whole, but rather slot their load into an intrusion layer at an appropriate depth; vertical mixing is required for these to become available in the surface layer where primary production is supported by light.

Western Australia has a unique opportunity to stake out its claim in the international geothermal energy boom. Because of Perth's geological setting, our proposal focuses on direct heat use technologies (e.g. geothermally powered air conditioning and desalination) for use in population centres where there is shallow groundwater of moderate temperature. Many major cities, like Perth, are built on sedimentary basins, thus providing exploitable heat right where it can be used. The Western Australian Geothermal Centre of Excellence establishes capacity within the state to lead the exploration and exploitation of geothermal heat in a modern society. By exploring for and utilising low-grade heat in a permeable sedimentary environment we address an overlooked opportunity for broadening the footprint of geothermal energy utilisation. We are particularly focussing on the geological setting of sedimentary basins like the Perth Basin, where exploitable heat is available right where it can be used. We suggest that geothermal groundwater convection in such basins provides a natural underground heat exchanger in such systems. Owing to the high natural permeability there is no need for artificial hydraulic fracturing. There are challenges and opportunities. The main opportunity is that the drilling costs can be reduced substantially because the convection cells provide natural transfer of heat to shallower levels. Through this effect geothermal power may in the future become more competitive even in areas with normal or only slightly elevated regional regional heat flow. The main challenges are that the convective upwelling zones need to be accurately targeted and new methods need to be devised to harness the use of low-grade heat. Shallow geothermal sources may not reach the temperatures necessary for efficient electricity generation but are ideally suited for direct heat-driven desalination, heating and cooling, and dehumidification technologies. The Centre of Excellence will thus focus in particular on the Perth Basin 'Geothermal Opportunity', where both the geological challenges of targeting the heat sources and the engineering challenges of using the heat directly will be addressed. This focus on convection in the Perth Basin sets this Centre clearly apart from other emergent Geothermal Centres in Queensland and South Australia, which are mainly targeting hot dry rock without particular emphasis on geothermal convection.

Bill Clinton's famous remark, ”Its the Economy Stupid” has a lot of relevance to the CPRS (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) and the federal government's plans to introduce carbon trading in 2011. The CPRS will have far reaching effects on how we do business and our major industries will be spending between $5 billion and $11 billion in 2011, on carbon certificates and efforts to reduce their emissions. What is the basis for this change and how will it all work? Can the CPRS provide a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050? Is a 5% reduction in 2020 a soft target or an ambitious one? This talk brings an engineering perspective to the problem of CO2 emissions, and examines the technical implications of Treasury forecasts, and the likely effects on some marginal industries. In particular we ask if the CPRS alone (a form of taxation) can deliver the low carbon economy of the future or is there a bigger role for government in the development of infrastructure?

Observations of the tidal flow field over an elongated hollow (or scour pit) in Chesapeake Bay, showed tidally asymmetric distributions. Current speed increased over the landward side of the pit during flood tides and decreased in the deepest part of the pit during ebb tides. A simple conceptual analysis indicated that the presence of a horizontal density gradient can generate the asymmetric spatial variations of flow structure depending on the sign of the horizontal density gradient. When water density decreases downstream, the velocity increases over the downstream edge of the pit. Conversely when water density increases downstream, the flow decreases over the pit more than a case without a horizontal density gradient. The conceptual analysis is confirmed by numerical experiments of simplified hollows in steady open channel flows and of an idealized tidal estuary, and by observations at another scour pit. These scour pits also alter the local current field of tidally averaged estuarine exchange flows. The residual depth averaged currents over a pit show a two-cell circulation when Coriolis forcing is neglected and an asymmetric two-cell circulation, with a stronger cyclonic eddy, when Coriolis forcing is included.

This seminar will discuss the emergence and development of environmental civil society in China in light of the shocking environmental disasters created by the authorities' 'growth at all cost' strategy. The seminar particularly examines green activists' democratic social and political roles in bringing about transparent and open environmental governance, by using campaigns against hydroelectric dams as case studies. The delicate position of international green NGOs' operations in China will also been discussed.

Pumps are one of the most common components of any hydraulic system. Their reliability and efficiency are of ubiquitous and paramount importance. So it is very surprising that the design and development of these devices seemed to come to a significant halt for a large part of the late 20th century. Despite many indications of unfamiliar phenomena, academic interest in the fluid mechanics of these devices was scant indeed and the design tools used in industry remained confined to steady flow hydraulic analyses and a few empirical vibration criteria. It was not until extreme versions of the difficulties arose in the development of the high speed turbopumps in liquid-propelled rocket engines that serious attention began to be paid to the flow instabilities and fluid-structure interaction problems in pumps. Methodologies had to be developed to investigate these unsteady flows and practical design tools had to be identified to predict and ameliorate their consequences. This lecture will review some of these key issues and the new fluid mechanics that was developed in response to those challenges. The development of liquid-propelled rocket engine pumps was a primary trigger for this research but it is now recognized that the phenomena and methodologies are common to almost all liquid turbomachines. For simplicity, however, the present paper will focus on the rocket engine application. Two key milestones are worth noting. The first was the identification in the 1960s of the Pogo instability that plagued many of the early launch vehicles and caused the destruction of some. This led eventually to an understanding of the dynamic characteristics of the pumps and how to use this knowledge to limit the instability of the fuel and oxidizer feed systems. In this talk we describe measurements and calculations of the resulting dynamic transfer functions for pumps. The second milestone occurred during the development of the high speed pumps in the Space Shuttle Main Engine when it became apparent that fluid-induced rotordynamic forces with their origin in the seals and the impeller flows were substantially affecting the critical speeds of the high speed pumps and thereby limiting their operational range. We describe here experiments and analyses that contributed to an understanding of these fluid-induced rotordynamic effects. We note in closing that knowledge of these unsteady flow phenomena is now used in a wide range of pump applications while, at the same time, new and hybrid variations of these instabilities continue to be uncovered.

Recreational fishing is arguably the largest ‘invisible' industry in Western Australia. With participation rates of around 650,000 per year and an industry worth between $500 million and $1 billion a year to the economy, it should be a major player in most aquatic management debates. Recreational fishing's critics argue that the massive participation rate results in a huge impact on aquatic resources which must be better managed, while supporters point out the enormous social and economic benefits that result from recreational fishing are inadequately recognised. Some of the myths, fantasies and fables associated with recreational fishing will be examined by someone with 20 years recreational fisheries management experience.

Canyoneering (called canyoning in Australia and Europe) is a growing adventure activity throughout the world. It involves descending narrow and sometimes steep canyons using technical rock-climbing equipment in order to negotiate the steeper sections, often in or beside waterfalls. Though the sport developed independently in the US, Australia and Europe, there are now international rendezvous that allow participants to enjoy spectacular natural surroundings that could not otherwise be visited. The southwestern states of the USA include an amazing array of geographic wonders, many of which can only be fully experienced by resorting to this method of exploration �" from the huge, vertical landscapes of Arizona, to the narrow canyons of Utah and the earthquake-fractured mountains of California. The author will describe his many travels through these wonderlands and the adventures he experienced along the way. Mostly the photographs will tell the story of an amazing landscape (and waterscape) not only in the USA but also in Mexico and Costa Rica. Along the way he makes visits to places are diverse as Zion National Park, Death Valley, Yosemite's Haunted Canyon and Mexico's Monterrey Peaks National Park. (See http://www.dankat.com/advents/advents.htm and http://www.dankat.com/swhikes/swhikes.htm )

Biological ion channels regulate electrical signalling in organisms by providing controllable pathways for ions to enter or leave cells. This process underlies nerve impulses, sensory transduction and the regulation of cell volumes; and ion channel malfunction is known to cause a range of diseases including epilepsy, hypertension and cardiac arrhythmia. It is perhaps surprising, therefore, that a detailed molecular description of these proteins has only begun to be developed over the last ten years. In this seminar I will discuss computational and fluorescence based research aimed at answering two fundamental questions: how do channels distinguish between ion types, and how do they respond to stimulus to open and close at the appropriate times. I will also describe a recent proposal to make the desalination of water cheaper by constructing membranes containing pores that mimic the biological channels.

In the last decade there has been growing interest in the impact of the built environment on health. This has been fuelled by global trends in preventable chronic disease and their risk factors including increasing levels of physical inactivity; a global epidemic of obesity in adult and children; rising levels of late onset diabetes (i.e., Diabetes II), and rapid increases in stress, depression and other preventable mental illnesses. These trends are not due to genetics, but to a rapidly changing environment. For example, never before in human history, have so many people been able to be so sedentary in the course of their daily lives: at work, home and play. The uptake of labour saving devices, motor vehicle dependence, and technological advances that minimise daily energy expenditure combined with the sedentary design of buildings and urban environments appear to be contributing to increasingly inactive lifestyles. Well designed urban environments have the potential to facilitate healthy lifestyles and social interactions by actively (e.g., access to recreational facilities) and passively (e.g., providing access to destinations) encouraging residents to be active. This talk considers the evidence about how the design of neighbourhoods can affect health and presents preliminary findings from the RESIDE study which is evaluating the state government's Liveable Neighbourhood Guidelines.

In 2009 Johnsonians worldwide are celebrating the tercentenary of the birth of a towering literary figure. To most people Samuel Johnson is a shadowy figure associated with the English Dictionary. Many of you might recall him as a figure of fun in the ABC television series 'Blackadder'. But Johnson was more than the 'Dictionary Man', he was a playwright, a poet and an essayist. He invented the science of lexicography. He invented English literary criticism and, as a working journalist he was the first writer to make an independent living by his thus destroying the old system of literary patronage. He was a man of contradictions, both kind and brutal. He is seen by many as an arch conservative but he opposed capital punishment, fought slavery and promoted female literary figures. This talk will try to tell us why this man is still important in the 21st century, and why he attracts such devotion from his admirers, both lay and academic. It will be illustrated with material from his library.

We speak glibly about the constant loss of habitat that is threatening animal and plant species around the world and now exacerbated by the impact of global warming. But what is 'habitat' and how critical is it really for survival? The linkage between an organism and its habitat is expressed through a suite of adaptations, usually unique to the species, which ensure an effective and efficient utilisation of the resources that are available in that habitat. Adaptations that are evident in a species' morphology, behaviour and physiology, evolve over long periods of time through the process of natural selection and lead to specialisations that link the organism ever more tightly with its habitat. Loss of the habitat, if it occurs over a short period of time, thus usually leads to the extinction of the species as there is insufficient time for it to acquire those adaptations that would enable it to survive in the new, modified habitat. The nature and importance of this relationship between a species and its habitat will be illustrated with a number of examples of animals from Western Australia.

The main objective of this research was to investigate the nonlinear and non hydrostatic evolution of internal waves in stratified lakes whose dynamics is modified by Earth rotation. This work focused on studying the two-layer dynamics of stratified lakes, by combining simulations, carried out with numerical models developed for this research, with pseudo-spectral analysis and field measurements. First, the study of the simple case of a circular flat-bottom basin was conducted, and then the results were applied to study the dynamics of a real lake, Lake Constance. It is concluded that the nonlinear and non hydrostatic dynamics breaks the whole basin coherence described for linear waves, so the flow is characterized by several localized events of, for instance, vertical fronts and high flow velocity. Consequently, nonlinear and hydrostatic dynamics also induces localized mixing events due to high shear and solitary-type wave excitation that finally breaks in the shore. However, in terms of energy, it is postulated that energy dissipation is mainly explained by bottom friction, which is also modified by local increases of the flow velocity.

We generally think of bubbles as benign and harmless and yet they can manifest the most remarkable range of physical effects. Some of those effects are the stuff of our every day experience as in the tinkling of a brook or the sounds of breaking waves at the beach. But even these mundane effects are examples of the ability of bubbles to gather, focus and radiate energy (acoustic energy in the above examples). In other contexts that focusing of energy can lead to serious technological problems as when cavitation bubbles eat great holes through ships' propeller blades or cause a serious threat to the integrity of the spillways at the Hoover Dam. In liquid-propelled rocket engines bubbles pose a serious threat to the stability of the propulsion system and in artificial heart valves they can cause serious damage to the red-blood cells. In perhaps the most extraordinary example of energy focusing, collapsing cavitation bubbles can emit not only sound but also light with black body radiation temperatures equal to that of the sun. But, harnessed carefully, this ability to focus energy can also be put to constructive use. Cavitation bubbles are now used in a remarkable range of surgical procedures to emulsify tissue, most commonly in cataract surgery and in lithotripsy procedures for the reduction of kidney and gall stones. By creating cavitation bubbles non-invasively and thereby depositing energy non-intrusively, one can generate minute incisions or target cancer cells. This lecture will begin by ranging over the past history of these phenomena and will end with a vision of the new horizons for the amazing bubble.

Based in the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at The University of Western Australia, SymbioticA is dedicated to the research, learning and critique of life sciences. It is the first research laboratory of its kind, in that it enables artists to engage in wet biology practices in a biological science department. SymbioticA hosts residents, runs workshops, produces exhibitions and organises symposiums as part of the core activities. In 2008 SymbioticA became the Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, a jointly funded initiative between The University of Western Australia and the Western Australian Department of Culture and the Arts This talk will cover the philosophy of SymbioticA, trace its history and present some of the main research projects developed here, including a new artistic research project looking at desalination in the ongoing research into the natural and human ecologies of Lake Clifton, south of Mandurah. SymbioticA was established in 2000, and in 2007 it won the most prestigious award in art and technology, the inaugural Golden Nica for Hybrid Arts in the Prix Ars Electronica, and in 2008 SymbioticA won the WA Premier's Prize for Excellence in Science Communication Outside the Classroom.

Over the past two decades, an increasing number of Australian rural communities have begun to experience net in-migration. In many cases, this has reversed decades of population decline. While the exact reasons for this population turnaround are complex, it is clear that the rather ambiguous concept of 'environmental amenity' is playing a critical role. This seminar will explore the role of amenity in driving processes of urban-to-rural migration across southern Australia, using an amenity index to examine demographic trends in 500 social catchments across the rural ecumene of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. We consider how these trends have shaped land use, economic development and local environments, and conclude by contemplating the implications of these changes for water resource management.

Microorganisms are always present in raw water reservoirs and under most circumstances they provide a neutral or beneficial effect in biogeochemical recycling pathways. Under some conditions however, reservoirs can experience the influx of high numbers of microbes, some of which can be pathogenic and present a risk to public health. Where do they come from, how do they get into the water, how do we detect them and where do they end up? Answers to these questions are important in order to determine water quality impacts and help to design appropriate barriers to reduce public health risk. These issues will be addressed with a current industry perspective.

Similar to invasive terrestrial plants, invasive aquatic plants have negative environmental, economic, and social impacts. However, the impacts, ecology, and management of aquatic weeds differ in many ways from their terrestrial analogues. This presentation will explore these differences using examples from four aquatic plants; salvinia (Salvinia molesta), water hyacinth (Eichornia crassipes), alligator weed (Alternanthera philoxeroides) and cabomba (Cabomba caroliniana). After a brief introduction, the presentation will focus on current research on the ecology and management of alligator weed and cabomba.

Viruses are found wherever life is present and are the most abundant biological entities on our planet. They play a significant role in aquatic ecosystems, mediating microbial abundance, production, respiration, diversity, genetic transfer, nutrient cycling and particle size distribution. Cyanophages are viruses specific to cyanobacteria 'blue-green' algae. Recent studies in freshwaters have highlighted that viral lysis could be an important factor involved in cyanobacterial bloom decline. Thus, understanding the fundamental role of cyanophages in regulating cyanobacterial communities is essential to determine how blooms form and terminate and the part they play in global nutrient cycles. In most aquatic environments, there is a lack of information on the degree of viral-host specificity. This seminar will discuss the relevance of viral-host specificity in aquatic ecosystems and the significance of this to cyanobacterial bloom formation, decline and genetic exchange between different cyanobacterial strains/species.

Long before humans came to this earth, its climate cycled from ice ages to warm periods with a regularity of about 100,000 years. Indeed, it may be argued that it was this cycling that formed not only our DNA, but also moulded our cultural norms. A scale model, based on the great ocean conveyer idea, allows a quantitative look at the role of CO2 in interglacial cycling. With this understanding it becomes possible to make predictions of the end state under the 'business as usual' scenario and at the same time design quantitative measures for the amelioration of the most severe impacts. Technology may be seen to have developed in direct response to lowering our local risk against nature's imposed constraints, we now have an opportunity to lower our global risk. In the last 50 or so years, humans have interfered with the natural climate feedback mechanisms to such an extent that the climate cycle has been sent off into a new rhythm, with different seasonal variations both geographically and temporally. Rainfall patterns have shifted and the severity of events is changing; the exact new end state is still unknown, but the above model shows that that the current climate change is now no longer directly forced by anthropogenic emissions, is amenable to solution, but will require huge engineering, agricultural and social initiatives to bring under control. As we get ready for the changing rainfall patterns, the rising sea levels, the shifting disease patterns and the accelerated human migration, new infrastructure, more efficient food production, new water storages, new energy sources, whole new cities and massive clean up and restoration projects will need to be designed and implemented. In brief we will need to re-engineer almost the complete earth! In doing this we should not repeat the two major mistakes engineers have made in the past; we should clean up behind us as we move infrastructure and restore new ecosystems compatible with the new climate and second, we should remember the interconnectivity between carbon, water and people; we must learn to build multi-objective infrastructure where we accommodate people in a healthy environment, where we generate energy, harness bulk water and sequester carbon all in a biodiverse environment; in brief we need to learn how to mimic nature! I will illustrate this with three examples. First, how a green environment can lead to better human health and also sequester an enormous amount of carbon. Second, how lakes may be used to provide bulk water, sequester almost one quarter of the anthropogenic global carbon flux, provide enhanced fish yields and safeguard biodiversity. Third, I will use the proposed Severn Barrage as an example where such engineering ventures maybe used to stimulate the economy, generate a substantial amount of power, enhance the estuarine biodiversity, annually sequester up to possible 20% of UK's anthropogenic carbon flux into the atmosphere and provide much better recreational accessibility. The greatest challenge we face is to focus on the opportunities offered by rapidly changing environment and return to a village life, albeit now a global village, the environment from which our DNA originated. If properly managed we could grow out of our juvenile, irresponsible behaviour from the 20th Century and emerge from the next 100 years a more responsible species and an earth where we can control our global risk, the climate. Our fate is in our own hands, only wealth inequity stands in the way.

Knowledge of the distribution of biochemical material within a lake or freshwater reservoir is of upmost importance to the resource managers and stakeholders. The impact of horizontal advection and dispersion on patch dynamics of aquatic species is also an active area of scientific interest. Horizontal transport in lakes, especially horizontal dispersion, is mostly addressed at the basin-scale in the literature, and there is a need to characterise and quantify the effect of local processes - i.e. as has been done for vertical transport. The objective of this study was thus: from observations and hydrodynamic modeling of three study sites, determine the contribution of local-scale motions - flow patterns associated with localised vertical mixing, surface heating and interaction with bathymetry - to horizontal transport. Research was conducted into horizontal motion and transport associated with partial upwelling events in a narrow reservoir, showing effective horizontal transport due to gravitational motion set up by localised vertical mixing. The composition of the surface layer horizontal flow field was further investigated, showing surface layer motion can be composed equally of basin-scale and local-scale motions, and a local-scale motion comprised of aperiodic divergence events causes significant horizontal dispersion. The study encompassed sites with different spatial scales, basin shape, external forcing and internal structure. The results showed important spatial and temporal variability in rates of horizontal dispersion that should be considered when attempting to understand and predict the origin and fate of heterogeneous distributions of biochemical material in lakes and reservoirs.

This seminar will address the fiduciary obligations of State and Federal Australian Governments and the compensation obligations of resource companies towards Australia's Indigenous peoples. It will discuss examples of government action which failed to pass the test of providing equal rights to Indigenous, including the Commonwealth Government's intervention into the Northern Territory and the Western Australian Government's dealings with Aboriginal Communities, particularly in the Swan Valley and Kimberley. It will also explore the way in which multinational mining companies are operating in the Pilbara in relation to Indigenous peoples and compare that with the way in which they relate to local communities in other countries.

The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO promotes scientific investigation of oceans and its resources through the concerted actions of its member states. UNESCO/IOC focuses on: -Addressing the impacts of climate change and variability, including sealevel rise -Safeguarding Marine ecosystems health and integrated management -Capacity building, data and information services and procedures for marine scientific research -Mitigating the impacts of tsunamis and other marine hazards Through the Capacity Development Programme, Theodore Marguerite (Seychelles Meteorology Services) and Stefano Mazzilli (UNESCO/IOC) are currently working with the Centre for Water Research (CWR) to: 1) prepare a hydrodynamic model for coastal management in the Seychelles, and 2) to facilitate a training of others in the region at the end of November. They will present some of issues faced and current approaches to developing capacity in coastal and marine research and management encountered in the region, including: -Capacity Development in the Seychelles -Capacity Development in the East Africa region -The role of UNESCO IOC Programme and other United Nations agencies Following, they will facilitate an open discussion on: How can researchers and managers better assist in building sustained capacity when working in developing countries? Please join this discussion with your own personal experiences or thoughts.

Climate variability, floods and their impacts have received increasing attention around the world in recent years leading to research programs aimed at incorporating historical data into flood risk management. Such research programs were motivated by the occurrence of recent devastating floods over the past decade. New approaches based on the use of information from various historical sources, in contrast to the 70's traditional engineering approaches, have succeeded in improving our understanding on the mechanisms leading to past floods caused solely by strong precipitation. The evaluation and critical analysis of quantitative and qualitative data such as water flood marks and documentary sources (e.g. newspaper, official reports) became a crucial component for flood peak discharge estimates before its incorporation into the flood frequency analysis. This presentation deals with the reconstruction of the extreme flood of the 30,000 km2 area's lower Salado River Basin (central-east Argentina) occurred during April and May of 1914. The timing and pattern of rainfall leading to the flood and its course were reconstructed by using the information from various historical sources. Quantitative flood marks data from historical records at a bridge located nearby to the actual stream gauging station, were contrasted against qualitative information from news papers, data analysis and metric over historical photographs, and field survey using a geodesic GPS system. Numerical modeling (1D and 3D) was used to estimate its peak discharge. The sequence and magnitude of rainfall events over the 1913-1914 water-year and the estimated peak flood magnitude indicated astonishing similarities when compared to the flood occurred during April and May of 2003 yet considered the largest flood during the period of systematic hydrological measurements (1953-to present). Important considerations about the engineering and historical research-type approaches will be discussed in the light of the flood peak estimation.

The Pacific-Northwest of the United States has a large number of highly regulated river systems, which have resulted in severe impacts on numerous aquatic species such as salmon, bull trout and a number of snail species. In the Deadwood River Basin, a 5 year program started in 2007 with the objective to improve conditions for bull trout by altering the operational regime of the Deadwood Reservoir. Deadwood Reservoir is located approximately 1600m above sea level, in an extremely harsh environment where winter temperatures regularly reach 30 degrees below zero. As part of the program, a Lake Diagnostic System (LDS) consisting of a high resolution thermistor chain, seven dissolved oxygen sensors and a meteorological station were installed in July 2007. Sampling every minute, including under complete ice cover through winter, this data set is proving to be an extremely rich source of information on primary productivity and carbon cycling. This talk will outline the dynamics of this supposedly oligotrophic reservoir, and in particular demonstrate how this high resolution data stream has the potential to change our perceptions of productivity in low nutrient environments.

Acid generation as a result of disturbance of 'acid sulfate soils' can have localised but devastating effects on downstream environments, infrastructure, and natural resources. Decreasing water levels as a result of urban and agricultural drainage and groundwater extraction, and/or generally from drying climatic conditions, has lead to increased risk of acidification at many sites. However, there is also natural acid buffering capacity in many systems; prediction and management of overall acidification risks therefore requires quantification of the relative rates of acid generation, transport, and attenuation. An example of a system under risk of acidification is the lower lakes of the Murray River, in South Australia. Due to unprecedented low river inflows and barrages between the lakes and the ocean, water levels in the lakes have decreased significantly. The exposed sediments are generating acidity and initial estimates suggested acidification of Lake Albert by 2010. In order to provide a more detailed assessment of the overall acidification risk in the potentially short timeframe, an existing coupled 3D hydrodynamics and water quality model was extended to include a representation of the acidity loading that considers the kinetics of acidity generation and transport. Simulations over the period of 2008-2010, assuming continued low flow conditions, indicated that, even given the uncertainty in the parameters in this desktop study, the water quality in the lakes is likely to deteriorate within the next 12-24 months. Sensitivity of simulation results to chemical and transport parameter values highlighted the need for field and/or laboratory studies to constrain key parameters. Simulations also indicated that shallow reaches in the northern and southern parts may exhibit localised acidification even prior to reaching lake-wide trigger levels; field studies focussed on these areas are recommended.

Over the last century the atmospheric concentration of methane, has risen approximately 1% per year. The reasons for this trend are not completely understood since the global sources and sinks of methane still need quantification. Quantification of gaseous methane in aquatic ecosystems is a complex task due to large spatial and temporal variability of the gas emission events. As a result, there is a gap in knowledge about the contribution of gas ebullition to the total methane flux from sediments in shallow lakes and reservoirs. This information is necessary to determine what portion of deposited organic carbon is utilized by methanogenic bacteria, to evaluate the fate of bubbles in the water column, and the amount of methane that ultimately reaches the atmosphere. In contrast to conventional gas traps and optical methods, hydroacoustic technology allows rapid scanning over large volumes of the water column synoptically, quantifying bubble gas abundance, calculating bubble rise velocity, and bubble volumes. Data obtained from hydroacoustic surveys on Lake Kinneret allowed estimating the gaseous methane fluxes from deep hypolimnetic sediments. It was shown that ~40% of the gaseous methane released as bubbles from the deep sediments (>20m) should be dissolved within the hypolimnion, while ~ 30% of the gaseous methane released as bubbles reached the atmosphere. In years of fast lowering the water level, a large proportion of methane accumulation in the hypolimnion could be attributed to bubble dissolution. Overall, our estimates showed that in lakes and reservoirs with declining water levels, bubbles can play an essential role in methane evolution in the anoxic hypolimnion and in direct methane transfer to the atmosphere.

Tropical cyclones are responsible for thousands of deaths, billions of dollars of property and business losses, and disruptions to millions of peoples' lives. Even slight improvements in the forecasts of cyclone track and intensity can have profound societal impacts. Much information is lacking about the details of the oceanic response. Yet, it is recognized that the ocean provides the sensible and latent heat (i.e. enthalpy) fluxes that initiate the tropical cyclones and also fuel its intensification. One way to observe hurricane evolution is to deploy autonomous profilers in the path of a cyclone. I present results from rapid profiles of ocean velocity and density during the passage of Hurricane Frances in September 2004. These comprehensive observations of the ocean's response to a hurricane reveal that shear instability and convective motions deepen and homogenize the surface mixed layer (SML), document large surface waves, and provide a dynamical explanation of SML processes and a ground truth for improved wind stress and sea surface temperature (SST) parameterizations. Three autonomous profiling EM-APEX floats were deployed ahead of the hurricane and observed ocean properties every half hour over the depth interval 30 to 200 m - one on the forecasted track of the eye, others at 55 km to the right of the hurricane's track and 110 km to the right of the track. Each float observed different responses to the local wind velocities and durations. Under the high winds at the 55-km site, sea surface temperature (SST) cooled 2.2°C, SML deepened and 80 m, and surface gravity wave reached 12-m significant wave height. Based on the momentum changes observed in the upper ocean, the apparent drag coefficient increased as described by Large and Pond, then decreased for winds greater than 25 m s-1, and levelled off at 1.3 x 10-3 at wind speeds greater than 35 m s-1. Sea surface cooled primarily from shear induced vertical mixing bringing deeper, cooler water into the surface zone, rather than from sensible and latent heat leaving the ocean. Numerical simulations of the 3-D, time dependent ocean responses are improved with the in situ observations and their interpretations, such as the revised drag coefficient and SML deepening.

Thousands of years ago human life on earth was in harmony with nature on a 100,000 year cycle, the period between the ice ages; this is when the human mind and body evolved and essentially our genetic design stems from this period. Genetic evidence suggests that the human race evolved from the primate starting around 150,000 years ago,or two ice ages ago; the human DNA was fine tuned during this period. The human that was created was designed to function in harmony with the environment of the time; in the womb the mother programmed the DNA switches to ready the child for the new outside world, in the first 6 months of life the immune system inventory was set up and in the first 6 years or so the brain learned to conform to society's norms and be in relative equilibrium with the immediate environment. The human of the day survived around 30 to 50 years with death, in probabilistic terms occurring through different breakdowns in the functioning of organs and the immune system; life expectancy increased as early failures mechanisms became repairable revealing every newer failures in succession. Over the last 15,000 years, essentially since the last ice age, the functioning humans set up their icons; family, the concept of God, the various cultures and forms of government and the hierarchical ideas of respect for experience. Spirituality was an important part of this evolution, providing the connection between humans, nature and the unknown. Before organized religion came about humans expressed their spirituality through a combination of respect for the unknown, superstition and fear of what was not understood. Hinduism evolved first and may be seen as a transition between simple spirituality and the organized religions; a movement with a minimalist structure. Judaism, the first version of an organized religion, ordered the various expressions of spirituality into a more consistent set of rules, much like laws order community consensus. In simple terms, these rules were simply reflections of the constraints imposed by nature on our evolution and so formed sign posts for living in a way that promoted better survival. However, as the structure became more consolidated, the organizational part of the structure gained in strength. Christianity followed, consolidating the structure even more and people started to interpret the rules to the advantage of humans and, in particular, the church. Islam followed with yet further extension of rules and structures. In the last 100 years, we have devoted ourselves almost exclusively to 'liberating' ourselves from these icons and in the process trashing nature and removing most of our reference points; technology provided the mechanism and the GDP the measure of success for this mission. Technology is pursued to liberate us from the constraints of our reach, and in that it has been singularly successful, but it has resulted in unintended consequences unleashing some very disturbing new feedback mechanisms that are having alarming consequences for the human race: a) Climate change in now controlled by the increase in hurricanes, the melting of the permafrost and the loss of solubility in the ocean as well as a breakdown of ecological balances. b) Recent research has shown that our genetic destiny is set in the prenatal period when the stress levels in the mother determines much of the well being of an individuals life; the more stress the mother is under the higher the incidence of pathological behavioural changes in the adult, rendering the resulting society less able to make mature decisions. c) By changing our environment our immune system is no longer being set up properly, leading to an alarming rise in diseases. This motivates us to further sterilise our environment only making the problem worse. d) By removing 'creative loafing' time from our daily lives, we are getting better at short term decision making, but much less able to cope with holistic problem solving. e) Economic growth is fueling the information age that, in turn, is increasing productivity leading to a positive feedback into economic growth; the result is that the GDP of most countries is now growing exponentially and we are totally addicted to consumption, with all the symptoms of clinical addiction. f) Even more alarming for the human race is that technology has allowed, over the last 15 years, a massive concentration of wealth and power, in the hands of a few, upsetting the fundamental democratic institutions. g) Our senses no longer match our needs and we compensate by viewing the world through the simplifications of the computer screen, this is having the effect of devaluing nature and its therapeutic influence on human well being. The alarming feature of these feedbacks is that they imply that, the climate, our psychological state, the economy and nature's habitat will all move, irrespective of what humans do, to a new unknown state in the time of one human life, all bring a significant imbalance between the human capability and his/her environment. In essence humans, by expanding our reach to global scales through technology, have set up a 50 year global experiment where we are both the observers and the subject and for which we have neither a hypothesis nor an objective; we have put the earth and ourselves in the hands of fate. Not a comfortable experiment for a scientist! What is to be done? I shall examine some of the more popular ideas such as carbon trading and sequestration and show that these technologies are much less effective than improving food production efficiencies and returning the released land to reforestation. However, an even greater challenge for our Universities is to develop technologies that allow people to participate in society in the face of wealth inequity, declining biodiversity, unbalanced population increases and genetic manipulation.

Lakes are generally efficient natural settling basins, however in certain circumstances the settling capacity of the lake is affected by short-circuiting pathways. A short-circuiting pathway is a preferred in-lake water path (or flow-through) where the inflowing water is transported towards a certain outlet at a relative faster rate rather than in other regions of the lake. The degree of short-circuiting depends on the inlet-outlet geographic configuration, flow rates, wind disturbances, internal waves motions or gravity flows. This talk will present the results of detailed field observations and numerical modelling conducted to assess the fate and transport of water into Prospect Reservoir (New South Wales, Australia), with a goal to determine the likelihood of short-circuiting of piped water to the nearby reservoir outlet over the short-term. The combination of the field observations and validated numerical modelling has led to a detailed understanding of the dynamics of the reservoir and highlighted how different operational conditions and thermodynamics condition can have a dramatic influence on the water quality in the reservoir.

Tidal straining is proposed as a key mechanism influencing the magnitude and timing of the horizontal mass flux of nutrients, terrestrial carbon and anthropogenic contaminants across Regions of Freshwater Influence (ROFIs), the critical interface between estuaries and continental shelf seas. Evidence for this hypothesis is presented in estimates of the long-term residual current profile, obtained from five years of continuous ADCP measurements, taken at the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory Coastal Observatory mooring in Liverpool Bay. The observed mean residual velocities are found to be three times larger than those predicted by Heaps' (1972) 'classical' solution. The strongest residual currents from the coastal observatory mooring are shown to occur when the water column periodically alternates between a well mixed and stratified state, a consequence of tidal straining, rather than simply related to the density gradient. These results are used for the further development of the POLCOMS 3-D numerical model to improve the simulation of physical processes that drive the off -shore flux of freshwater.

Field, laboratory, and modeling studies are used to determine the physical and geochemical processes that control the biogeochemical behavior of Cu, Zn, and other metals in a river that receives acid-rock drainage. Field data indicate that pH increases and dissolved concentrations of many elements decrease in the river downstream of its confluence with acid-rock drainage. Mixing and dilution affect the concentrations of all dissolved elements in the dynamic reach. Dissolved Fe concentrations also decrease throughout the reach due to precipitation of schwertmannite and ferrihydrite. At pH values > 4.5-5.6, newly formed Fe precipitates adsorb Cu and Zn. The fractionation of Cu and Zn isotopes during adsorption onto ferrihydrite also is examined to provide an additional tool for identifying specific processes occurring in the environment. Although precipitation and adsorption are critical in regulating the concentrations of dissolved metals, the uptake of metals by aquatic organisms is highly dependent on solution speciation. Diffusive Gradients in Thin Films (DGT) and the Biotic Ligand Model are used to evaluate the speciation and acute toxicity of dissolved Cu and Zn in the mixing and reaction zone. Dissolved and DGT labile metal concentrations are generally equal at pH > 4.9. Labile concentrations of Zn do not exceed LC50 Zn concentrations for fathead minnows and water fleas, whereas labile concentrations of Cu at sites closest to the confluence (~8-30 m downstream) exceed LC50 Cu concentrations for the organisms. These results are in good agreement with previously conducted toxicity tests that indicate minimal to no survival of these organisms at a site 16 m downstream of the confluence.

There has been a clear and worrying increase in a diverse range of allergic and autoimmune diseases, which are associated with an underlying failure of immune tolerance (to allergens and self-antigens). Development of immune tolerance is a critical process in early life. The rising rates of allergic and autoimmune diseases highlight the susceptibility of these tolerance pathways to environmental changes. Although the mechanisms are not clear, many of these conditions (including food allergies, coeliac disease and type 1 diabetes) manifest early in life, indicating that immune dysregulation is a very early event. This emphasizes the need to understand the developmental origins of these conditions and in particular, the role of: -The pattern of early allergen exposure (including feeding practices, and the timing, dose, interval and regularity of allergen exposure) -Early gut colonisation and microbial exposure -Other immunomodulatory influences (such as omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids [n-3PUFA] and breast milk), in both the pathogenesis and the prevention of disease At present, there are very few formal recommendations on these points as good evidence is still not available. Challenging many long-held concepts, there are now studies (in progress and in design) that will examine the hypothesis that earlier introduction (rather than avoidance) and regular exposure to 'allergenic' foods (such as peanuts and egg) may reduce the risk of specific allergies to these foods. However, more studies are needed before recommendations can be made.

As one ponders a changing environment -- climate, hydrology, land use, biogeochemical cycles, human dynamics -- there is an increasing need to understand the long term evolution of the linked component systems (e.g., climatic, hydrologic and ecological) through conceptual and quantitative models. The most challenging problem toward this goal is to understand and incorporate the rich dynamics of multiple linked systems with weak and strong coupling, and with many internal variables that exhibit multi-scale interactions. The richness of these interactions leads to fluctuations in one variable that in turn drive the dynamics of other related variables. The key question then becomes: ''Do these complexities lend an inherently stochastic character to the system, rendering deterministic prediction and modeling of limited value, or do they translate into constrained self-organization through which emerges order, and a limited group of 'active' processes (that may change from time to time) that determine the general evolution of the system through a series of structured states with a distinct signature? '' This is a grand challenge for predictability and therefore requires community effort. The interconnectivity and hence synthesis of knowledge across the fields should be natural for hydrologists since the global water cycle and its regional manifestations directly correspond to the information flows for mass and energy transformations across the media, and across the disciplines. Further, the rich history of numerical, conceptual and stochastic modeling in hydrology provides the training and breadth for addressing the multi-scale, complex system dynamics challenges posed by the evolution question. Theory and observational analyses that necessitate stepping back from the existing knowledge paradigms and looking at the integrated system are needed. In this talk I will present the outlines of a new NSF-funded community effort that attempts to forge inter-disciplinary synthesis through research efforts aimed at 'improving predictability of water cycle dynamics in a changing environment.' The synthesis activities have brought together inter-disciplinary scientific teams to address specific open problems such as: (i) human-nature interactions and adaptations; (ii) role of the biosphere in water cycle dynamics; (iii) human induced changes to water cycle dynamics; and (iv) structure of landscapes and their evolution through time. All synthesis activities are underpinned by common unifying themes: (a) science of interacting processes; (b) variability as the driver of interactions and ecosystem functioning; (c) search for emergent behavior and organizing principles; and (d) complexity theory and non-equilibrium thermodynamics.

The potential for constructed wetlands (CWs) in Western Australia is enormous as they can provide cost-effective wastewater treatment systems which are simple and inexpensive to operate and maintain when compared to conventional treatment systems. As a result they represent an appropriate and sustainable technology for wastewater treatment - properties which have been widely documented. The largest drawback is the area they require which can make their application to urban areas problematic, however they are particularly well suited to small towns and rural communities where sufficient land is more likely to be available. In addition, regulatory bodies are currently preoccupied with the potential for mosquito habitat which can be avoided with correct design. Constructed wetlands can be considered to be of three principal types: subsurface flow (SSF), vertical flow (VF) and free water surface (FWS). The design of these types of wetlands historically has been based on data from numerous wetlands worldwide which has been used to derive empirical equations - the 'black box' approach. The Environmental Technology Centre is now beginning to monitor several different types of constructed wetlands in southwest WA and data more relevant to the local climate is being compiled. This includes different wastewater types including greywater, levels of treatment, suitable plant species, local climatic effects and general construction details. This monitoring program will ultimately lead to improved wetland design for West Australian conditions.

The genus Caladenia (spider orchids) is one of the most diverse in southwestern Western Australia, and Caladenia species have among the most specific mycorrhizal relationships known in the orchid family. However, Caladenia species also hybridise frequently and prolifically in nature. This study considered five natural hybrids within Caladenia and its closest relatives to elucidate the issue of mycorrhizal specificity in the hybrids and their parental species. Symbiotic cross-germination studies of parental and hybrid seed on fungi from the species and the naturally occurring hybrids were compared with data from genetic fingerprinting (amplified fragment length polymorphism) studies of the fungi. The germination study found that, while hybrid seeds can utilise the fungi from either parental species under laboratory conditions, it is likely that the natural hybrids in situ share the fungus of one parent only. In contrast, the genetic analysis indicated that while the parental species always possessed genetically distinct fungal strains, the hybrids may share the mycorrhizal fungus of one parental species or possess a genetically distinct fungal strain which is more closely related to the fungus of one parental species than the other. These findings confirm the specificity of mycorrhizal relationships in Caladenia, and suggest the potential of hybridisation and the utilisation of novel fungi as a possible pathway to speciation.

Over the last 30 years, limnology has become a mature field with most of the energy flux paths now well established and incorporated into 3D models. The energy from the wind and the sun enters a lake via the free surface, the river inflow may form overflows, intrusions or underflows and the selectivity of a withdrawal flow depends strongly on the thermal stratification in the lake. The talk is structured to follow the energy flux from the wind, to surface waves and surface layer turbulence, to basin scale barotropic lake seiching and internal waves, to high frequency free internal waves and free gyres, to the benthic boundary layer to finally the intermittent turbulence field in the water column; this is generated by non linear wave breaking, Kelvin Hemholz billowing and Holmboe shear instabilities, depending on the relative placement of the shear and density field gradients. Inflows and outflow dynamics is then briefly reviewed. Next, I show how this symphony of motions adds to sustain a weak vertical mass flux and a horizontal dispersion; the latter being critically dependent on the topology of the horizontal residual circulation and the presence of unsteady stagnation points. I will conclude with an illustration of how the full complexity of these motions can be captured with a 3D model that also beautifully illustrates the competitive nature of the various components of the motion in determining the net mixing in a lake and I show how this competition is a strong function of the lake and stratification properties.

Water level measurements in the vicinity of Winam Gulf, Lake Victoria, showed strong periodicity at either 12.8 or 26.3 hours, with strong amplification along Winam Gulf. To study the origins of these pseudo-tidal surface fluctuations and their impact on flushing of Winam Gulf, three-dimensional numerical simulations of the entire lake were carried out and validated against data collected in August 2005. The wind field was found to be the major forcing factor for the physical processes occurring in the lake, in particular by generating long period surface seiches that strongly influenced the flushing from large coastal embayments such as Winam Gulf. Given the surface seiches are a lake-wide feature, it is expected that they play a similar role in flushing the other large embayments of the lake. ELCOM numerical model was used for the simulations. To validate the model surface elevations, temperature profiles and vertical velocity profiles are compared to measurements at selected points. Sensitivity analysis were carried out to model variables like wind speed, solar radiation, light extinction coefficient, bottom friction stress to guarantee that model adequately reproduced the field measurements. After the model validation was carried out, the mass exchange mechanisms between the main lake and the Winam Gulf were studied by identifying the dispersion mechanisms and the main advection mechanism. The numerical model results showed that the mass exchange follows a complicated pattern which is determined by the wind induced seiches in the main lake. From the three dispersion mechanisms studied, the one representing the residual circulation is the most important one, being even as important as the main advection mechanism.

The Southwest Irrigation Area (SIA) consists of three irrigation districts (Waroona, Harvey and Collie) located about 90 km south of Perth. These three districts supply about 40% of Perth's dairy needs. Flood irrigation is used to boost the pasture production and over irrigation is common in the area. Due to this excessive irrigation practice during summer most of the irrigated area becomes waterlogged during an average winter rainfall season. The actual weather conditions usually determine the level of waterlogging and flooding in the area. Dry weather (below average rainfall) causes less waterlogging and relatively wet weather (above average rainfall) results in excessive waterlogging problems. The waterlogging takes a relatively long time to disappear in the following spring resulting in accessibility problems, lost opportunity for cropping and low productivity. A study was carried out to assess the impacts of wet, average and dry year/climate on the waterlogging, flooding and groundwater recharge in the SIA. A fully integrated and spatially distributed hydrological model (MIKE SHE enterprise) was used in this study. A simple approach was used to define a wet, average and dry climate using past meteorological data. The model was calibrated and validated for a subcatchment of around 8000 ha in the study area by using the physical and historical hydrological data. The validated model was used to run a number of wet, average and dry climate scenarios with three levels of irrigation. The aim was to assess the impacts of various weather conditions along with different levels of irrigation on the groundwater levels. The model (MIKE SHE enterprise) produced a wide range of results for various scenarios. These results are presented in this seminar.

A recent CWR seminar presented last February stressed the importance of improving the number of biological variables measured, in-situ and in real-time, within aquatic environments. These measurements may drive the development of hybrid numerical models, based also on the temporal dynamics of bio-molecules instead of elements only (e.g., carbon -C, nitrogen �"N, and phosphorus -P). The most challenging task will be to integrate the new stream of information into the existing models, and to select the most appropriate and informative indices that can be measured rapidly and in a cost-effective manner. To do so, a streamlined approach involves the analytical quantification of the cellular macromolecules that make up the bulk of the cellular nutrients. Knowing a priori their respective C:N:P composition and the fractional allocation in specific taxa, would allow to infer the stock of nutrients in the sampled cell. Similarly, the approach could also be used to investigate the dissolved organic matter (DOM) composition and usage by planktic organisms. However, besides its straightforwardness, this strategy may also highlight the fundamental connections between C:N:P stoichiometry, bio-molecular composition and various physiological parameters, such as growth. While some cellular components show constant quantitative ratios with cellular C (and can indeed be used as proxies of it), others vary significantly in response to environmental stimuli and/or growth. This seminar will present two recently developed models linking C:N:P stoichiometry, bio-molecular composition and organism growth. Noteworthy, the modelled variables (e.g., RNA, proteins, carbohydrates etc) can be measured rapidly and cheaply, even during field surveys. This feature appears particularly important to improve our ability to initialize or validate the numerical simulations with streams of “up-to-date” data. The practicability of integrating new simple sub-modules for autotrophs' and consumers' growth dynamics, into complex numerical models like CAEDYM, will be discussed. In the so-called “self-learning” environments, these sub-modules may eventually serve as internal dynamic controls giving to the system the ability to self-check accuracy and correct its own output.

Across the globe, surface and coastal waters face increasing pressures from development such as eutrophication and pollution from contaminants that are potentially deleterious to human and ecosystem health.  The sustainable management of such impacted systems requires a quantitative assessment of ecosystem dynamics and services to guide decision support activities. Models are used to support decision makers as they serve as virtual environmental laboratories where the functioning and sensitivities of systems can be explored, either in a natural or perturbed condition.  They are also important since they support our capacity to reconcile theory with observation. Advances in cyberinfrastructure, sensors and observation networks have opened up new challenges for the development and application of aquatic ecology models. Real-time data streams can be now be utilised not only for model validation and testing, but they can also be dynamically integrated within a modelling system to enable strategic adaptation of the model parameters as the simulation evolves. Although, such model 'learning' has been demonstrated for numerous physical systems (e.g. hydraulics), highly non-linear systems (e.g. aquatic ecology)  paradoxically suffer from insufficient data which is essential for validation and reducing model uncertainty. There is therefore a mismatch between system and model complexity, and available data-streams. Here a novel approach is outlined that integrates aquatic biochemical and cytometric data with the 3D water quality model ELCOM-CAEDYM, with the aim of developing a self-learning water quality modelling system.

Acid rain was one of the 4 issues that started the environmental movement in North America. I will use 25-35 years of data from Sudbury and Dorset, Ontario, lakes to determine if recovery of the physical, chemical and biological attributes of Canadianlakes has followed the large scale reductions in North American SO2 emssions.  Much recovery has occurred, produced,in Sudbury, both by regrowth of the urban forest which has reduced local wind speeds, and SO2 emission reductions, but the acid rain story is not over. Drought-induced re-acidification episodes now routinely follow El Nino years, and much of the long-term regional decline in lakewater sulphate has been balanced, not by a rise in alkalinity and pH, but by declines in lakewater Ca levels.  Indeed, it appears that Ca levels may soon fall below thresholds that harm Ca-rich biota, such as animal plankton, in many lakes, and this new problem may be exacerbated by climate warming.  There is indeed promising news on acid rain in North America, but the story is not over, rather it is morphing into a more complex issue involving the interaction of ongoing acidity, and Ca decline in warming waters.

For over 40 years I have been concerned with major issues facing humanity such as war and violence, hunger and poverty, environmental destruction and resource depletion. Far from being resolved during this time, these issues have broadened and deepened into an interactive, global crisis that threatens the future of our civilization, our species, and our planet. At least 15 years ago, I concluded that we cannot solve planetary problems through expertise alone, no matter how interdisciplinary it may be. What is needed is a transformation of human consciousness including our beliefs, values, ways of thinking, and perceptions. That conclusion started me on a decade-long journey to document the essential features of an emerging worldview that integrates modern science with spiritual wisdom. The outcome was my book 'The Science of Oneness'. Since then, I have been exploring why progress seems to be so slow. This seminar will address some of the issues I am pondering during this visit to CWR, including: - Why are we so incredibly clever, and yet so unwise in the way we use our cleverness? - Why are we so slow to learn from inappropriate behaviour? - Why are we so violently destructive of nature and each other? - Why are we addicted to consumption of material goods (including fossil fuels) as well as mind- and mood-altering substances? - Why do we so often opt for short-term benefits at the price of potential long-term catastrophe? - Are we aggressive, violent, greedy, addictive and short-sighted by nature, or are these a product of our culture? I suspect that a common factor underlying all these questions is the effect of trauma, before, during and after birth. Also, a key turning point in human history may have been associated with the trauma of climate change.

The Laurentian Great Lakes are comparable in size to many coastal ocean systems. As such, they experience many of the same physical processes and phenomena such as coastal upwelling, horizontal gyres, and coastal currents. Here we provide an overview of how physical processes are likely to influence three different ecological phenomena of current concern to lake and fishery managers. The first is the issue of oxygen depletion in the deep waters of Lake Erie, which continues to occur despite major expenditures to control nutrient loading to the lake. The second concerns the resurgent problem of shoreline fouling by the nuisance alga Cladophora, which also seems to defy the efforts of environmental management. Third is the question of why recruitment of some valuable fish stocks, such as walleye (Stizostedion vitreum) is so poorly predictable from spawning stock size. The physical processes of greatest relevance differ among these cases but a knowledge of the three dimensional structure of water density and motion is essential to each problem. We will describe our ongoing application of the three dimensional hydrodynamic and ecological model ELCOM-CAEDYM to these problems. A strength of this modeling approach is that it provides an avenue to assess the role of climate, which is likely to be very important to each of these issues.

The hydrodynamics of Zihuatanejo Bay were simulated based on the dynamic scenarios obtained from two field measurement campaigns. The campaigns were planned based on the wet and dry local season. Measurements of water level, discharge into the bay, temperature, salinity, wind velocity, air temperature and humidity were used as the basic parameters to initiate and feed a 3d hydrodynamic model. The dynamic scenarios resulting from the measurements show a well known estuarine circulation common in the coastal zone. The presence of gyres was observed resulting from the interaction of tidal circulation with small embayment's inside the bay. The temperature and salinity patterns were also demonstrated to be typical of shallow coastal areas. The main objective of this study was to develop understanding of the physical processes occurring within the bay, with the final objective of recommendations for the planning of a sewage discharge system that is now situated inside the bay. ELCOM-CAEDYM were used to simulate the dynamic scenarios observed, using the measured data to force the models. The current velocities, temperature and bacteria concentration results from the simulation are presented. The results show good agreement with observed field measurements.

Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, are oxygenic phototrophic prokaryotes considered among the oldest life forms on earth. They may be unicellular, colonial or filamentous and are common in all kinds of habitats, including lakes, rivers, thermal springs, arid deserts and tropical acidic soils. Most commonly they are known for their existence as planktonic members of the water column in marine and freshwater environments. Cyanobacteria may have detrimental properties when judged from a human perspective. Their extensive growth (blooms) can create considerable nuisance for management of water resources, including the production of potent toxins. The physiological and ecological function of cyanobacterial toxins remain largely a mystery. Studies have focused on interactive effects between genotypes and local environmental variables. The seminar will summarise the topical research of the Centre for Cyanobacteria and Astrobiology, which include the genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology and toxicology of cyanotoxins such as saxitoxin, microcystin, cylindrospermopsin and nodularin that are found in cyanobacterial and other harmful algal blooms; the genetic diversity of several bacterial environmental niches with particular focus on the phylogenetic description of a number of cyanobacterial genera; the study of stromatolites from Shark Bay (WA) as a model of early life on earth.

This is an informal presentation on the issues of a new paper mill constructed on the Uruguay River and on the hydraulics of the river reach near the paper mill. The construction of this mill on this bi-national river has generated tensions between Uruguay and Argentina. Currently, the International Court of The Hague is considering the case. There is very little environmental data on the site, and in particular no river field studies. In 2006 as part an environmental assessment, numerical simulations of the river reach revealed short comings in the environmental impact studies done by the paper mill company and by the World Bank. Currently, in 2008, a significant effort has begun to monitor the site, part of this effort will be devoted to confirm or reject the finding of the numerical hydrodynamics simulations.

A field experiment was conducted to investigate the near-field flow characteristics of a hypersaline brine generated by a desalination plant being discharged into costal waters via an offshore diffuser. The aim was to determine the dilution of the negatively buoyant plume as it exited the diffuser under three different discharge regimes (1/3, 2/3 and full capacity), and to relate these measurements to scaling arguments derived from laboratory measurements. Equations based on the densimetric jet Froude number F, published from laboratory experiments, were found to adequately describe the thickness of the resulting saline bottom layer and the dilution of the brine for all cases for which F > 20,. For F < 20, no laboratory results exist and the dilution was found to be greater than that anticipated from an extrapolation of the laboratory results. Dilution was found, for all flow configurations, to be greater than that predicted by the accepted design formulae (45 in this case) such that at 50 metres from the diffuser: 54 times for 1/3 flow, 59.5 times for 2/3 flow and 61.4 times for full flow.

http://www.me.caltech.edu/people/faculty/brennen.html Wave propagation is a fundamental property of all physical systems and its characteristics in many conventional forms of matter are well understood and well documented. In contrast, waves in granular materials are much more complex due to the heterogeneous nature of these systems. The key element in the mechanics of a granular system is the force chain and it is along these preferentially-stressed chains of particles that waves are transmitted. However, this process is heavily dependent on the geometry of the bed and this is prone to rearrangement even by the slightest of forces. This talk will first present results from laboratory experiments and simulations intended to explore wave propagation in a granular bed. Measurements of the wave speed and attenuation in the bed reveal the unique properties of waves in granular systems which result from the nonlinearity of the bed and the heterogeneity of the force chains. Sinusoidal waves demonstrate the nondispersive nature of a granular bed and show the transient effects of force chain rearrangement. Pulsed waves display a semi-permanent shape qualitatively similar to predictions from nonlinear wave theory. In addition to examining wave propagation in a granular bed at rest, an investigation is also carried out on a granular bed undergoing low frequency vibration which increases the granular temperature of the bed and allows for the exploration the effect of granular state changes on the wave propagation characteristics. These tests and simulations display the striking differences in wave propagation from one part of the vibration cycle to the next. Finally, the talk will describe the remarkable phenomenon manifest by 'booming sand dunes', specifically the noise emanating from tall, dry dunes that has puzzled both ancient tribes and modern scientists. This talk will describe a series of investigations of booming dunes in California's Mohave Desert and utilize the knowledge gained from the laboratory studies described above to try to explain the booming phenomenon.

CWR Computational Aquatic Ecosystem Dynamics Model (CAEDYM) can currently simulate dozens of state variables, to account for a comprehensive suite of ecological and biogeochemical processes occurring within a water body. The only biological variable that is currently measured in the field and in real-time, is chlorophyll a (chla). For its positive correlation with cellular C, chla is used as a proxy of phytoplankton biomass, and provides a picture of the spatio-temporal dynamics of the photosynthetic assemblage. Other biological parameters are only measured before or after the experiment, or simply retrieved from the literature. Any models' capability and overall performance depend on the availability of suitable information used to initialize, force (in real-time), or validate the system. Clearly not only are important the quantity and quality of this information, but also the possibility of matching the modelled processes, both in space and time. Given CAEDYM's refinement, there is evidently a disproportion between the complexity of the model and the adequacy of measured biological variables. This seminar explores the potential for novel bio-molecular measurements to contribute to the validation of CAEDYM's state variables and their internal fluxes. Besides this, the possibility for these new datasets to unravel the complexity of nutrients sources, ecosystem status, pools composition, population dynamics, and biomass is also considered. The selection of new measurements is strictly prioritized towards the availability of rapid and simple assays, and transportable instruments suitable for field-applications. This appears particularly important to reduce the mismatch between time of measurement and the simulated scenario. The integration of such data-stream may open up a new paradigm for the way ecological models may adapt their operation and configuration, in response to observed phenomena.

Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) is emerging as an accepted alternative to the sectoral, top-down management style that has disastrously dominated in the past. It is based on the recognition that the intrinsic complexity of interconnected biophysical, social, economic and political factors can only be addressed by combining and truly integrating social constructivist ideas of participation and empowerment with a cross-disciplinary engineering approach. To couple effectively technical issues and preference aspects a procedural guidance must be provided to the decision-making process and appropriate toolboxes designed to support planning as a systematic, integrative and iterative process. According to these requirements, a general procedure for Participatory and Integrated Planning has been conceived and implemented by the Environmental Systems Group at DEI-Politecnico di Milano and will be presented in this seminar. The talk will go through the nine phases of this procedure, introducing the activities within each phase and their interconnections both in a theoretical perspective and by providing the audience with a practical example derived from a real world trans-national case study. Particular emphasis will be given to the key-role of optimization within the procedure.

Under stable climates, native vegetation establishes a predictable amount of leaf area. If the climate becomes harsher, the amount of leaf area that can be supported is reduced. During such transitions, productivity is reduced while mortality is increased. Examples will be presented to illustrate how leaf area changes with climate, and how satellite coverage allows regional and global-scale monitoring of this key ecosystem property.

Lake restoration and management strategies focus on reducing the negative impacts of enriched or polluted inflows. These strategies become of paramount importance when lakes are used for recreational and/or drinking water purposes. Long term control of eutrophication and turbidity problems associated with large inflow loads are usually oriented to catchment management. Although it has been suggested that this is the correct long term approach, public concerns usually require immediate results. In addition, due to political and economic costs related to changes in catchment management, in-lake restoration technologies have been emerging as viable pre-treatment complement to water treatment plants, both reducing the operational costs of the water treatment plant and ameliorating the water residing in the lakes. This research investigates the effects of two in-lake technologies on the dynamics of inflowing rivers, where basin shape plays a significant role. The three lakes in this study suffer from eutrophication combined with a distinctive water quality problem: from turbidity in Silvan Reservoir (Australia), to heavy metal loads in Coeur d'Alene Lake (USA) and industrial wastes in Lake Como (Italy). We first examined the influence of basin morphology, wind speed, and wind direction on the fate and transport of two rivers flowing into the L-shape Coeur d'Alene Lake, and show how transport and mixing patterns in a lake can be greatly influenced by the shape of the lake, leading to important consequences for the plankton ecology in the lake. Secondly, in Silvan Reservoir we investigated the potential to modify the basin shape using vertical barriers, increasing the retention time and hence the barrier capacity to microbial pollution. A final in-lake technology was tested for Lake Como, using a vertically downward pointing impeller to remove polluted water from the coastal margin. Lessons from these three examples indicate that there is significant potential for in-lake remediation at relatively low cost, over relatively short timescales.

Abstract: Water movements exert strong controls on biogeochemical processes and ecosystem function over a range of spatial and temporal scales. Water transports elements across space and provides conditions that enhance biogeochemical cycling rates. Areas within the inland waters may be converted to hot spots by the movement of water. Thus, an understanding of the hydrodynamics of water bodies in bringing together reactants is of utmost importance if we want to predict when and where biogeochemical hot spots and hot moments will occur and how they might change with scale. Field measurements at different spatial and time scales and numerical modelling are used to characterize the hydrodynamics of Laguna Setubal (Santa Fe, Argentina) under different hydrological and meteorological scenarios to identify the formation and persistence of hot spots and hot moments, and to determine their implications in the biogeochemical cycles and water quality. It is expected this knowledge will be used to design management strategies for assuring the quality of the resource and the biodiversity.

Some areas of the Wheatbelt of Western Australia suffer from an excess of saline, acidic, metal-containing groundwater that can lead to problems for managing drainage. This study demonstrated that sulfate-reducing fluidised-bed bioreactors are technically capable of treating Wheatbelt groundwaters so as to reduce acidity and to remove most of the undesirable metal contaminants. The minimum hydraulic retention time for a stable process with groundwater from the region of Narembeen was more than 16 hours, and approximately 2 hours for more benign groundwater from Kellerberrin. The removal of metal contaminants and pH increase produced by the bioreactor process would lessen the environmental impacts of these waters should they subsequently be disposed to lakes and wetlands. Salts that are relatively free of metal contaminants can be produced from water that has been treated by the sulfate-reducing bioreactor, whereas salts produced by evaporation of untreated saline groundwater from Narembeen contains significant metal concentrations. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that metal precipitates captured from Wheatbelt waters by the process would be of economic value because of the difficulties of extracting specific metals from the mixed-metal precipitate. It may be possible to interface this process with desalination for local production of potable water. The cost of the bioreactor treatment of Narembeen water was estimated at approximately $3.70 kL-1, although extrapolation of full-scale process costs from laboratory experimentation should be treated with great caution. Groundwater control may be required at many Wheatbelt towns in the future. Management costs to protect biodiversity and infrastructure assets from salinisation in the Wheatbelt could be as high as $2,968 million (Sparks et al., 2006). If sulfate-reducing fluidised bed reactor technology was considered appropriate at larger scale, a decision for its use would be based on the necessity to take action and the comparative effectiveness and costs of competing technologies.

Commissioned in November 2006, the Perth Seawater Desalination Plant was the first plant to supply desalinated water to an Australian city. The plant is located on the coast at Kwinana, 30km south of Perth. The plant is designed to produce 45 billion litres of water per year (125 million litres per day), approximately 17% of the Perth supply. Environmental concerns associated with the plant were two-fold, the first being the large amount of power required by the reverse osmosis process to produce desalinated seawater, and the second being the saline discharge from the plant into Cockburn Sound which could potentially increase stratification and therefore result in low oxygen conditions. This presentation outlines detailed studies into the second issue, that is the dynamics of the saline discharge and its potential impact on oxygen levels in Cockburn Sound. Cockburn Sound is a shallow, relatively closed embayment that has been heavily impacted by industry over the past 40 years, most noticeably through significant losses of seagrass meadows. The desalination process is approximately 43% efficient, such that for every 100 litres of seawater entering the plant, 43 litres of fresh water is produced along with 57 litres of water that contains all the salt of the original 100 litres of seawater, and it thus hypersaline. This effluent discharges into Cockburn Sound via a 160m long, 40-port diffuser located approxiamtely 300m from the shoreline in 10m of water. Two detailed field experiments were conducted under calm conditions, whereby fluorescent dye was injected into the diffuser and tracked for several days in Cockburn Sound. These data, along with data collected from seasonal monitoring and high-resolution sampling, were used to validate a comprehensive three-dimensional numerical model of both the hydrodynamics and ecology of Cockburn Sound. The combination of experimental and numerical modelling results demonstrate that the saline discharge is diluted to such an extent by the action of the diffuser and natural environmental mixing processes that the Perth Seawater Desalination Plant has no measurable impact on the oxygen levels in Cockburn Sound.

In this seminar two cases of numerical modelling in estuaries and lagoons in Colombia are shown. The applications, by using the ELCOM numerical model, are in the Gulf of Uraba, on the Caribbean near the border with Panama, and the Ayapel Lagoon, a tropical in land lagoon in the Caribbean savannas of Colombia. The simulations of the Gulf of Uraba have the challenge of a very big river (The Atrato river, 2500 m3 s-1) discharging in to the Gulf producing salinity stratification in the Gulf. Also the river divides the gulf into two distinctive zones: one, to the north, showing oceanic conditions and a second one, to the south showing estuary typical conditions. The major forcings for the gulf were identified as the wind field and the tides, although small in amplitude. Three field experiments, 5 days long each, where carried out to collect data for the model calibration. A biological study is carried out at the moment to link the biology to the physics. The major problems found during the simulations were the lack of data, specially those related to the river. The Ayapel Lagoon is located in the flood plains of the Cauca and Magdalena rivers, 200 km away from the coast and at end of one of the ending branches of the Andes Mountain chain. The lagoon has the input of a bi-modal hydrological system. The challenges of this case are the lack of data to specify boundary conditions during the rainy and dry seasons, with important differences between them. For this reason, the simulations were carried out at seasonal time scale aiming the study to characterize the lagoon main currents. The boundary conditions were determined from a hydraulic and a hydrological models. Some field measurements were used to check the model results.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary and moving into refurbished premises will not distract The University of Western Australia's Centre for Water Research from its commitment to creating sustainable design and management systems for our catchments, rivers, lakes, estuaries and coastal seas. The Federal Minister for Education, Science and Training Julie Bishop will open the renovated CWR at 11am tomorrow (Friday, September 28) on the UWA campus. Since its inception in 1982, the Centre has made positive changes in the lives of approximately 50 million people globally; its technology is used in the supply of half of Australia's water; 2000 users in 80 countries are helped by its software; and its hardware monitors water-quality in 30 locations. Its Director, Professor Jorg Imberger, has received international awards for projects involving iconic destinations such as Venice Lagoon, Lake Como, Lake Victoria and Lake Kinneret, and the Sea of Galilee. Located within The University of Western Australia, the Centre has a strong basis of curiosity-driven research. It is unique in natural systems research for its ability to link modelling and field-work and in its balance between research, field operations and service to industry. In keeping with this University's aspirations of both serving the community and achieving global excellence, this Centre is internationally recognised as the leading research organisation in natural system science and engineering, UWA's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Robson said. Despite our relative geographic isolation we remain vitally connected to the rest of the world. This Centre exemplifies our determination to be at the epicentre of global change and to support research that will benefit all mankind.

A draft chapter from an ethnography focusing on experiential implications of the 20 year mortality difference between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians will be presented. A recent conceptual reworking of the developmental origins of health and disease model that places it within a life history framework, is used to interpret some of the history of people living today in the remote Arnhem Land community of Numbulwar and to suggest some of the means by which their past circumstances may have had an impact on their current health. This effort focuses our attention on physical and social components of the environment that stress mothers and later, their offspring. It invites us to consider the manner in which environmental stressors may have intergenerational consequences for health.

This talk reports the results of several direct numerical simulations of the withdrawal of a two layer fluid with a finite thickness interface through a slot in the base of a finite rectangular cavity. Particular attention is paid to the role of long (basin scale) interfacial waves on the processes leading to drawdown of the interface into the slot. It is shown that these waves play an important role and can either delay or accelerate drawdown. This means that drawdown can occur over a range Froude numbers. The results are compared with previous work for ideal flow and experimental results.

We often wonder why we have arrived at a stage in the human development where things are changing faster than we can comprehend and or respond; physical changes such as land use developments, climate change and technology, changes to the world's biodiversity and changes to our ability to cope with life. First,an analysis of the Australian Government's funding policies since the 1960's quickly showed that much can be explained by the adoption of the 'rational economic' model; there has been a marked shift from long term societal programmes to short term financial justification. Second, an analysis of what makes people creative, shows that the recent policies of most western governments where collaborative research, accountability and setting of goals and targets is stressed and viewed as responsible actions has led to a sharp decline in creativity; I will show that essentially all important ideas are established by individuals working with modest budgets, free of the constraints of the norms of society. Third, together these two policies are leading to unprecedented levels of mental illness, collapse of cultural diversity and biodiversity; all this in a climate where the creative individuals, the people who could save us from disaster, are being imprisoned by societies norms.