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Welcome, Stephen D’Agata, to the Urban Water Solutions family

The Urban Water Solutions family has grown this week with the appointment of Stephen D’Agata as a Principal Engineer. Stephen brings over 35 years of experience in water supply and sewerage infrastructure planning, modelling and asset management to the team.

He commenced his engineering career with the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works in 1988 and went on to pioneer the use of computerised hydraulic modelling for sewerage network analysis and catchment planning at Yarra Valley Water in 1995. He then led the water supply and sewerage asset management team for Goulburn Valley Water before managing the provision of network modelling, GIS, and asset management services for the Australian branch of a multinational engineering consultancy.

Over the past decade, Stephen has managed drainage services and implemented flood mapping for two inner Melbourne city councils, held an executive position on the Stormwater Victoria committee, and worked as a Principal Consultant providing water management services to both the private and public sector.

An accomplished wordsmith, Stephen’s skills in written and verbal communication have been used to translate detailed hydraulic model results into outputs that have been used to garner investment for several major infrastructure projects.

Outside of work, Stephen is a published novelist, actor in amateur theatre, YouTuber, and occasional stand-up comedian.

A long-time friend of many of our team members, we greatly look forward to Stephen sharing his knowledge and experience with us and our clients.

 

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Sunbury Stormwater Harvesting Presentation – SV2023

UWS are delighted to share that Bradley Nissley and Wira Yan (from Melbourne Water) will be presenting on Finding the balance between complexity and accuracy in modelling the Sunbury Stormwater Harvesting Scheme in June at the 2023 Stormwater Victoria Conference.

Stormwater Victoria recognises the need to assist the industry in development of leaders within the stormwater industry to drive positive change towards sustainable water management now and for the future.

Melbourne Water has committed to reducing the impact of urbanisation on its waterways and is actively developing solutions in key priority areas that can better manage stormwater runoff and prevent further degradation of rivers and creeks.

In 2015, a range of integrated water management options for Sunbury were assessed, and it was concluded that a regional-scale stormwater harvesting scheme was the best solution to protect Jacksons Creek and Emu Creek from increased stormwater runoff resulting from development.

The Sunbury Stormwater Harvesting Scheme is the first of its kind in Victoria and seeks to intercept 80% of stormwater runoff by harvesting approximately 4 GL of excess stormwater runoff each year. This scheme creates a new source of alternative water which can be reused for several demand options currently under investigation.

This presentation will focus on the methodology adopted for creating the ICM model as well as the benefits obtained from having a detailed understanding of the hydrology and hydraulics occurring in this scheme in the one model.

For more details on the conference please the conference website – 2023 Stormwater Victoria Conference (eventsair.com)

Example of a stormwater wetland (this is not Sunbury)
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WaterAid Fundraising 2023

WaterAid’s mission is to reach everyone, everywhere with clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene within a generation. Since 1981, WaterAid has reached over 27 million people with clean water and decent toilets (WaterAid, 2019). This vision inspires us, and we hope it inspires you too.

UWS is pleased to donate to WaterAid and support its efforts to provide safe sanitation and potable water to those in need.

Combined with Water4Good we have collectively raised over $3,500, smashing our target of $2,000.

For more information visit:
www.wateraid.org/au

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Folders for Students

UWS has migrated to a paperless office. All new project documents are stored digitally. Older projects still had physical project folders that required storage for 7 years. As these projects are archived the hard copy documents are securely destroyed. As a result UWS had approximately 50 lever-arch folders that were available for reuse.

The availability of the folders was advertised and UWS was delighted to find interest at Swinburne University who collected all our empty lever-arch folders.

This has saved these folders from being recycled by being reused by students. UWS wishes the Swinburne University students every success with their studies.

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2022 is a wrap

The Urban Water Solutions team wishes everyone a safe and restful holiday.

The office will be closed from close of business 23rd December 2022, reopening on the 9th January 2023.

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Water Loss Asia 2022

The biennial Water Loss Asia (WLA) 2022 conference was held in a virtual format this year on 8-10 November. Supported by International Water Association (IWA) Water Loss Specialist Group, WLA 2022 brings together experts and leaders in the Non-Revenue Water (NRW) industry. The 3-day conference focused on controlling NRW through a deep exploration of digital technology and artificial intelligence available on the market today.

The water industry was adversely affected by the pandemic, with unprecedented slowdowns and changes in working methods. On the other hand, it has accelerated positive digital transformation. The resumption of commercial and social activities is both an opportunity and a challenge for water service providers. The water sector can rebuild a more sustainable and resilient water sector by adopting appropriate digital technologies for long-term water security.

Stuart presented a paper on “Trialling Artificial Intelligence to Find Leaks in Melbourne CBD.” The paper covered a trial of AI to analyse noise files collected by 50x NB-IoT noise loggers. Noise loggers present a great opportunity to monitor a network for leaks and using AI can assist with prioritisation of leak alerts and filtering out the false alerts. The trial demonstrated that leakage monitoring could be carried out even during Melbourne’s pandemic lockdowns, resulting in a reduced footprint on site. No longer is every asset required to be physically inspected for leak noise. With permanent (or semi-permanent) monitoring existing and emerging leaks can be pinpointed remotely by in-the-cloud correlations. Due to the power of NB-IoT noise files, recorded by the loggers when a continuous leak noise signature is detected, can be listened to remotely on any Internet-enabled device. Combining the learning algorithm of the artificial intelligence with manual checks the number of site visits can be reduced and the accuracy of the leak alerts increased. This saves time, and hence leakage volume, reduces our carbon footprint via fewer site visits and dry holes dug, and reduces exposure and possible transmission of COVID-19. With the advent of Water 4.0 the water industry now has many more exciting and technical tools to combat inefficient water leakage.

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Mental Health First Aid Training

As a workplace health and safety initiative, the UWS team participated in a Mental Health First Aid training course. It was great to have most of the team together again for the two-day course. Conducted by Lauren Gledhill from Workplace Interventions, the course provides eligibility to become an Accredited Mental Health First Aider.

Approximately 20% of Australian adults experience a common mental illness each year. Having mental health first aid skills means we can assist someone who is developing a mental health problem or experiencing a mental health crisis.

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Fancy Footwork For Fareshare

UWS will once again step up to raise money for FareShare. We are aiming to walk 150km for the FareShare FootSteps Challenge.

FareShare cooks thousands of meals every day in their Melbourne and Brisbane kitchens for people experiencing hardship.

If you would like to sponsor us and help us achieve our goal of raising $2,000, please follow the link below.

https://fareshare-footsteps-2022.raisely.com/teamuws

The money you donate will support FareShare to cook more free, nutritious meals for people in crisis at a time of great community need.

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Water Loss Conference 2022

The International Water Association’s biennial Water Loss Conference was held between June 19-22 at the Prague Congress Centre in the Czech Republic and was attended by over 350 delegates from 52 countries.

Urban Water Solutions’ Stuart Stapely chaired the second of two sessions on “Leak Detection technologies, strategies, equipment” held in the main conference North Hall.

Stuart gave a presentation on “Trialing Artificial Intelligence to find Leaks in Melbourne” in the “Innovative AI and Modelling Solutions” session. The presentation went well and elicited many interesting questions from the audience.  Stuart’s presentation can be accessed via the conference website. (https://www.waterloss2022.org/) Read more “Water Loss Conference 2022”