RBMS Brisbane seminar

Novel Approaches to Sediment Monitoring

The River Basin Management Society invites you to this seminar exploring new and innovative approaches to monitoring sediment loads in our waterways. There will be two speakers on the evening, an overview of each speaker and their topic is provided below:

Dr Trang Huynh (Hydrobiology) – Use of DGTs (Diffusive Gradients in Thin Films) in monitoring sediment contamination

Trang is an Environmental Chemist with Hydrobiology.  She has more than 10 years of experience in research and implementation of research outcomes for resource industries. Her fields of expertise include analytical chemistry, geochemistry, bioavailability and metal/loid speciation studies. Specifically, Trang is a recognised expert in developing and applying the time-integrated DGT to determine the bio-available concentrations of pollutants and develop site-specific water guidelines and water discharge criteria.  She is involved in an ACARP funded research project validating the DGT technique for the measurement of bioavailable metal concentrations and deriving water quality trigger values for the ANZECC guidelines, which will allow the development of site-specific ambient water guideline and mine-water discharge limits.

While the DGT technique has been around for 20 years, it has been recently widely accepted as a best-practice tool to determine bioavailable concentrations of a range of contaminants including metals and nutrients in water and sediment. Trang will be talking about the use of DGTs in monitoring sediment contamination, as well as more broadly discussing its other uses and project applications.

Jamie Charlish (Brisbane City Council) –  Strategic Sediment Management in the Digital Age 

Jamie Charlish is a waterway management officer at Brisbane City Council, she has a background in environmental management and aquatic ecology.  Jamie has been with the council for just over two years and has been working in the area of environmental monitoring and strategic planning for waterway health.  Jamie will be talking about Council’s sediment management and monitoring strategies, focusing on the use of high-resolution spatial information to inform management and prioritisation.

Council’s streams (and urban streams in general) are faced with multifaceted challenges including changes to floodplain condition and imperviousness, changes to flow characteristics, channel modifications (both direct and indirect), loss of vegetation, and poor water quality often as a result of sediment and toxicant inputs. The management of these issues in urban catchments has evolved in the last decade or so, closely aligned with the development of digital information capture and knowledge. In the new digital age, a significant opportunity for catchment managers in urban waterways has been provided by the availability and resolution of spatial information. Information may be captured and employed at large scales, and across multiple catchments to better identify, manage and prioritise actions for strategic waterway management.