Predicting the required sample coverage for a flood event
Theme: Environmental Management
Description:
The Great Barrier Reef Catchment Loads Monitoring Program (GBRCLMP) monitors water quality during ambient conditions as well as during events. Events, or periods of increased flow, account for a significant portion of annual transport of contaminants.
The GBRCLMP directs significant resources to ensuring that events are well sampled. Calculation of an event load requires samples to be captured across the rising, peak and falling stages of the hydrograph. To ensure that a load can be calculated, more samples are collected than analysed. Once the event has passed, analysis of the hydrograph determines which samples will be analysed. The effort to oversample, review and then discard extra samples is considerable. Contaminant loads for an event are a function of catchment characteristics (size of the catchment, topography, geology and soil types and catchment landuse) as well as event specific characteristics (rainfall intensity and distribution, groundcover and land management practices).
This project aims to analyse monitoring data from the GBRCLMP to determine whether catchment characteristics are the primary driver of event characteristics and therefore could be predicted based on knowledge of site behaviour. The work can potentially reduce the costs associated with oversampling while ensuring the GBRCLMP continues to provide robust sampling for loads calculation.
Additional Information:
The Michael St John Warne (1962 – 2024) Memorial Scholarship is administered by the Reef Catchments Science Partnership in the School of the Environment. The purpose of the scholarship is to support UQ honours students. Up to three (3) scholarships will be awarded. Each scholarship is worth $5,000 (half paid in February 2026 and half paid on submission of thesis). A top up writing scholarship of $1,000 is available to publish one (1) journal paper from your thesis research after submission.
See https://environment.uq.edu.au/michael-st-john-warne-memorial-scholarship for more information or email rcsp.info@uq.edu.au
Contact: Assoc. Prof. Ryan Turner