Urban water infrastructure

Securing urban water supplies through integrated planning and management.

Population growth in urban areas is increasing the demand for water, while climate change is reducing the reliability of supplies from traditional fresh water sources due to increased variability both spatially and temporally.

We focus on integrating the whole water cycle, developing diversified supply and treatment technologies to increase water security.

We also work to reclaim valuable resources from ‘waste’, including the water itself, and to eliminate contaminants from industrial, surface and groundwater sources.

Capabilities

Water and waste water treatment technologies:

  • solid-liquid separation of particulate suspensions
  • chemical removal from contaminated water supplies
  • water and wastewater treatment sludge handling
  • microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, reverse osmosis
  • forward osmosis, membrane distillation, electrodialysis, electrophoresis

Integrated urban water system modelling:

  • modelling centralised-decentralised systems and their interactions
  • demand forecasting, water–energy–greenhouse gas nexus
  • contaminant, transport and remediation
  • stream water quality modelling

Key contacts

Dr Anthony Stickland
Solid–liquid separation, suspension rheology

Associate Professor Meenakshi Arora
Urban water cycle modelling, contaminant fate and transport

Stormwater grate in road with large volume of water flowing in

Climate-proofing the urban water supply

University of Melbourne researchers have joined an international collaboration with Indian institutions to protect diminishing clean water supplies by harnessing new water sources that are currently only partially, or not at all, tapped.

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Sludge stacking speeds sewage treatment

A new way of stacking sewage sludge has the potential to halve drying times for the waste, increasing the capacity of expensive infrastructure and ultimately saving water treatment utilities millions of dollars.

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Infiltration understanding improves urban stormwater management

Improving the health of waterways in Australia’s urban centres is the aim of a new research collaboration that aims to better understand how stormwater flows through the soil in urban environments and mobilises surface and soil pollutants.

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