Webinar: Working Towards Healthy Urban Waterways

Join us from 12.00 pm to 1.00 pm on Thursday, 3 April 2025 for our next lunchtime webinar Working Towards Healthy Urban Waterways – Opportunities and Challenges in Stormwater Management, being held in partnership with Stormwater Victoria.

Webinar Details

Date: Thursday, 3 April 2025
Time: 12.00 pm - 1.00 pm
Format: Zoom Webinar

RBMS / SW Vic Member: Free of charge
RBMS / SW Vic Non-Member: $15.00

Register here to secure your spot!

Webinar Overview

Urban waterways are essential to the health and vitality of cities, providing ecological, social, and economic benefits. However, these waterways often face significant challenges, including pollution and habitat destruction due to excess stormwater. There is no easy way to protect waterways and their values by maintaining the status quo, and therefore we need to think of new and innovative approaches to solve this problem.

In this combined Stormwater Victoria and River Basin Management Society webinar we will consider what it means to have a healthy urban waterway and how can we achieve this. Our presenters will discuss emerging ideas for stormwater management and successful case studies that go beyond minimum requirements. The reality of how to protect and restore urban waterways will also be presented by asset managers, providing insights into the long-term benefits and challenges.

Participants will gain valuable knowledge on:

• Successful case studies of urban waterway protection projects.
• Using RBMS science to guide development.
• The benefits of healthy urban waterways.
• Practical tools and techniques for implementation.

Webinar Presenters

Geoff Vietz
Founder and Senior Research Fellow, Streamology
Dr Geoff Vietz is the Founder, Director and Principal Scientist at Streamology, a consulting company focused on informed management of water and waterways. Previously a Senior Research Fellow with the University of Melbourne, Geoff specialised in urban waterways and stormwater runoff, and now puts that science into practice. His specialities are waterway geomorphology, urban stormwater, hydraulics, monitoring, waterway management and environmental flows in both rural and urban streams. More recently he was instrumental in the development of the award-winning methods, the Urban Streamflow Impact Assessment (USIA) and the Method for regional stormwater Prioritisation (MrsP). Geoff lives in Bright, Victoria.

Rhys Coleman
Waterways and Wetland Research Manager, Melbourne Water
For the past 29 years Rhys has worked at Melbourne Water with a focus on waterway and wetland research and strategic management planning. Early roles involved the coordination of waterways environmental monitoring and investigations programs for the Greater Melbourne area, followed by the development and implementation of river health management strategies and waterway restoration plans. In his current role, Rhys is the Waterways and Wetlands Research Manager. This involves the facilitation and co-ordination of waterway management research programs that address strategic research gaps across urban stormwater management, aquatic biodiversity conservation, environmental flows, streamside vegetation management, management of estuaries and bays and the protection of public health. He has participated in several collaborative research projects as an industry partner with various universities and government agencies, including Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage projects, Cooperative Research Centres, and is the co-research coordinator for two major research initiatives with The University of Melbourne – the Melbourne Waterway Research-Practice Partnership and RMIT University – the Aquatic Pollution Prevention Partnership (A3P). Rhys’ technical background is in freshwater ecology.

Al Danger
Senior Waterways Asset Manager, Melbourne Water
Dr Al Danger is a Senior Waterways Asset Manager at Melbourne Water focussing on developing and delivering optimised programs for broad scale monitoring and evaluation of aquatic dependent life in Melbourne’s waterways and wetlands. Al works closely with Melbourne Waters’ research partners to translate the latest findings into meaningful improvement of waterway and wetland management, that ultimately benefits waterway health. He recently presented at the Australian Stream Management Conference on the application of eDNA to vertebrate biodiversity assessment
Webinar Details

Date: Thursday, 3 April 2025
Time: 12.00 pm - 1.00 pm
Format: Zoom Webinar

RBMS / SW Vic Member: Free of charge
RBMS / SW Vic Non-Member: $15.00

Register here to secure your spot!