Determining the impacts of coal seam gas extraction on water-dependent assets
David Post A , Peter Baker B and Damian Barrett AA CSIRO.
B Department of the Environment, Australian Government.
The APPEA Journal 56(2) 545-545 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ15051
Published: 2016
Abstract
Many Australians, particularly in rural areas, are seeking clear scientific information about the potential impacts of coal seam gas production on groundwater and surface water across the country. In response to the resultant community concern, the Australian Government commissioned an ambitious multi-disciplinary program of bioregional assessments to improve understanding of the potential impacts of coal seam gas (and large coal mining) activities on water-dependent assets across six bioregions in eastern and central Australia.
Delivered through a collaboration between the Department of the Environment, the Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, and Geoscience Australia—and including close engagement with natural resource management and catchment management organisations, coal resource companies, Indigenous peoples and state governments—the results will allow coal resource companies, governments, and the community to focus on the areas where impacts may occur so that these can be minimised.
Key findings of the program will be presented with specific reference to the potential impacts on water-dependent assets due to CSG development by Metgasco and AGL in the Clarence-Moreton and Gloucester regions, respectively.
David Post has been a research scientist with CSIRO since 1999, and his research interests focus broadly on the impacts of land use and climate change on water resources, as well as on the regionalisation of hydrologic response to ungauged areas. He has a PhD in resource management from the Australian National University, and is President of the Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand (MSSANZ). Presently he is Projects Director of the Bioregional Assessment Programme. |
Peter Baker is presently the Principal Science Advisor for the Office of Water Science inside the Australian Government’s Department of the Environment. He spent nearly two decades working for a number of petroleum companies throughout Australia. After leaving the petroleum industry, Peter spent more than 10 years working on a variety of natural resource management issues, including the development of the National Water Initiative, and since 2010 he has worked on coal seam gas developments. Peter is a regular presenter at national conferences and is a member of a number of national committees dealing with water resource issues. |
Damian Barrett is Research Director of the Onshore Gas Program in CSIRO’s Energy Business Unit and Director of the CSIRO–APLNG–QGC Gas Industry Social and Environmental Research Alliance (GISERA). He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland. Damian has more than 25 years of research experience in the CSIRO, Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Greenhouse Accounting, eWater CRC and The University of Queensland. He graduated with a PhD from the Australian National University in 1993. In 1995, he was a Carnegie-Melon Foundation Visiting Research Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution, US, where he investigated impacts of rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations on plant root physiology of nutrient acquisition. In 2008 he was appointed Professorial Research Fellow at the Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland, and was Director of the Centre for Water in the Minerals Industry between 2009 and 2012. |
