Melbourne School of Engineering Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering

The hydrology group is one of the world leaders in this area of research, with many areas of acknowledged international expertise. Such areas include:

• Catchment Hydrology & Modelling
• Environmental Remote Sensing
• Data Assimilation
• Hydroclimatology
• Irrigation Systems

National competitive and industry grants consistently exceed $2 million per annum, and is reflected by the number and quality of research publications. The hydrology research group currently has 18 staff and 25 postgraduate research students.

A significant portion of the group's research is undertaken within one of the following centres:

• CRC for Irrigation Futures
• eWater CRC
• Uniwater

Catchment Hydrology & Modelling

The group is one the world leaders in many areas of catchment modelling. In collaboration with Australian and overseas researchers, the group carries out research in rainfall-runoff modelling and model regionalisation, distributed hydrological modelling, land surface modelling for climate models, integrated catchment modelling and modelling science. The group has a major role in the eWater CRC in developing model suites that assess the impact of land use and catchment management changes on runoff, sediment, nutrient and salt loads.

Environmental Remote Sensing

The group has a Polarimetric L-band Multi-beam Radiometer (PLMR) and Thermal Imager capable of measuring surface soil moisture and skin temperature to resolutions of better than 50m and 1m respectively from a light aircraft. These instruments are being used in a wide range of applications including validation of satellite sensors and high resolution soil moisture mapping. We are also actively researching applications for a range of satellite remote sensors. Such applications include soil moisture, evapotranspiration, vegetation, snow water equivalent, gravity changes, and sea surface temperature.

Data Assimilation

Data assimilation aims to utilise both our knowledge of physical processes as embodied in a model and information that can be gained from measurements. Both model predictions and measurements are imperfect and we wish to use both synergistically to obtain a more accurate result. We are involved in a wide range of data assimilation projects, including the assimilation of surface soil moisture, snow water equivalent, gravity changes, evapotranspiration, sea surface temperature and streamflow.

Hydroclimatology

The group's hydroclimate research focuses on improving our understanding of hydroclimate variability and change, and on developing tools that can be used with hydrological and ecological models to quantify uncertainty in environmental systems associated with climate variability and climate change. Key research areas include stochastic hydrology, seasonal streamflow forecasting, global hydrology, modelling climate change impact on hydrologic variables, and time series analysis of hydroclimate variability over different time scales.

Water Allocation and Irrigation Systems

Water allocation studies aim to achieve an optimal and sustainable use of water between competitive demands such as agriculture (irrigation), urban, industrial and environmental uses. The group has made significant advances in the integration and understanding of hydrologic and economic modelling to determine the economic impacts of water allocation policies. This has contributed to the CRC for Catchment Hydrology in developing an integrated allocation-econometric modelling framework to evaluate the impact of water trading in Victoria. Work to develop the next generation of rural water demand models and water allocation models is continuing in the eWater CRC and the CRC for Irrigation Futures. The group has also pioneered the development of irrigation operation models designed to optimise the operation of irrigation delivery networks which have been adopted in a number of Asian countries.