April NewsStream
Well here we are, the end of April, with quite a surreal two months passing by. How life has changed in such a short period of time, yet, in an odd way it has brought the people in our industry together through different avenues.
We’d like to take the opportunity to share some of the best moments from Streamology’s last 2 months, and share with our network that while things have been challenging, there’s been a lot of uplifting connection and innovation emerging worldwide. We look forward to this continuing into 2020.
During the first week of March Neil, Thom and Jess H spent a few days on the Goulburn River flying the drone to capture high resolution imagery of the banks to consider the question: how does flow impact the physical form of the waterway?
Permanent ground control points (GCPs) allow us to revisit these sites and maintain centimetre accuracy of our consecutive 3D models of difference in riverbank and channel change. From this, we can see the micro-scale impacts and processes occurring as riverbanks respond to flow events and operations.
North East Rivers Update
This is what 250mm of rain in 24 hours looks like - lots of sediments from burnt slopes entered Buckland and Ovens Rivers.
We’ve been keeping a close eye on our local rivers in response to the recent bush fires, especially after high flows, when there are large pulses of sediment moving through the system.
After a dry summer, seeing this volume of water moving through Sinclairs Waterhole was spectacular.
Platypus Monitoring
What is the link between platypus abundance and a waterway's physical form?
and
Can we better understand the threats, processes and structures needed for platypuses to thrive in the environment?
Streamology has been investigating this alongside Ecology Australia (EA) and the Australian Platypus Conservancy (APC). Neil spent a few days up in Alexandra meeting with EA and the APC to map physical form and habitat requirements for one of our favourite river critters!
Here is a little photo diary from our field trip to assess and map physical form and habitat requirements. (NB: Pictures taken prior to Social Distancing)
Adapting to Covid-19
There have been some changes around Streamology. With the team working from home, we’ve been having daily video chats each morning as a way to share news, discuss our agendas, support each other, and also make each other laugh. We’ve also adapted our field-work procedure, and have been working closely with our clients to ensure that any field work is undertaken in strict adherence to the Government’s isolation rules and Streamology’s tailored protocol. We are happy to share our formal protocol if you believe it would assist you to undertaken your time-critical fieldwork.
We’ve undertaken 2 field trips since these rules were implemented - here’s an update on how they went:
Edward-Kolety Wakool Drone Trip
Geoff and Neil spent three days on the remote banks of the Edward-Kolety and Wakool Rivers to conduct drone monitoring of banks and vegetation with a zero contact approach. We were collecting drone data to monitor the influence of flows on both vegetation and bank condition.
This project feeds into a broader monitoring project considering not only geomorphology and vegetation, but hydrology, fish and aquatic insect abundance to gain a holistic understanding of the influence of flows on a wide range of environmental variables.
As Geoff said it is during these times when ‘being out amongst it highlights the importance of contact with nature.’
Goulburn River Drone Trip
Earlier this week Neil and Thom spent another two days on the Goulburn River to capture another set of imagery to monitoring changes to the banks physical form. The weather looked perfect and the water level was low, so we were able to capture a highly detailed picture of the lower banks normally inundated by flows.
Here’s a video taken from the drone and some pictures below!
A lot has been happening back in our ‘remote offices’ too besides wearing funny clothes in our morning video call meetings…
We’ve been progressing a lot of our environmental flow, hydrologic and hydraulic projects, particularly waterway projects throughout Sydney and Melbourne, and will be sharing some more insights into that soon.
Sending everyone in our network our sincere well-wishes. If you like our newsletter, or would like to offer us some feedback, please do! We love hearing from you.
Until next time,
The Stream Team