Recognition for dedicated Masters student

A successful pilot study on diverting sediments for stormwater drains into urban streams has won a CRC for Water Sensitive Cities Masters student a major River Basin Management Society (RBMS) award.

Ms Arezou Houshmand, part of the Cities as Water Supply Catchments – Stream Ecology Project (Project B2.1) research team, received the Advancing Waterway Management through Graduate Research honour at the RBMS annual awards night last week.

Arezou’s research, ‘Toward water sensitive cities by improving streams and reducing maintenance costs’, has shown that sediments in urban stormwater control measures such as gross pollutant traps (GPTs) can be safely bypassed to streams to improve their physical condition, as well as significantly reduce stormwater maintenance costs to authorities.

A pilot study in Dobsons Creek in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs showed that sediments trapped in pollutant traps were mostly clean coarse-grained sediments that were not transporting pollutants into the waterway. The research team deposited these sediments in Dobsons Creek to improve stream health and reduce the cost of maintenance without any change in the pollution levels.

The project has been supported by Melbourne Water, Environmental Protection Authority and local authority Knox City Council.

Arezou said the approach can have great impacts on future design of stormwater control measures.

“I am honoured to be the recipient of this award. The success of the pilot study would not have been possible without the support and valuable input of our partners in the project”, she said.