Water resources

Water resources research within GeoQuEST extends across four main themes: membrane treatment system development and application; novel water resources and storage applications; Cryptosporidium, Giardia and public health management, and groundwater management. 

• Current research of the membrane separation theme focuses on developing membrane separation platforms for recovering clean water, energy and nutrients from wastewater using pressure driven membrane filtration, forward osmosis, membrane distillation, facilitated transport membrane, membrane electrolysis, and membrane bioreactor technologies.
• Strategies being developed for novel water resources development and storages include freshwater from the sea without desalination using coastal reservoirs with wetland pre-treatment and clean water from a polluted river system using SPP (separation, protection and prevention). Research shows that in future most coastal people may drink water from coastal reservoirs by developing economically the sustainable runoff to the sea.
• Cryptosporidium and Giardia are waterborne pathogens that present some typical problems for sampling, analysis, data analysis and interpretation, and the design and management of water treatment facilities appropriate to their control for public health protection.
• Groundwater management research focuses on understanding groundwater flows and the hydrological cycle in coastal systems, chemical evolution of water, fate of pollutants and groundwater contamination, characterisation of fracture systems and hydraulic connectivity. Research activities also include wastewater treatment technologies to improve coal seam gas produced water quality and of the impacts of coal seam gas on groundwater supply.