Protecting our environmental heritage through smart design
In an increasingly urbanized environment, maintaining environmentally sensitive water catchments is especially important within our towns and cities. Recognizing this, the City of Newcastle engaged our team to design a gross pollutant trap (GPT) at Maryland Creek. Their goal? To reduce the level of gross pollutants and coarse sediment from the increasingly urbanized upstream catchment ending up in the downstream wetlands.
Initially, our team developed a water quality model to quantify the expected levels of pollutants and how large the collecting bay would need to be to align to desired maintenance frequency. Further hydraulic and hydrological models were then used to determine the impact of the device on site flood behaviour and upstream flood levels. Once the impacts were modelled, we ran a design process to assess different concept device layouts and placements with regards to functionality, cost, accessibility, flood impacts, and aesthetics. We then completed a detailed design of the final device, an online GPT, for implementation. The major challenge for the project was ensuring that the GPT design was able to deal with significant flooding events and is able to protect the downstream wetlands.
Now operational, the GPT has seen no problematic upstream or downstream impacts in flood events and has succeeded in protecting the wetlands.
At a Glance
- Offices
- Client
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- City of Newcastle Council
Sara Belgrove, Business Leader, Community Infrastructure, Northern NSW
The best part of my job is working with others to build their skills and capabilities and create a strong team ethos.
Trent Halvorsen, Structures Lead, Northern NSW
Engineering is like solving a puzzle, at times it can be solved with a robust process while other times you need to think outside the box.
George Ashworth, Geotechnics Lead, Northern NSW
Each member of the team contributes specific skills and talents—adding their strengths makes the team stronger as a whole.
Ian Piper, Technical Services Manager, Geotechnical
My real love is the problem solving—based on many years of experience, it never gets old.
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