Professor Ana Deletic
Executive Dean, Faculty of Engineering, QUT
Ana is an urban water researcher, focusing on stormwater management and socio-technical modelling. She led the development of several green nature-based water treatment systems which are now widely adopted in Australia and abroad. Ana is an Honorary Fellow of Engineers Australia, a Fellow of Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE), and Editor of Water Research. In 2012, the Victorian State Government awarded Ana the Victoria Prize for Science and Innovation (Physical Sciences) for her lifelong achievements in stormwater research.
Keynote Presentation
Can we ‘design out’ floods from our cities?
Major flooding events in Queensland have recently caused billions of dollars in damage to homes, properties, and infrastructures. With the world shifting towards a more unstable climate, weather events like flash floods will be more frequent and extreme, and the intervals between them will become shorter. As we build and develop our cities, we must assure that they are resilient to climate change.
Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) systems are blue-green multi-functional structures which can reduce stormwater runoff peaks and volume, treat stormwater pollution, but also augment water supply, minimise urban heath and green our cities. Until now, the focus in Australia has been entirely on using WSUD to minimise stormwater pollution and protect and improve the health of our waterways. The benefits of WSUD in mitigating the effects of frequent urban floods have been neglected.
The talk will focus on what we need to do, in order to advance WSUD systems for flash floods mitigation. The following will be covered
• How WSUD systems should be tailored, tested, and validated for flood mitigation
• Latest developments in fast urban flood algorithms, which can be used for WSUD planning and design for flood mitigation
• The need for new planning and regulations to include WSUD for flood mitigation.