This research considered whether urban water governance, environmental regulation and recreational water quality management impact decisions to either reuse urban wastewater or dispose of it to the environment, and identifies opportunities for reform. Broader outcomes from the research included results being used to inform and support the establishment of a National Outfall Database as part of research by the Marine Biodiversity Hub under the National Environmental Science Programme (NESP).

PhD Thesis completed by Simon Clifford Perraton in June 2015.

Water supply and wastewater services are two connected components in an urban water system. They are in most cases operated separately towards sub-system optima. By recognising and enhancing their connections, an integrated management strategy would deliver system-wide optimisation with tremendous economic and environmental benefits. This project developed and demonstrated an integrated and innovative strategy, and the associated science and technologies, to achieve multiple beneficial uses of iron salts in an urban water system.

Water Footprinting provides a different approach to understanding the role of water than traditional water resources planning and management. Water Footprinting tools can be applied in the Urban Water Sector to investigate:

• The amount of fresh water that must be withdrawn from the environment to deliver a specified volume of water to a customer;
• The amount of fresh water consumed (i.e. no longer available for other purposes) when delivering urban water services; or
• The impact (from a water resource perspective) that the delivery of urban water services has on the environment.

The approaches consider both Direct and Indirect Fresh Water Flows.

This project developed an understanding of the Water Footprinting concept; investigated the applicability of Water Footprinting tools to the Urban Water Sector and how they combine with or complement other sustainability related tools, and determined further development and application of the tools.

Real time monitoring and process control is a crucial component of optimal, pro-active water and wastewater management but there is a lack of information about real-world experience, operation, return on investment and the costs that are related to online monitoring. This research collated information from literature reviews, case studies, industry surveys and interviews, and concluded that more than 250 manufacturers sell over 100 water quality applications. In this context it is important to carefully define operational needs and the availability of skills, resources and budget before choosing an application. It is also important to manage and set realistic expectations and to embed online monitoring within the organisation.

The protozoan parasites, Cryptosporidium and Giardia represent a major public health concern of water utilities in developed nations. In Australia, marsupials, cattle and sheep are the dominant animals inhabiting water catchment areas and contribute a large volume of manure to catchments. Cryptosporidium fayeri, one of the main species identified in marsupials, was identified in a 29-year-old woman in Sydney in 2009 with identical subtypes found in marsupials in the area. There have also been reports of C. parvum and C. hominis (the most common species found in humans), in kangaroos, a wallaby, possums and bandicoots by independent groups, as well as high prevalence’s of zoonotic genotypes of Giardia in marsupials.

This project conducted a comprehensive study of genotypes of Cryptosporidium and Giardia present in marsupials, pre-weaned cattle and sheep and STP sites, over a three-year period to gain a more thorough understanding of the zoonotic risk these parasites pose to humans. In addition to cataloguing the genotypes present using next generation sequencing technologies, researchers also enumerated the numbers of Cryptosporidium and Giardia (oo)cysts present in samples and conducted a survey of farming practices to determine if particular management practices were associated with a higher or lower prevalence of zoonotic genotypes in pre-weaned cattle and sheep.