A software program put together by a multi-disciplinary team of experts from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) is proving itself in the field with both its accuracy and its ability to save money for environmental managers.
According to Aquarisk's Project Manager, ANSTO s John Twining, the program is an innovative code that is aligned with the worlds best practice 2001 Australian Water Quality Guidelines, known as ANZECC, and is the only ecological risk assessment code to do so.
"Aquarisk has accurately predicted impacts at sites adjacent to mines at Rum Jungle in the Northern Territory and Brukunga in South Australia. This has allowed managers to meet stringent Australian environmental guidelines while setting economically realistic targets. Both applications have improved the efficiency of environmental management, demonstrating that it can repay the cost of the software, which is less than $1,000, many times over," he said.
Mr Twining said that although the program was developed as a tool to aid sustainable environmental management in the mining industry, it could easily be applied to wider environmental management issues.
"All Aquarisk needs to be useful is an identifiable hazard under management and some information on its concentration in the environment and its adverse environmental effects. This could be applied to a range of environmental issues from water pollution to air-borne discharges," he said.
"Too often in the past, money has been spent on the nebulous aim of reducing impact or improving the environment without specific ecological goals being identified. Alternative management strategies can now be evaluated using a cost-benefit approach (comparing engineering costs with increased biofile diversity) before expenditure takes place."
Aquarisk gives mines the opportunity to achieve the balance between the need to comply with ANZECC, and the economic reality of managing that compliance." John Twining says that Aquarisk has a number of advantages over existing environmental risk assessment codes, including a geochemical speciation component, meaning that more specific information about metal concentrations is available.
"Speciation modelling at one site showed that the amount of dilution required to remediate the site could be reduced to 25 per cent of that by modelling using total metal concentrations," he said. "A comparison of daily and monthly monitoring data from another site showed that a program of monthly monitoring produced the same risk assessment as daily monitoring. The costs of sampling and chemical analysis can therefore be reduced by a factor of 30.
"Aquarisk is also flexible enough to accept as much information as is required for better management, but by using a tiered assessment protocol, superfluous data acquisition is avoided."
John said that as well as providing efficiencies, the program was designed to be better for the environment.
"Aquarisk has a conservative approach built into it, which means that where adequate information is unavailable, it ensures greater protection for the environment."