Victorian FMA Members Reducing Rural Flood Risk

Following on from their FMA Highly Commended Project of the Year Award with the Warracknabeal and Brim Flood Investigation, Water Technology is now finalising the Dunmunkle Creek Flood Investigation for Wimmera CMA. The project has used a regional scale flexible mesh flood model covering over 100 km of Dunmunkle Creek, a distributary of the Wimmera River.
 

The project had two major objectives; assessing and minimising the flood impact from recent decommissioning of GWMWater’s redundant channel system, and reducing the flood damages for the rural township of Rupanyup. During the January 2011 floods, modifications to the Wimmera Mallee stock and domestic channel system brought about by the installation of the Wimmera Mallee Pipeline resulted in flooding in areas previously not experienced. Wimmera CMA and Water Technology have worked with the communities along Dunmunkle Creek to ensure further channel decommissioning is designed in a way which allows inundation to occur as naturally as possible while limiting adverse impact to agricultural property.
 

Rupanyup is at risk from both stormwater and riverine inundation. In a 1% AEP flood event 38 buildings are at risk of inundation above floor and a further 152 may be flooded below floor. In the January 2011 flood event large areas of Rupanyup were flooded. 
 

Water Technology, Wimmera CMA and the Rupanyup community were able to produce a flood mitigation concept which reduces the number of properties flooded above floor in a 1% AEP event to just one, while reducing the number of properties flooded below floor to 18. The final mitigation scheme was largely achieved by the modification of existing infrastructure and will provide the community with the ability to significantly reduce their flood risk.
 

Water Technology and Wimmera CMA are hopeful that the proposed mitigation scheme will be funded for detailed design and construct in the near future.  
 

For more information please contact Ben Hughes of Water Technology on 0438 510 240 or ben.hughes@watertech.com.au.