Innovation recognised by water award nominations

Two projects shortlisted for NSW Water Awards 2025

WaterNSW has been shortlisted in two categories at the 2025 NSW Water Award, recognising outstanding achievements of innovation in the water sector.

  • Catchment Futures - alternate scenarios for Greater Sydney’s drinking water catchments in 2040 and 2060 – is shortlisted in the Research and Development (R&D) Excellence category.
  • Our Peel River re-snagging biodiversity offsets project (with First Nations communities in the Tamworth region) is shortlisted in the Organisational Excellence category.
“We are delighted some of our many important research projects have been recognised in this way,” WaterNSW Executive Manager, Strategy & Performance, Fiona Smith, said.

“Last year our ground-breaking research on the upland swamps won the R&D Excellence category at the NSW Water Awards, and we are hoping we can go back-to-back this year.”

Winners of the 2025 NSW Water Awards will be announced on 14 March in Sydney at the NSW Heads of Water Gala Dinner and Awards.

dam surrounded by trees
Catchment Futures scenario 1 – Enhanced catchment management: Increased investment in catchment management as a key strategy for providing safe drinking water to Greater Sydney.
urban landscape with trees
Catchment Futures scenario 2 - Living life in green, blue and grey: New population centres in Goulburn and Southern Highlands that are cool, green and liveable with integrated water management principles.

Scenarios help identify water supply risks and opportunities

Catchment Futures is helping WaterNSW prepare today to protect Sydney’s drinking water decades into the future, even under unprecedented conditions.

WaterNSW Strategic Research and Innovation Manager, Ann-Marie Rohlfs, led the project partnering with UTS-Institute for Sustainable Futures Research Director, Associate Professor Simon Fane, and Research Principal Ebony Heslop.

“Water is an essential resource facing an uncertain future,” Ann-Marie said. “Megatrends such as climate and land use change will impact the catchments that provide drinking water for more than 5 million people in Greater Sydney. Drinking water catchments across Australia face similar impacts.

“The multidisciplinary project team brought together WaterNSW’s catchment science, planning and management practitioners with ISF’s advanced futures thinking and spatial modelling expertise.

“These narrative exercises of science-based imagination were translated into future land use projections using a spatial model built from 30 years of historical catchment land use transitions,” Ann-Marie said.

Students standing on riverbank
Water Monitoring Team Leader Robbie Heane demonstrates how WaterNSW experts use small autonomous boats to measure stream flow and take water quality samples.
Student activity under a marquee
Students from Tamworth high schools took part in a range of environmental activities including identifying different types of aquatic life sampled from the Peel River.

Educational activities about snags, fish and water

WaterNSW partnered with Traditional owners, Tamworth Local Aboriginal Land Council Walaaybaa Ranger program and local schools to run an education day last November to share knowledge about the Peel River re-snagging project.

WaterNSW installed 50 snags from reclaimed hardwood trees along a 45- kilometre section of the Peel River between Chaffey Dam and Tamworth in mid-2024. The snags provide a habitat for Murray Cod and Silver Perch, both nationally threatened species, as well as platypus, rakali and other aquatic life.

“The Peel River re-snagging project’s collaborative approach, integrating expertise from diverse disciplines across WaterNSW with a genuine First Nations partnership, makes this project a best practice example of collaboration in the water sector,” WaterNSW Executive Manager, Strategy & Performance, Fiona Smith, said.

Walaaybaa Junior Rangers Program Project Coordinator, Jolene Faint, said: “Sharing voices through engagement and education initiatives provides a cross pollination of western science with traditional knowledge and a meaningful pathway forward in terms of environmental sustainability.

“The integration of yarns around career opportunities within WaterNSW is an inspiration as well as eye opening for senior students who may previously have never considered a potential career pathway within the water industry.”

Published date: 15 January 2025

WaterNSW acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands and waters on which we work and pay our respects to all elders past, present and emerging. Learn more