Who We Are
Richard Clark
The Authors
Richard and David have a combined total of over 100 years of professional experience working as hydrologists and water systems investigators. In the late 1980’s they recognised the need for new approaches to water systems that incorporated improved information on all elements of the local regional water cycle and, where possible, enabled multiple objectives to be incorporated into the single system design. They commenced working together on the WaterCress model and have continuously developed and used the model in many of the high-profile innovative water schemes in South Australia. These have included Mawson Lakes and the Parafield Airport Scheme. The model has also been used by the State Government for water allocation planning, in particular the impact of farm dams in rural catchments.
David Cresswell
Greater efficiencies envisaged will only become mainstream practice after the present ‘water industry’ has been reformed. Such desired reforms will inevitably reduce the present emphasis on the (assumed) economies of large scale, single purpose water and will result in the establishment of a ‘new generation’ of smaller, lower cost, multiple objective, customised water systems. Customers of water and energy systems will have a far greater ability to determine the effectiveness of their systems.
Our aim is to provide the tools to encourage the development of integrated water and energy supply systems which will incorporate all sources of water and power available in the urban and rural environments. To this end, WaterCress has been upgraded to WaterCress-e by incorporating energy generation and economic costing. WaterCress-e now provides the tools to fully analize and cost self sustainability systems from a town scale down to a single house.