Congratulations to our Stormwater 2020 award winners

27 August 2020

The Water New Zealand Stormwater awards recognise expertise and contribution to the stormwater sector.

This year’s winners were announced at the Stormwater 2020 Virtual Conference this evening and the winners will be presented their awards in person at the Downer Gala Dinner at the Water New Zealand Conference & Expo.

The 2020 Stormwater Professional of the Year has been awarded to Clare Feeney of Environmental Communications Ltd.

Clare has been a member of Water New Zealand since the 1990. She has presented several stormwater papers and is a long-standing and actively contributed to Friends of the Stormwater Committee. Clare has judged the Innovation Awards since its inception in 2018, has chaired conference sessions, been actively involved in AGMs and regularly supports local events.

The Young Stormwater Professional of the Year award has gone to Matthew Lillis of Engineering Leadership Services.

This award recognises a young stormwater professional who has made a significant contribution to the industry and the general community, and has demonstrated exceptional achievement in the early stages of his or her career.

The judges said that Matthew’s management of the complex Mangakootukutuku ICMP demonstrates his outstanding technical knowledge and communication skills.His commitment to volunteer activities is evident through his ongoing involvement in Engineers Without Borders and his contribution to the stormwater industry has been demonstrated through the presentation of his work at conferences.

The winning paper for the 2020 Stormwater Conference Paper of the Year is entitled: “Does your Retention meet your Intention”

It is written collaboratively by Mark Groves (WSP), Bodo Hellberg (Tauranga City Council), Brendon Schicker (WSP), Warren Bird (WSP).

The paper addresses assumptions used in industry to estimate detention requirements.With an increasing focus on greenfield pre-development flow rates, design methods and the underlying assumptions can cumulatively have a large impact on estimates for detention requirements as well as orifice discharge rates.

This paper demonstrated the importance of such considerations by looking at different design events, different durations and different model assumptions.

It found that short duration storm design methods were more likely to lead to underestimation of flows, with the design potential to increase discharges and increase flooding risk.Validation with real rainfall data also showed the need to understand individual catchments and their complexities.Based on their assessment the authors recommended modelling a range of durations, storm sizes and rainfall profiles to best assess the needs of the catchment.This has the implications for any design engineer looking at detaining stormwater and releasing appropriately in larger catchments while mitigating flooding risk.

Water New Zealand and the Stormwater Group congratulate all entries in the Innovation Showcase Award. This was a tough decision and all innovations came up with fantastic solutions for some of the significant stormwater challenges in New Zealand.

The winner of the Innovation Showcase is FenceTank. The judges noted a lot of thought had gone into the design.Congratulations to Andrew Olsen from Stormwater Systems on creating a stylish solution to unsightly water tanks that take up valuable space on properties.

The judges have highly commended Bodo Hellberg and Whare Joseph Thompson for “The Four Winds” Stormwater Manhole Cover.

Both FenceTank and The Four Winds Manhole cover have multiple benefits and form.

The winners will be presented their awards in person at the Downer Gala Dinner at the Water New Zealand Conference & Expo.

Once again, a big thanks to all our entries and congratulations to all our winners.