Congratulations to Dr Laura Montano for winning the 2022 ANCOLD Young Professional Best Paper Award

2022 Young Professionals Award winner Dr Laura Montano, with Dr Stefan Felder and Nick OstrovskyDr Laura Montano received the 2022 ANCOLD Young Professional Best Paper Award at this year’s conference of the Australian Committee on Large Dams (ANCOLD) which took place in Sydney at the end of October. This prestigious award is given to one Young Professional below the age of 35 for their contribution to the conference.

Laura presented a vision on “Remote sensing technologies for dam design and prototype monitoring” that she authored together with WRL’s Dr Stefan Felder. This manuscript discusses new opportunities of remote sensing technologies for flow monitoring at prototype hydraulic structures to allow observations of real-world flows on the spillway and in the energy dissipator.

Two types of remote sensing technology are proposed comprising LIDAR sensor and video-based observations based upon WRL’s pioneering work with LIDAR applications in laboratory-scale flows across hydraulic structures as well a pilot-study of drone-based video observations with WRL involvement.

The conference paper discusses new ways to use LIDAR and video technologies for real-time monitoring of prototype hydraulic structures to further enhance their safety by integrating the observations with a decision support system. In addition, prototype measurements at large structures will provide currently missing quantitative data for validation of physical and numerical modelling gaining more confidence in the overall design process of such structures.

WRL is currently exploring new opportunities to collaborate with dam operators on this journey and is open for engagement.

During the award ceremony at the ANCOLD conference, a special mention was made of Nick Ostrovsky as the close runner-up for the 2022 Young Professional Best Paper Award. Nick presented his Master’s Thesis research on “Tube Fishways: A New Fishway in the Pipeline for Large Dams” that he conducted in 2021 at WRL under the supervision of Dr Stefan Felder and Adjunct Professor William Peirson.

During his Master’s thesis project, Nick conducted a feasibility study on the use of Tube Fishways for large dams. Large dams are a big issue for river connectivity blocking fish and other animals from their natural migration cycles. Currently there is no reliable fish passage option, and UNSW Tube Fishways may provide a solution.

While Nick’s study showed that Tube Fishways might be an option, there are additional research questions that need to be answered prior to this. This research is ongoing and addressed by the WRL Tube Fishway Team.

Research papers:

Felder, S and Montano, L (2022) "Remote sensing technologies for dam design and prototype monitoring", Proc. of the 2022 ANCOLD Conference. 26-29th October, Sydney, Australia.

Ostrovsky, N, Peirson, W and Felder, S (2022) "Tube Fishways: A New Fishway in the Pipeline for Large Dams", Proc. of the 2022 ANCOLD Conference. 26-29th October, Sydney, Australia.


For further information contact: 

Dr Laura Montano | l.montano@wrl.unsw.edu.au

Dr Stefan Felders.felder@wrl.unsw.edu.au

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