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Ruby’s
project explores the potential for an evapotranspiration (ET)
landfill cover to be installed as an alternative to a traditional
clay barrier landfill cover at Wollert (50 km north of Melbourne
CBD), Victoria, a municipal landfill owned and operated by Pioneer
Australia Waste Management (PAWM). An ET cover consists of a
porous cover of soil with high water storage capacity which
supports a healthy vegetation community capable of transpiring
stored water. The function of this soil-plant system is to prevent
the ingress of excessive amounts of water into the waste layer.
The proposed ET cover at Wollert landfill will utilise a highly
variable on-site reject quarry material (scalps) as the cover
substrate and a selection of native Australian trees, shrubs
and grasses. The aim of Ruby’s research is to determine
how to optimise the performance of the ET cover such that the
system is more cost-effective and ecologically sustainable than
a traditional clay barrier cover.
Ruby is
dually-enrolled as a PhD student in the Civil & Environmental
Engineering Department and the School of Botany, allowing her
to take a multi-disciplinary approach to her project.
Supervisors:
Prof. Alan Baker
Applied Ecology, School of Botany, The University of Melbourne
Dr. Sam Yuen
Civil & Environmental Engineering Department, The University
of Melbourne
Sam Bateman
Project Manager, Hanson Pty Ltd |
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