Collaborative Intelligence for Clean Waters

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, Unitywater provides customers in Moreton Bay, Sunshine Coast, and Noosa with quality, safe, and reliable water and wastewater. Treating over 56.7ML of wastewater annually for 17% of Queensland’s population in some of Australia's fastest-growing regions, including internationally significant environmental areas, such as RAMSAR wetlands and UNESCO Biosphere reserves.


Unitywater exists to enable healthy and thriving communities and is dedicated to making them sustainable, affordable, reliable, and resilient for the generations of today and tomorrow.
Unitywater and Healthy Land and Water, the peak environmental group for South-East Queensland, are providing a decade of water quality data from the North Pine River to create an opportunity to develop collaborative intelligence for cleaner waters. The key programs are:

• Mid-Field Monitoring Program: Conducted by Unitywater to track water quality trends within the Pine River Catchment.
• Ecosystem Health Monitoring Program: Conducted by Healthy Land and Water to provide the annual Ecosystem Health Rating for South-East Queensland.

These programs offer valuable insights into the impacts of resource management on local ecosystems, vital for maintaining the balance of our natural ecosystems.
Use open data and incorporate any, or all, of the following considerations to showcase your ideas:

• People Impact
  
  • community health and safety
  • recreational use and access to waterways
  • land use and its impact on water quality


• Planet and climate impacts
  
  • weather impacts
  • climate change resilience and adaptation
  • waterway health


• Productivity and tools
  
  • data integration and management
  • analysis and visualization
  • resource optimization


• Principles and Governance
  
  • compliance with regulations and standards
  • sustainability initiatives and policies
  • public health

Solutions might include improved data management, integration, and reporting that identifies trends to improve decision-making and foster collaboration. We invite you to explore how water quality is being reviewed and identify more efficient methods for integrating and analyzing large datasets between organizations.

Help develop meaningful trends to guide decision-making and foster stakeholder collaboration by reviewing and analyzing at least two of the datasets provided.
Practical, data-driven solutions are sought to preserve and enhance the catchment’s ecosystem.
Innovative solutions might include:

• Effective Data Integration and Visualisation: methods for integrating diverse datasets, such as water quality, land use, and climatic data, to offer a comprehensive view of river health. Solutions could feature intuitive visualizations to communicate complex data.
• Insightful Trend Analysis and Reporting: Develop tools or models that identify and analyze environmental trends, including potential pollution sources. Improve accuracy and timeliness of water quality reporting and provide actionable insights for better decision-making. Improve environmental management in the Pine Rivers catchment.
• Enhanced Collaborative Decision-Making: facilitate collaboration among government agencies and other stakeholders. This includes improving data-sharing processes and supporting effective collaborative governance through integrated information.
• Real-World Applicability: prototypes, visualizations, or models for ongoing environmental management and policy development.

We value creativity, technical innovation, and practical impact. Solutions might include insights or demonstrate how AI can advance environmental governance and sustainability in the Pine Rivers catchment, providing clear benefits for stakeholders and the broader community.

Eligibility Criteria
Open to everyone.
Must use the Unitywater dataset

• Mid Field Monitoring Program Water Quality Data

Must use the datasets below:

• Ecosystem Health Monitoring Program - Water Quality Data (EHMP)

Preference will be given to those providing solutions relevant to the following Council regions:

• City of Moreton Bay
• Sunshine Coast Council
• Noosa Council

We encourage the use of publicly available datasets and resources, such as:

• Bureau of Meteorology Climate and Tidal Data.
• Department of Environment Sciences and Innovation Guidelines and Resources.
• Healthy Land and Water Resources.
• Healthy-e-waterway project, etc.

Image Credit: Unitywater