Landloch Associates

Landloch has a number of Associates who are nationally and internationally-recognised experts in a range of fields. These people contribute knowledge and expertise to Landloch projects. They include:

Mr D. Tongway

David Tongway has developed a method to analyse natural ecosystems to determine the nature of their basic functioning. This involves recognising terrain / soil / vegetation patterns and measuring the processes at work in regulating the spatial distribution of limiting resources (water and soil nutrients). The assessment of degradation of those lands is achieved by determining the way the basic processes are broken down by inappropriate management or rare climatic events

This approach has resulted in an objective framework and assessment process of land degradation or desertification, and a rational way of dealing with it. This approach is called Landscape Function Analysis (LFA). Soil fertility and stability measurements are used to define nutrient pool sizes that are affected by degradation and rehabilitation.

The LFA approach is also being used to analyse the success of the rehabilitation of lands affected by mining. Coal mines in the Bowen Basin in Queensland were studied as examples of how to create a sustainable ecosystem from spoil dumps comprised of a wide range of geological material. Soil formation processes were studied by a multi-disciplinary team. The nature of the final landform is determined only after specifying the nature of the final land-use. Appropriate landforms can then be devised, based on the functional needs of that land use.

He was Principal Researcher for an ACMER funded project on Indicators of Ecosystem Rehabilitation Success and Benchmarks. This project examined rehabilitation success and suggested appropriate indicators of rehabilitation progress across a wide range of mine types in Australia.

Dr P. Truong
Veticon Consulting

Dr Paul Truong’s specialist fields include:

• Bio-engineering for Soil Erosion and Sediment Control: Specialising in the use of vegetation, particularly vetiver grass, in the stabilisation and reclamation of unstable, erodible and degraded agricultural, urban and industrial lands, and mine rehabilitation.
• Steep Slope Stabilisation: Application of both bioengineering and conventional engineering techniques for erosion and sediment control of steep batters associated with infrastructure projects such as roads, railways, dams, and irrigation constructions.
• Wastewater Treatment: Use of vetiver grass to treat water from urban and industrial sources to achieve environmentally acceptable outcomes.

He is Australia’s leading authority on all aspects of vetiver grass applications.

For further information, go to: http://www.uq.net.au/veticon/

Dr G. Hancock
University of Newcastle

Dr Greg Hancock at the School of Environmental and Life Sciences at The University of Newcastle has been working since 1993 with the SIBERIA landscape development and soil erosion model examining the long-term prediction of landscape stability. He has extensive experience in hydrological data analysis and erosion model parameter derivation and the use of SIBERIA as a mine rehabilitation tool.

The unique ability of SIBERIA is that it uses a three dimensional representation of the landscape to calculate runoff and sediment and dynamically adjusts landscape elevations as a result of erosion and deposition. This allows the ability to not only calculate sediment loss but to also visualize how and where erosion occurs.

SIBERIA has been used extensively in the mining industry for the assessment of landform stability of waste rock dumps, tailings dams and as a research tool for landscape design.

Dr B. Yu
Griffith University

Dr Yu has more than 10 years research experience in the broad field of climate-hydrology-soil erosion-river landforms with an emphasis on hydrologic modelling. Dr Yu deeply believes that working with and through a series of precipitation-related processes is crucial for a better understanding of the physical environment in which we live. He has worked in many different countries including China, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and the U.S. His technical expertises of relevance to Landloch Pty Ltd include:

• CLIGEN — a stochastic weather generator.
• Reliable estimation of rainfall erosivity and its seasonal variation from historical daily rainfall data.
• Sorting of multiple size-class sediments through erosion, transport and deposition at the hill slope scale.
• GUEST and WEPP erosion models.