Dr Ralph Ogden ‘ACT Healthy Waterways – an Update’

Ralph is the new Program Manager, ACT Healthy Waterways Project, a joint initiative of the ACT and the Australian governments to improve the quality of water entering our lakes and waterways. It includes the construction of infrastructure – like wetlands, ponds and rain gardens, and involves research trials.

Abstract

ACT Healthy Waterways is a joint initiative of the ACT and Australian governments to improve the quality of water entering our lakes and waterways and flowing downstream into the Murrumbidgee River system. The project includes the construction of infrastructure – like wetlands, ponds and rain gardens – as well as research trials, a community education campaign and improvements to water monitoring practices. Join Ralph for an update on the Project and to find out more about the ‘bigger stormwater picture’.

Biography

Dr Ralph Ogden is now the Program Manager of the ACT Healthy Waterways Project. From July 2016 Ralph was Head of Knowledge and Communications for the Australian Water Partnership.  He has extensive senior-level experience in running partnerships comprised of government agencies, research organisations and private industry, and in directing knowledge-sharing and technology transfer projects. Earlier, as an executive in the eWater Cooperative Research Centre and eWater Ltd (2005-14), he served in various roles directing teams to create science-based software products for managing water and to support users of the product.

Earlier, Ralph was the Director of Knowledge Exchange in the Cooperative Research Centre for Freshwater Ecology (2002-2005). Prior to this, he spent six years at CSIRO Land and Water and the University of Canberra researching the effects of land use on billabong ecology and river-floodplain habitats. He received his PhD in 1997 from the ANU with a thesis on the ecology and palaeoecology of billabongs on the Murray River and tributaries.