8 December 2009

As South-East Queensland adopts new water guidelines this month, UQ graduate Nathan Cammerman has his eyes firmly set on helping to educate the community on water management.

Mr Cammerman was part of the first cohort of students to graduate from the Master of Integrated Water Management program at UQ earlier this year.

“We use water to produce energy and as our water supplies are dwindling due to increased population growth, we’re actually using more energy to produce water,” he said.

“In our policy development, water and energy are actually treated very dissimilarly which really poses problems for both sustainable water and energy management.”

Offered through the International WaterCentre at UQ, the degree has provided Mr Cammerman with the drive to one day open a consultancy firm that focuses on the sustainable management of water resources.

“Currently the engineering sector still dominates on thinking in this area – we’re not taking a broad enough perspective – especially major project management – we’re not assessing water in an integrated manner,” he said.

“The community have shown they are actually very responsive to social marketing and that’s an example of how basically we have used social techniques instead of traditional engineering approaches, such as dams or desalination plants, in order to sustainably manage our water resources.”

For years, the Cardiff University alumnus searched for the perfect postgraduate degree while furthering his geology career in the resource sector in Australia.

It was while Mr Cammerman worked with Aboriginal groups to assist in economic and community development, that he discovered the Master of Integrated Water Management.

“Its strengths were its multi-disciplinary nature and the way that each unit was actually integrated through problem-based learning,” he said.

“I’ve always had a passion for water, but what I’ve generally found is that most of the postgraduate courses available were mainly focused on the hydrological aspects – just on the engineering aspects of water.”

The masters degree is a joint venture between four of Australia’s leading universities including The University of Queensland, Monash University, the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.

The course takes a holistic approach to issues involving water and is taught through problem-based learning activities, group and individual projects, field trips, conferences and workshops, as well as the more traditional methods of learning.

Since graduating in July, Mr Cammerman has also conducted research for the Institute for Social Science Research at UQ.

“I can’t believe I am the person now compared to a couple of years ago, just in the way that I have grown,” he said.

“It’s enhanced my writing ability, my presentation ability…and my knowledge of the water sector.

“It’s got a lot of benefits apart from the actual academic learning and because it is a collaboration of four partner universities, you get to develop a broad range of networks across a number of different institutions.”

To find out more about the Master of Integrated Water Management please click here

Media: Nathan Cammerman (0437 119 017) or Eliza Plant at UQ Communications (07 3365 2619)