William (Bill) Young

Biography

Bill Young completed a Bachelor of Engineering with First-Class Honours, Agricultural, from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand and Doctor of Philosophy in Natural Resources Engineering from the same university.

Dr Young is involved in:

• research and application of environmental flows
• river habitat modelling
• river sediment and nutrient transport modelling
• river hydraulics
• other aspects of river, floodplain and wetland management.

He initially trained as an engineering hydrologist and undertook postgraduate studies in fluvial geomorphology. He has extensive professional experience in river and catchment research, modelling and management.

Dr Young’s expertise includes:

• project manager of the Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project
• development and application of the Murray Flows Assessment Tool
• contributions to nutrient and sediment budgets and assessments of river condition for the National Land and Water Resources Audit
• modelling river channel type and physical habitat condition in the upper Murrumbidgee River
• leadership/membership of multiple scientific panels on environmental flows and river condition assessments in New South Wales
• advisory work on environmental flows for the World Bank in developing countries including India and Azerbaijan
• editor and lead author of Rivers as Ecological Systems – the Murray-Darling Basin published by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission in 2001.

Honours and awards

Dr Young’s expertise has been called upon for a number of government and environment groups, including:

• member of the World Bank Environmental Flows Advisory Group
• member of the Sydney Catchment Authority Expert Reference Panel
• Expert Panels for the Bega and Woronora Rivers
• leader of the Scientific Reference Panel for the Coxs River Review, New South Wales
• leader of the Scientific Reference Panel for the Snowy Water Inquiry.

Bill Young was the project manager of The Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project (MDBSY Project) for the Water for a Healthy Country Flagship that was awarded the 2008 CSIRO Chairman’s Medal. The team undertook the world’s first water resource assessment of its scale for the groundwater and surface waters of the Murray-Darling Basin, reporting on current and future climate scenarios and possible land management changes.

In 2008, Bill was also one of eleven winners of CSIRO’s inaugural Newton Turner Awards. These new awards are designed to further the scientific careers of exceptional senior scientists at CSIRO. In addition to Bill’s outstanding contribution to the MDBSY project, the award also recognises Bill’s major scientific contributions over many years.

Source

• Young WJ, 2009, Personal communication.