Dr Guna Hewa Alankarage

Hi welcome to my home page. I joined UniSA in January 2003. I teach water/environmental engineering subjects.

I grew up in Sri Lanka and completed Bachelors in Civil Engineering at the University of Moratuwa Sri Lanka. After one and half years of consulting engineering experience at Engineering Consultants Ltd, I flew overseas to complete postgraduate studies.

Soon after the completion of M.Sc. (Hydrology) course at University College Galway, Ireland in 1996, I joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Melbourne to persure PhD studies in low flow hydrology.

I started my university teaching career during my PhD candidature at the University of Melbourne. After the completion of my PhD studies, I worked as a post doctoral researcher at RMIT university and a temporary lectuerer for Swinburne University of Technology (SUT). Then I was emplyed by Victoria University of Technology (VUT) as a research associate plus a sessional lecturer.

Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

University College, Galway

Engineering Consultants Ltd., Sri Lanka

Department of Civil and Env. Eng., The University of Melbourne

Centre for Water Science and Systems, University of south Australia

• I teach water/environmental engineering subjects for both undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
• My special teaching interest is on surface water (Flood and Low Flow) hydrology, Hydraulics and Statistical Analysis.
• I teach EPANET, HEC-RAS, RORB and DRAINS software packages as part of water engineering courses.

Member, Institution of Engineers Australia

Member, Hydrological Society of South Australia

Member, Australian Water Association

PhD (Hydrology)- 2001, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering The University of Melbourne, Australia. Thesis - A Methodology for Regional Low Flow Frequency Analysis.

M.Sc. First class honours(Hydrology) - 1996, National University of Ireland, University College Galway, Ireland. Thesis - Application of the Monthly Water Balance Concept to Develop a Regression Model for Low Flow Analysis.

B.Sc. First class honours (Civil Eng.) - 1994, Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.

Grad. Cert. (Education) - 2006, Queensland University of Technology Australia

• Flood and Low Flow Hydrology, Regional analyses, Effect of climate change on enviornmental variables Watershed modelling, Statistical simulation modelling, Environmental flows and, Water Sensitive Urban Designs
• Co-researcher at Centre for Water Science and Systems (CWSS)

Hewa, G. A., McMahon, T. A., Wang, Q. J., Peel, M., and Nathan R. J. (2007) Suitability of Generalised Extreme Value (GEV) Distribution Estimated by LH-Moments for Low Flow Frequency analyses. Water Resources Research. 43, W 06301, doi:10.1029, 2006WR004913.

Lee, A., Hewa, G. A., Pezzaniti, D. Argue J. (2008)Improving stream low flow regimes in urbanised catchments using Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) techniques. July 2008 Australian Journal of Water Resources.

Tallaksen, L. M., Hisdal, H. and Hewa, G. A. (2008) Chapter 7 - Extreme Value Aanalysis, Manual on the Estimation and Prediction of Low Flows, World Meteorological Organization (under final review).

Hewa, G. A. (2008) Comparing the performance of four selected models in low flow frequency analyses- A case of Scott Creek in South Australia. Water Down Under 2008 - Incorporating 31st Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium and 4th International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research, 15-17 April, 2008 Adelaide. [CD ROM]

Hewa, G. A. and Van-Leeuwen J. (2008) Analyses of censored water quality data - A case of Mount Bold Reservoir. Water Down Under 2008 - Incorporating 31st Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium and 4th International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research, 15-17 April, 2008 Adelaide. [CD ROM].

Lee, A., Hewa, G. A. and Pezzaniti, D. (2008) Sensitivity of the SWMM parameters in the perspective of low flows. Water Down Under 2008 - Incorporating 31st Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium and 4th International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research, 15-17 April, 2008 Adelaide. [CD ROM].

Nicholson, B. H. and Hewa, G. A. (2008) Evaluation of Flow Measurement Techniques in Dry Creek, South Australia. Water Down Under 2008 - Incorporating 31st Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium and 4th International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research, 15-17 April, 2008 Adelaide. [CD ROM]

Hewa, G. A., McMahon, T. A., Wang, Q. J., Peel, M., and Nathan R. J.– How significant is the BIAS of LH-moments and L-moments estimates. Proceedings of the MODSIM07.

Lee, A, Hewa, G. A., Pezzaniti, D. (2007) Adapting Water Sensitive urban design (WSUD) in an urban catchment to minimize impacts of urbanization on natural stream flow regimes-abstract was submitted to 5th International WSUD conference (Sydney)

Hewa G. A. (2006) Regionalizing low flow indices: A novel methodology for estimating error-covariance matrix ; Short communications in PUB’s June news letter, IWMI, Colombo Sri Lanka (short article)

Hewa, G. A., Pezzaniti D., Beecham S. and Gupta K (2006) Selecting an appropriate size of a domestic rainwater tank for Colombo, 32nd WEDC international conference in Colombo Sri Lanka.

Hewa, G. A., McMahon, T. A. and Peel, M. Wang, Q. J., Nathan, R. J. (2005) Dealing with zero flows in low flow regionalization. 29th International Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium, Canberra, Australia

Hewa, G. A. and Peel, M. (2004) Application of the Truncated Generalized Extreme Value (TGEV) distribution to estimate extreme low flow quantiles – a case study using the Gin Ganga at Agaliya, Sri Lanka. International conference on Sustainable water Resources Management in Monsoon regions, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Vol 1, 171-179pp.

Hewa, G. A., McMahon, T. A. and Peel, M. Nathan, R. J. (2003) Identification of the most appropriate regression procedure to regionalize extreme low flows. 28th International Hydrology and water resources Symposium, Wollongong, Australia Vol1 181-188.

Hewa G. A. (2003) Low flow characteristics of Onkaparinga River at Scott Creek, AWA regional conference Adelaide. 3/18.

Hewa G. A. (1999) An Application of Monthly Water Balance Concept in Predicting Low Flows. Water 99 Joint Congress, Brisbane Australia. 227-231.

Hewa G. A (2001) Ph.D. Thesis - A Methodology for Regional Low Flow Frequency Analysis. The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria Australia. 261pp.

Hewa G. A. (1996) M.Sc. Thesis - Application of the Monthly Water Balance Concept to Develop a Regression Model for Low Flow Analysis. M.Sc. thesis, University College Galway, Ireland 189pp.

Hewa, G. A., McMahon, T. A., Wang, Q. J., Peel, M., and Nathan R. J. Goodness-of-fit of GEV/LH-Moments Distribution for Regional Low Flow Frequency Analysis. (In progress).

I am able to provide media comment in the following areas of expertise:

Discipline: Civil Engineering

• Flood and Low Flow Hydrology