The Groundwater Modelling Support Initiative (GMDSI) was launched in October 2019, and is an industry funded and aligned project that focuses on the role that groundwater modelling plays in supporting environmental management and decision-making. It is a collaborative project jointly funded by BHP and Rio Tinto and managed by the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training (NCGRT) at Flinders University, South Australia.

GMDSI’s mission is to promote, facilitate and support the improved use of models in groundwater management, regulation and decision-making, which will be achieved by:

• promoting increased industry proficiency in decision support modelling and industry-wide discussions leading to improved understanding of the role of modelling in groundwater protection and management
• providing the means to achieve these aims through promoting and facilitating the use of model-value-adding software.

Activities to achieve the project goals fall into five themes:

Education – Downloadable, online educational videos will be developed on topics that deepen understanding and enable implementation of decision-support modelling. They will be designed to target audiences that span the breadth of modelling skill and experience.

Outreach – GMDSI will host an active website that informs the public of its activities, provides a forum for the discussion of important modelling issues, and makes available issue papers, reports on GMDSI activities, educational videos and news items.

Worked examples – Models will be built in collaboration with government and industry bodies and used to support decisions. This will demonstrate the use of data assimilation and uncertainty analysis methodologies and software, and in doing so, will implement decision-support modelling strategies that assess and reduce management risks.

Research – Three PhD students will be sponsored with research goals aligned with industry-relevant topics.

Steering committee – The initiative is managed by the NCGRT and advised by a steering committee comprising members from industry, academia and other technical/research institutions.