Water quality expert, Otago alumnus Professor David Hamilton, credits his Otago lecturers Emerita Professor Dame Carolyn Burns CBE and Associate Professor Marc Schallenberg for nurturing his passion for lakes. He also credits his PhD supervisor, the late Dr Stuart Mitchell, who worked for 34 years at the Department of Zoology, with providing a creative environment to stimulate his interest in lake research.
After completing his PhD at Otago, David took up a post-doctoral position in the Centre for Water Research at the University of Western Australia (UWA). There he worked with Stockholm Water Prize winner, Australian Jörg Imberger.
“Some people have compared the Stockholm Water Prize to the Nobel of water. It is certainly the most prestigious of awards in the water environment,” David says.
From his post-doctoral work, he transitioned into a lecturing position at UWA.
“I spent 10 years lecturing in the Department of Environmental Engineering, which was a little bit different for me because I had been in Zoology at Otago.”
After 12 years in Perth and by then with three children, David and his wife Deborah headed to Hamilton and he took up what was known as the Bay of Plenty Regional Council Chair in Lake Restoration at the University of Waikato. He held this position for 15 years.
During this time, he worked on projects including the Ohau diversion wall, which resulted in improvements to Lake Rotoiti's water quality, and a predictive modelling programme for the Te Arawa lakes of Rotorua.
Six years ago, he moved to the Australian Rivers Institute at Griffith University in Brisbane, initially as Deputy Director and now as its Director.
At the Institute he leads a team of 35 post-doctoral fellows, 70 PhD students and about 45 permanent staff that provide a catchment perspective on water, from the headwaters to the coastal zone.
“We cover aspects of social science, cultural values, groundwater and surface water and also interact with some of the marine people. We've got a broad mandate to tackle all aspects of the water cycle, with the exception of the open ocean, that we leave to the marine oceanographers.
“And we've got some pretty big challenges; climate change is obviously one of those and that's something that's intensifying with large storm events, notably in New Zealand and eastern Australia.”
David still does quite a bit of work in New Zealand. He is currently working with the Auckland Council. He says this is mostly around reviewing water quality in the council’s Regional Plan.
“Another project is part of Our Land and Water, one of the National Science challenges.
“We're trying to optimize a sampling programme to detect improvements in rivers, lakes and groundwater in New Zealand, based on all of the actions that are going on to try and improve water quality.”
In terms of the water quality challenges facing us, he says “I think that the big challenge is going to be around the impacts of climate change and the fact that some of the environmental actions, as well-intended as they are, may not be enough to meet the changes that are occurring with a changing climate, particularly from storms and increased duration of drought.
“A concern of mine is that we might simply try to engineer actions to deal with the symptoms of floods instead of looking up to the headwaters. We need to build resilience in our catchments to withstand these extreme weather events.”
David has visited China several times and recently travelled there again. “When I first went to China there was massive environmental degradation. They had toxic algal blooms and raw wastewater discharges into lakes. There is now a realisation that they overstepped on economic development at the expense of the environment and needed to put a huge amount of money into environmental restoration.”
He says China is creating ‘sponge cities’, which are designed to increase the ability of their cities to withstand storm events, by having nature-based solutions, including wetlands, to mitigate the effects of these extreme storms.
David says he regards Mark Schallenberg and Dame Carolyn as long-term colleagues and he very much admires the career that Dame Carolyn has had. “The amazing contributions she's made to fresh water in Otago and New Zealand, and the scholarly output of her research internationally. I like to think that the chair that I held at the University of Waikato may have provided the inspiration for Carolyn to set up a similar chair in lake science at Otago.”
David is enjoying living in southern Queensland, though he says it's hot and sticky in the middle of summer.
“I spent three weeks back in Dunedin during the past summer, which was really nice, especially escaping the heat and humidity in Queensland at that time of year.”
David was born in Dunedin and attended Otago Boys’ High School, before going to the University of Otago.
His father, fellow alumnus Iain Hamilton, got a BCom from the University in 1962, a Blue for soccer (football) in 1953, and became the University accountant in 1963 – later promoted to Senior Assistant Registrar – before retiring in 1990.
“When I went to university, I found my interest in fresh water was stimulated through a Zoology undergraduate degree, which eventually led onto to a PhD and, what I love doing, which is research on lakes. For me now, it is harder to do the fieldwork I love, partly because of my position and because lakes in Australia are much less accessible than in New Zealand.”
Three of David’s siblings went through Otago, with his younger brother Greg gaining a BSc(Hons) in 1987, sister Janne Miller a BPhEd in 1990 and a BEd in 1992 and youngest sister Julie Thompson a BSc in 1995 and a MBChB in 2000. In turn, David’s daughter Amelia obtained a BAppSc in 2015, Janne’s son Cameron a BSc in 2020, and Greg’s son Angus has just completed his final year of a BA. Both Greg and Angus, like Iain, obtained an Otago Blue, in rugby and handball, respectively.
David says his story about Otago University is a very positive one, with the way people like Stuart Mitchell and Carolyn Burns steered his career at the start, and with his brother and sisters also having fond memories of their time at Otago.
“We are very grateful to the dedicated staff who provided us with a great start through Otago,” David concludes.