Brian Smerdon

Dr Brian Smerdon draws from a diverse background in groundwater hydrology and is currently investigating major groundwater basins, including:

- leading a reappraisal of water resources in Australia’s iconic Great Artesian Basin, in collaboration with Geoscience Australia
- estimating rates of diffuse groundwater discharge from regional-scale aquifers in the Great Artesian Basin in collaborative research project with Flinders University
- characterising the nature of groundwater interaction with a perennial river in the Daly Basin, Northern Territory.

Dr Smerdon joined CSIRO Land and Water in 2009 as a Research Scientist in the Groundwater Hydrology research group.

Prior to joining CSIRO, he held Postdoctoral Research Fellowships with the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta, and with the Department of Earth Sciences at Simon Fraser University, in Canada.

Dr Smerdon’s skills and interests are in conceptualising hydrologic systems, and in describing the behaviour of groundwater flow through application of environmental tracers and use of hydrogeologic models.

His research has focused on quantifying exchange fluxes between surface water and groundwater, modelling groundwater recharge, and determining regional-scale flow in mountainous terrain.