OUR JOURNEY

Driven by our vision and values, our business has been continually shaped to provide trusted advice and industry leadership.

2025

Alluvium rebranding

As we had grown and our business evolved into new regions and offering new services we felt it was time to rebrand. Our new brand better reflects who we are, what we do and where we are going.

AMPERES joins Alluvium Group

AMPERES joined the Alluvium Group in 2025 to accelerate our ability to undertake impactful work in South-East Asia. Providing access to new expertise for our partners and clients, AMPERES brings substantial experience in the renewable energy sector with a focus on helping clients to shift from fossil fuel-based energy systems to renewable and cleaner energy sources in a way that is fair, equitable, and inclusive for all.

2024

Mekong study tour

Our inaugural study tour took place in 2024 with 9 people from across the Alluvium Group. The aim of the study tour was to explore the impacts of climate change in the Mekong region and the role nature based solutions can play in mitigating these impacts. The study tour included meeting with key people and organisations in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Nature Repair Summit

One of the focus areas for the Alluvium Foundation revolves around advancing industry knowledge and understanding ofprivate investment to deliver the COP15 biodiversity targets. A major development in this space was the passing in2023 the Australian Government’s Nature Repair Act, introducing certificates to underpin a biodiversity market (running alongsidethe burgeoning carbon market). The Alluvium Foundation brought together outstanding speakers to explore the opportunities and challenges of such a Nature Repair Market. This introduces a topic that could represent a fundamental change in the way the environment is protected and repaired in Australia and globally.

Future of Victoria’s Native Forests Symposium

Responding to the announcement of the end of logging in eastern Victoria, the Alluvium Foundation in partnership withthe Royal Society of Victoria, Victorian National Parks Association and Friends of the Earth ran a public event on theFuture of Victoria’s Native Forests. Our main goal was to bring all parties together, including forest industry, conservation group, Traditional Owners, recreational groups, academics, scientists and economists to share thoughts in an open and collaborative space.

2023

New Aotearoa and Adelaide offices

2023 involved another period of growth where we pursued opportunities to expand nationally and internationally. We opened an office in New Zealand in 2023 and Adelaide in 2024.

Australia Best Workplaces™ for Women 2023

We’re proud to announce that for the second consecutive year, that we has been crowned as one of Australia’s Best Workplaces for Women in 2023. The Best Workplaces for Women list is based on data representative of over 40,000 employee voices from women in Great Place To Work™ Certified organisations across Australia.

Northern Rivers flood recovery

The 2022 floods in the Northern rivers was unpreceded in scale and impact. In the months following the event we worked closely with CSIRO to identify and prioritise projects for improving flood resilience. This work was undertaken in a highly sensitive environment with a community who had been through fires, Covid and floods in successive years. To make sure the community had a strong role in the process, we held 15 engagement drop-in sessions in the region where we asked the community to tell us what was important to them for flood management. We used the results of surveys completed by nearly 350 people to weight the criteria used in prioritisation and from that, prioritised more than 330 projects down to a short list of just over 60 key projects.The community engagement process was a critical part, and central to the overall project. We were privileged that those who came along shared with us their harrowing stories of the event, the challenges and barriers to recovery and their ideas, proposals and suggestions to improve things for the future.

5000 project milestone

2023 brought up our 5000 project milestone. The 5000th project was working with the Victorian Government to advance the Victorian Constraints Business case.

2022

Launch of Alluvium Foundation

We are proud to announce the formation of the Alluvium Foundation. The Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation and conceived to accelerate solutions to Australia’s biggest environmental and social challenges.The Foundation has been many years in the making for us and is aligned with our vision of making an meaningful, lasting change in the world. The Foundation provides an opportunity for our staff to step outside of normal consulting pressures and to work with the environmental industry (consultants, agencies, researchers and the private sector) to create a forum for facilitating deep thinking, debate, and action to contribute to solving complex, multidisciplinary environmental challenges.

Centre for Water, Climate and Land (CWCL) Partnership

As part of our commitment to connecting the best science to real world application, we have formed a partnership with the University of Newcastle to jointly deliver the Centre for Water, Climate and Land (CWCL) program. Together we provide evidence-based insights into the impacts of climate variability and change.

#10 in the 2022 Australia Best Workplaces

We are proud to have achieved #10 in the 2022 Australia Best Workplaces list (Medium business category) and listed as one of 30 Best Places to work for Women. We have incredible people on board doing extraordinary work to make a difference to the world.

Launch of Alluvium International India

Following five years of testing opportunities in India, we took the plunge and set up a Indian registered business. The Indian team has since grown rapidly and in cooperation with Australian team members is undertaking projects across India. The team have been making an impact across a range of areas including water sensitive cities, river and wetland restoration and water security.

Vietnam eFlow Assessment & implementation framework

Working with the Australian Water Partnership this project drew on international best practice while ensuring an approach that is appropriate for the local context. The work provided recommendations on potential updates to the legislative framework for environmental flows in Vietnam.

Community value proposition for NSW forests

Covering 2.15 million hectares, NSW state forests sustain a mix of values and uses including tourism and recreation, biodiversity conservation and timber production. This study explored the values provided by NSW State Forests through an ecosystem services framework and found that state forests provide ecosystem services worth 6–10 times more than forestry revenues alone.

Performance review of Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder

The Alluvium Group worked with the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder (CEWH) to assess the robustness and adequacy of planning, delivery, measurement, review, and engagement and communication around the use of water for the environment by the CEWH.

4000 projects milestone

We notched up our 4000th project in 2022 when we supported Toowoomba Council to develop a Climate Action Roadmap to help understand barriers and provide a framework for better decision making.

2021

Completion of Reconciliation Action Plan

Alluviums Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) has been developed and drives an aspirational and innovative approach to applying the three pillars of reconciliation – relationships, respect and opportunities. We aim to shape a better Australia where the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and hence all Australians, are improved through a deeper level of understanding, leading to mutual respect and opportunity.

Launched Eco Futures

EcoFutures was created in 2021 to provide policy, strategy and planning advice associated with ecological systems. Our focus is on solving complex problems including climate change adaptation and catchment scale systems analysis and management. Our ecologists also support delivery across the broader Alluvium group.

Coastal Hazard Adaptation Strategies

Alluvium has become a leading provider of the Coastal Hazard Adaptation Strategy (CHAS) work being delivered under the QCoast2100 program in Queensland. Our work has been recognised as setting a new standard in coastal hazard science and engineering and meaningfully engaging stakeholders and the broader community in the process is fundamental to our approach. The development of the strategy has a strong focus on understanding the needs of stakeholders and communities and integrates technical assessments that respond to increasing sea-levels and changing climate and includes a robust economic assessment, and flexible and adaptable management and engineering options. Our work provides each coastal Council with a long-term strategy for the future management of their coastal areas.

2020

Enhanced Environmental Water Delivery

Alluvium works at the forefront of environmental water science and planning and has been delivering ecohydrology and environmental assessment work for over a decade. This body of work for the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) is assisting the development of a hydrological cues delivery strategy which is one of the last major planning needs for the Basin Plan. Ultimately this program will deliver a suite of changes to river operations to deliver environmental water more effectively in the southern connected basin and realise improvements to forecasting, planning and coordination of environmental water by increasing the ability of environmental water holders to synchronise the delivery of environmental water with natural flows caused by rainfall.

Urban Cooling Dashboard

We play a significant role in helping our clients to better understand relationships between green blue infrastructure and community health.Working for Melbourne Water we developed a prioritisation process to identify specific locations for investment. This work was based on the cooling potential, and heat vulnerability of the surrounding population, population density, stormwater benefit and broader urban forest policy in Melbourne’s Local Government Areas. The data was incorporated into a Power BI dashboard with Mapbox as a tool for displaying and engaging with spatial data.

Carbon footprint

We believe the road to sustainability is as much about the journey as it is about the destination. As much as we have optimised our office environment and business processes to be energy efficient, but we acknowledge the fact that we will always have some environmental impact as an organisation. We have embedded new policy to operated as a carbon nuetral business by undertaking regular audits of our Scope 1,2 and 3 emissions, putting in place measures to minimise them and then by purchasing only the highest quality, gold standard carbon offsets for the remainder.

Channel Naturalisation

Alluvium’s team have been active over the past decade in advancing the policy, science, planning, and engineering of waterway naturalisation. We recently helped to transform a 1.6 km section of concrete channel into a naturalised waterway in Ipswich and reimagined 1.4 km of Arnolds Creek in Melton West.We are recognised as leading the industry where we create designs to maximise social and community benefits, along with ecological and flood management outcomes. Advancing the social value of our design work we now partner with entities such as the medical and rehabilitation industry to pursue biophilic design solutions and incorporate patient recovery considerations into to waterway naturalisation design.

Designing a new water sensitive city

It is not often you get to design an whole new city. Alluvium teamed with the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC) to develop a Water Sensitive City vision and strategy for the new city of Amaravati in India which will become the state of Andhra Pradesh’s new capital city.We delivered an investigation to inform design objectives and targets for hydrology, water quality, IWM (water reuse and water related energy usage), urban heat mitigation, ecology, social amenity/function and urban form.The project delivered a water sensitive vision and objectives, urban heat management plan and a stormwater management strategy to be integrated into the city design.

Capital requirements for Agricultural sector

Working with Agrifutures, we undertook a review of capital requirements of Australia’s agriculture, fisheries and forestry sector combined a review of historical data with economic modelling to develop an understanding of how investment levels contribute to sector growth, what barriers exist and how these could be overcome. The report found an annual investment of $8.7 billion is required to meet the NFF’s target and grow the annual value of Australia’s agriculture, fisheries and forestry sector from just over $63 billion to $100 billion.

2019

Protecting the Great Barrier Reef

We have always aimed to take on the biggest and most complex challenges, and the work associated with the Great Barrier Reef certainly falls into this category.One of our core skills in our business in the translation of science, modelling and monitoring into decision frameworks and the application of those into investment plans and on-ground actions.In 2019 Alluvium and Central Queensland University led the development of an integrated hydro economic model which provided empirical data on the efficacy of policy options to reduce the export of sediment and nutrients from the GBR catchment.Our work now informs investment priorities for the Federal Government via the Reef Foundation.

Development of options for advancing environmental flows in Myanmar

We have been supporting both State and Federal Governments in Australia for over a decade to understand solutions to balancing environmental, consumptive and cultural needs for the provision of water.Engaged by the Australian Water Partnership, Alluvium in conjunction with WWF, Badu Consulting, and Latrobe University, are now supporting the advancement of environmental flows in Myanmar. This will include identifying options in terms of policy, guidelines and governance for the adoption of environmental flows in Myanmar, and developing a technical method for determining environmental flow requirements, using case study sites in the Ayeyarwady Basin.

Ecosystem services and environmental water economics

Our business is highly committed to the integration of science and economics in decision making and we fit well with work associated with the economic assessment of ecosystem services and environmental water management.As an example, in 2018 Natural Capital Economics were engaged by the Australian Water Partnership to deliver an ecosystem services valuation for the Arawanty river in Myanmar.We are very focused on the economics of environmental water, and have been leading domestic and international projects to understand the economic value of the provision of environmental water in State and Regional water Resource Management Plans.

Evaluation of 10 years of investment into NRM

Engaged by the Queensland Government we took on the challenge to quantify the impact of 10 years of funding into Natural Resource Management investment across Queensland.Through a comprehensive engagement process and development of an evaluation framework we mapped the impact on the environment, communities and economy.

Expansion into New Dehli, Newcastle and Byron Bay

2019 completed another period of growth where we pursued opportunities to expand nationally and internationally. We opened an office in Newcastle in 2017, Byron Bay in 2018 and New Dehli (India) in 2018.

2018

Enabling Water Trade in the ACT

Working with a specialist team of economists, lawyers and policy advisors, Alluvium led a project understand the costs and benefits of trading or selling water to the Commonwealth or others market participants under either a trading platform or via the water efficiency measures.This body of work helped the ACT to consider the optimum approach to water management which can meet the needs for the current and future population and allows the generation of income which may be directed to funding better catchment and river health outcomes.

Realising commercial and ecological outcomes for the Nimmie Caira

In 2014 Alluvium started what was a long, complex and ultimately rewarding effort to support the NSW Government in reconfiguring the Nimmie Caira as part of the $180 million water saving project. This was arguably one of the most ambitious environmental project to come out of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.This project is an excellent example of where we can work on developing an enduring solution to delivery of both ecological and commercial outcomes, and more specifically, 85,000 hectares of a floodplain will come back to natural life.

3000 projects milestone

2018 was indeed a milestone with the delivery of our 3000th project.Our 3000th project was supporting Hunter Water Corporation to develop a Stormwater Harvesting Decision Framework.

WSUD and urban cooling at a city scale

Mosaic Insights we have been advancing the understanding of the relationships between green infrastructure and urban cooling since inception in 2018. We are leading providers in quantifying the urban heat island effect on a range of scales from the street level to the city-wide scale, and from there modelling the cooling potential of blue-green infrastructure and WSUD. In 2018 we led a key piece or work to analyse the cooling benefit of urban forestry and irrigation for the city of Amaravati in India.

Mosaic Insights

Our Journey reflects a determined drive to continually evolve our business and in 2018 our focus had turned to the social landscape and how our urban work in particular would benefit from pursing design solutions guided by human welfare outcomes as well as environmental.Mosaic Insights was created to allow us to focus on the science of social landscapes and to help our clients to create resilient, liveable landscapes that connect people, support ecological systems and increase economic opportunities.The creation of Mosaic Insights closes the loop on our ability to think through and solve problems extending across biophysical, economic and social issues.

Coastal services integrated to Alluvium offering

The expansion into coastal management was a natural progression to allow us to deliver a complete catchment to coast consulting practice.We have become one the leading providers of coastal strategy and planning for climate adaptation, and the first consultant nationally to deliver a complete Coastal Hazard Assessment Strategy for the Queensland Government, setting the benchmark for quality in this process.We bring together and understanding of hydrology, coastal processes, inundation modelling and economics to deliver coastal consulting services nationally which help to describe and mitigate coastal hazard risks.

2017

Economic Vulnerability Assessment of Extreme Heat to Victoria

The establishment of Natural Capital Economics and Mosaic Insights in our business has allowed us to work in areas much more focused on human welfare outcomes. We now focus on projects relating to understanding of climate change impacts and adaptation measures.Natural Capital Economics and Alluvium teamed to deliver a key project for the State Government to understand the economic impact from extreme heat on infrastructure, rural production, the environment and on urban populations.This project is a perfect example of where science and economics needs to be highly integrated to produce meaningful project outcomes.

Launched Natural Capital Economics

Natural Capital Economics (NCEconomics) was formed in late 2016 to bring to the market a unique economics practice that was highly committed to the integration of science and economics in decision making.Since its launch, NCEconomics has rapidly become an economic consultant of choice where clients are seeking to understand more complex issues associated with water resources, climate change and natural resource economics.

Redefining community benefit outcomes form urban water management

We view water as well as being essential for life and critical enabler for improving liveability. It can help to green cities to provide shade and help in connecting the community to their streetscapes, open spaces and natural assets.Our work in Integrated Water Management Planning always includes objectives around social inclusiveness, community health and economic prosperity.We have led the industry to consider how water can be used to create sustainable, liveable and healthy communities. We believe effective use of water in urban can make a material difference to the future wellbeing of the community.

Winner – Technical Excellence in Waterway Management Award – channel naturalisation

Waterway restoration design is a core part of our DNA and in 2017 we were proud to win the ‘Technical excellence in waterway management’ award at the River Basin Management Society Awards Night.We led the transformation design of Stony Creek in western Melbourne as one of the largest waterway naturalisation projects in Australia. The project has been recognised for its innovation in bringing together elements of river engineering, open space management, and liveability.This work has set the benchmark for urban waterway naturalisation and supported other key projects such as developing channel naturalisation policy in Sydney and naturalisation of Cottage Creek in Newcastle.

2016

Launched Alluvium International

Responding to increasing international opportunities, Alluvium International was created to focus our efforts and manage different risks and governance needs that international work brings.Alluvium works with clients such as the Asian Development Bank, World Bank and Australian Water Partnership in countries mainly across the Asia-Pacific.Alluvium International has an office in New Dehli in India, and has delivered work in India, Laos PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, Samoa Nepal, Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, Tuvalu, New Guinea and Columbia.

2015

Appointment of Non Executive directors

2015 marked an important point in the maturity of the business with the decision to appoint Non-Executive Directors to the Alluvium Board. Dr Neil Byron and Prof Barry Hart joined us in 2015 and Dianne Tarte added further depth in 2019.Our Non-Executive Directors play a critical role in governance, strategic thinking and staff development.

2014

#16 in the BRW Best Places to Work Survey

An important motivation in founding Alluvium was creating an inspirational, supportive place to work. Between 2010 – 2014 we participated in the BRW Best Place to Work awards, before instigating our own third party process to allow us to ask a broader suite of questions.During this period we were ranked in the top 50 Best Places to Work every year, peaking with a ranking of 16th.We are proud of that our staff rate Alluvium as a great place to work and we actively use the information to monitor to identify areas where we can improve, and celebrate areas that we do exceptionally well.

Leadership in the Murray Darling Basin

Alluvium has played a leadership role in advancing the science and engineering solutions in the Murray-Darling Basin. We have worked with the MDBA to advance environmental watering conceptual models to produce the Basin Plan Science Strategy.From 2010 – 2013 we developed the Monitoring and Evaluation Plan for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, a significant body of work. We remained involved to fine tune the plan up to 2016.Supporting the implementation of the Plan, we developed a large number of the Sustainable Diversion Business Cases across Victoria and New South Wales, which underpinned approximately $220M of planned investment in water efficiency infrastructure.

2013

Completed expansion into Canberra, Brisbane and Sydney

Growth for Alluvium has always been driven by opportunities to be involved in work that drives our staff and makes a positive, lasting difference to our world. Central to these aspirations is our involvement in developing and helping implement best practice across Australia and beyond.In 2010 Alluvium opened an office in Canberra to allow us to become more embedded in the national debate and discussion on water reform around Australia.Brisbane followed in 2012 and in 2013 Alluvium acquired Equatica to both create a Sydney presence and to strengthen our capability in urban water management more broadly.

1000 Projects delivered Milestone

2013 was indeed a milestone where we clicked over our first 1,000 projects delivered.Our 1,000th project was working for the Metropolitan Planning Authority in Victoria on the development of a Whole of Water Cycle strategy and plan for the Rockbank Precinct Structure Plan.

2012

Criteria for functioning river landscape units

The safe and sustainable closure of large mines presents a generational challenge for Australia. We have played a major research and policy reform role in understanding, designing and influencing post-closure mining landscapes.Our work is underpinned by our involvement in over a decade of research into the central issues and challenges in creating sustainable landscapes in highly disturbed environments.Our project involved the review of Australian and global best practice diversion design and developed an understanding of the link between hydrologic and hydraulic parameters and the shape, size and occurrence of geomorphic units within the stream systems.

Isaac River Cumulative Impacts

Advanced fluvial geomorphology and stream restoration capabilities have been and remain central to our identity. We employ highly qualified specialists, work on the largest and most complex physical form issues, undertake R&D and build the capacity of our clients and competitors.One of the areas where we have unique capability is understanding the cumulative impact of waterway subsidence from underground longwall mining.In 2012 Alluvium received a research grant to investigate the cumulative impact and fluvial geomorphic processes from subsidence on the Isaac River in central Queensland. This work explored the ongoing geomorphic, hydrologic and ecological processes to provide industry leading best practice guidelines.

2011

Development of Sabah’s national environmental policy

We strive to influence policy development at the highest levels, and our work has driven major policy reform in Australia and internationally.Working with the Malaysian Government, and through an extensive consultation process, we developed a consolidated environmental policy to drive the creation of strategies and frameworks for balancing environmental issues with economic and social development issues for all sectors in Sabah.

2010

Old Man Creek Water regulation

Alluvium leads the design and construction management of instream water regulation structures, which are critical to the efficient distribution of water for the environment and irrigation.Old Man Creek and Beavers Creek form a large anabranch system on the Murrumbidgee River. We were engaged to develop a design to reduce the loss of water in the system and improve fish passage.The complexities of the hydrology and hydraulics in this ancient landscape presented some challenges, however we were able to develop an innovative design that was able to deliver the right volumes of water at the right time to maintain the existing environment values and meet irrigator requirements.

Lake Condah CCF Earth Award

2009

Basin Plan Ecosystem functions

A core capability is our business is being able to understand complex ecohydrological science, develop evidence-based recommendations, and communicate effectively with agencies and the community.The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) commissioned Alluvium to develop flow requirements associated with ecosystem functions within the Murray Darling Basin.The project was a significant piece of thinking and explored the assumption that the key ecological functions are underpinned by processes which can be described by the geomorphology and hydrology at a river reach scale.

2008

BRW Client Choice winner ‘Most innovative Professional services company’

Exceptional client service has been a foundation since our first day.Early on we participated in the BRW Client Choice Awards, which surveys more than 30,000 business people, and is the largest independent study of clients of professional services firms in the world. We are very proud of our achievements, which reflect the consistent drive of our staff to raise the bar on client service.2008 – Winner – ‘Most Innovative’ professional services consulting practice2009 – Finalist – Best Consulting Engineering Firm (revenue less than $50M)2010 – Finalist – Best Victorian Firm2011 – Winner – Best Consulting Engineering Firm (revenue less than $50M)2013 – Finalist –- Category not identified

2006

Alluvium Consulting launched

Our founders wanted to do business a different way, driven by a clear philosophy that a leading consulting firm could measure its success by metrics beyond profit.Technical excellence, ethical decision making, broad staff ownership, client service and innovation were critical elements of the business we create. They remain central to the way we do business today.