Wolfgang Schmid

Biography

Dr Wolfgang Schmid’s primary research focus lies in computational solutions of water resources management with special interest in the integrated modelling of the interaction between and conjunctive use of surface water and groundwater.

During his time at CSIRO, Dr Schmid has led projects centred around client-focused sustainable water management in Western Australia ranging from Managed Aquifer Recharge to more efficient methods of predicting recharge for groundwater allocation planning. He also led or contributed to projects assessing the risk of exceeding regulatory targets (such as critical groundwater level targets to avoid irreversible land subsidence, or contamination targets for treated wastewater to determine environmental compliance). Dr Schmid is the original author of ‘The Farm Process’ for MODFLOW, a code designed to model the conjunctive use of groundwater and surface water, which is now integrated into the USGS’s One Water Hydrologic Model (OWHM). OWHM is ranked by the World Bank as one of 3 top models for conjunctive use modelling and was used in more than 70 applications worldwide (among them 4 Australian).

In the past, he also taught international groundwater modelling workshops in Australia to build modelling capacity for overseas scientists from Pakistan (Canberra, 2016) as well as for CSIRO staff (Perth, 2013) and was invited to teach internationally (USGS, San Diego, 2013; Technical University of Munich, Germany 2014; Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna Pisa, Italy (SSSAP), 2018).

Prior to joining CSIRO in 2012, he worked as assistant research professor and research hydrologist at the University of Arizona, where he also graduated from with a PhD in hydrology in 2014. Before that, he worked as a hydrogeologist in consultancies in Germany and the United Arab Emirates with emphasis on groundwater exploration, groundwater modelling, and contaminant hydrogeology.