Sustainable Management of our Basin Contained Crustal Services - An Australian Perspective

With the advent of a number of new geo-energy technologies such as geothermal coal seam gas, shale gas and tight gas as well as geological storage of water, fuel and waste the demands on the shallow crust are becoming extreme, especially in our sedimentary basins. As a result the likelihood of resource conflict increases along with the potential for sterilization of potential future uses of portions of a basin due to poor planning (ie geothermal reservoirs used to store CO2). In this presentation we will present the current state of play with regard to Sustainable Sedimentary Basin Management in Australia and discuss a number of new research programs that are installing monitoring systems to assess the impact of developments in the shallow crust. We will also discuss the associated research being conducted into the modelling complex basin systems and the new integrated management workflows that are being developed to help scientists and policy makers sustainably manage these crustal services into the future.