Battery Materials Flood Study

Flood modelling for a battery materials plant proposed inside a Goldfields industrial area, where several poorly defined creeks cross the site and most of the ground sheds water as sheet flow rather than through any channel.

No stream gauge exists anywhere in these catchments, so flood frequency analysis was off the table and peak flows had to be built from regional estimation methods instead — then carried into a 2D model run for existing conditions and again with the development and its protection measures in place.

An arid site with 270 mm of rain a year reads as low risk until you look at how it arrives. Ephemeral creeks with no defined channel spread floodwater across a much wider footprint than a mapped watercourse would, and a plant sited on that ground has to be protected from a flow path that is invisible on a dry day.