School of Civil Engineering

Dr David Wainwright

Adjunct Research Fellow
School of Civil Engineering
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Researcher biography

Dr David Wainwright is an adjunct research fellow with the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Queensland. Apart from his involvement in research, David also has over 20 years of industry experience as a consulting engineer, focusing on coastal engineering, environmental hydraulics, geomorphology and adaptation to climate change - particularly in the coastal zone.

David's work typically covers coastal engineering design, coastal geomorphology and land use planning. David is also broadly familiar with key aspects of coastal ecology, local government management, property law and community consultation. His key areas of expertise include risk assessment methods for planning in the face of coastal and flooding hazards and sea level rise, engineering design, numerical modelling, and coastal lagoons. David's PhD thesis investigated numerical modelling methods to inform management of the entrances to coastal lagoons.

He has been a chartered engineer with Engineers Australia since 2001, with membership in the Civil and Environmental Colleges. David provides regular services to that organisation in interviewing individuals applying for chartered membership and acting as a judge for its biannual Engineering Excellence Awards. David is also a conjoint lecturer with the School of Environmental and Life Sciences at the University of Newcastle. David is a director of Salients Pty Limited, a consulting company he established in 2015.

Publications

Book (1)
Book Chapter (1)
Journal Articles (10)
Conference Papers (8)
Thesis (1)
Data Collections (2)

Book

Woodroffe, Colin D., Cowell, Peter J., Callaghan, David P., Ranasinghe, Roshanka, Jongejan, Ruben, Wainwright, David J., Barry, Stephen J., Rogers, Kerry and Dougherty, Amy J. (2012). Approaches to risk assessment on Australian coasts: A model framework for assessing risk and adaptation to climate change on Australian coasts: final report. Gold Coast, Australia: National Climate Change Adaptation Research.

Book Chapter

Woodroffe, Colin, Callaghan, Dave, Cowell, Peter, Wainwright, David, Rogers, Kerrylee and Ranasinghe, Roshanka (2014). A framework for modelling the risks of climate-change impacts on Australian coasts. Applied Studies in Climate Adaptation. (pp. 181-189) edited by Palutikof, JP, Boulter, SL, Barnett, J and Rissik, D. Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom: John Wiley and Sons. doi: 10.1002/9781118845028.ch20

Journal Articles

Ranasinghe, Roshanka, Callaghan, David P., Li, Fan, Wainwright, David J. and Duong, Trang Minh (2023). Assessing coastline recession for adaptation planning: sea level rise versus storm erosion. Scientific Reports, 13 (1) 8286, 1-8. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-35523-8
Callaghan, David P., Wainwright, David J. and Hanslow, David J. (2020). Consideration of uncertainty in sea level rise in Australia's most exposed estuary: a discussion on allowances under different epistemic uncertainties. Coastal Engineering, 159 103718, 1-18. doi: 10.1016/j.coastaleng.2020.103718
Tonmoy, Fahim Nawroz, Wainwright, David, Verdon-Kidd, Danielle C. and Rissik, David (2018). An investigation of coastal climate change risk assessment practice in Australia. Environmental Science and Policy, 80, 9-20. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2017.11.003
Jongejan, Ruben, Ranasinghe, Roshanka, Wainwright, David, Callaghan, David P. and Reyns, Johan (2016). Drawing the line on coastline recession risk. Ocean and Coastal Management, 122, 87-94. doi: 10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2016.01.006
Wainwright, D. J. and Baldock, T. E. (2015). Measurement and modelling of an artificial coastal lagoon breach. Coastal Engineering, 101, 1-16. doi: 10.1016/j.coastaleng.2015.04.002
Wainwright, D. J., Ranasinghe, R., Callaghan, D. P., Woodroffe, C. D., Jongejan, R., Dougherty, A. J., Rogers, K. and Cowell, P. J. (2015). Moving from deterministic towards probabilistic coastal hazard and risk assessment: development of a modelling framework and application to Narrabeen Beach, New South Wales, Australia. Coastal Engineering, 96, 92-99. doi: 10.1016/j.coastaleng.2014.11.009
Lotsari, Eliisa, Wainwright, David, Corner, Geoffrey D., Alho, Petteri and Kayhko, Jukka (2014). Surveyed and modelled one-year morphodynamics in the braided lower Tana River. Hydrological Processes, 28 (4), 2685-2716. doi: 10.1002/hyp.9750
Wainwright, D. J., Ranasinghe, R., Callaghan, D. P., Woodroffe, C. D., Cowell, P. J. and Rogers, K. (2014). An argument for probabilistic coastal hazard assessment: Retrospective examination of practice in New South Wales, Australia. Ocean and Coastal Management, 95, 147-155. doi: 10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2014.04.009
Wainwright, D. J., Callaghan, D. P. and Baldock, T. E. (2013). Statistical modelling of the barrier height fronting a coastal lagoon and the impact of sea-level rise. Coastal Engineering, 75, 10-20. doi: 10.1016/j.coastaleng.2013.01.003
Callaghan, David P. and Wainwright, David (2013). The impact of various methods of wave transfers from deep water to nearshore when determining extreme beach erosion. Coastal Engineering, 74, 50-58. doi: 10.1016/j.coastaleng.2012.12.001

Conference Papers

Wainwright, David J., Gaston, Troy, Lord, Doug B., Macdonald, Tim and Brown, Warren (2017). Balancing competing objectives in coastal entrance management. Australasian Coasts and Ports 2017 Conference, Cairns, QLD Australia, 21-23 June 2017. Barton, ACT Australia: Engineers Australia, PIANC Australia and Institute of Professional Engineers New Zealand.
Wainwright, David J., Callaghan, David P., Cowell, Peter, Dougherty, Amy and Woodroffe, Colin D. (2013). Probabilistic coastal hazard lines for risk based coastal assessment. Coasts and Ports 2013: 21st Australasian Coastal and Ocean Engineering Conference and the 14th Australasian Port and Harbour Conference, Manly, NSW, Australia, 11-13 September, 2013. Barton, ACT, Australia: Engineers Australia.
Wainwright, David J., Callaghan, David P., Cowell, Peter, Dougherty, Amy and Woodroffe, Colin D. (2013). Probabilistic coastal hazard lines for risk based coastal assessment. 21st Australasian Coastal and Ocean Engineering Conference and the 14th Australasian Port and Harbour Conference, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 11-13 September 2013. Barton, ACT, Australia: National Committee on Applied Mechanics.
Wainwright, D. J., Baldock, T. E. and Callaghan, D. P. (2012). Statistical modelling of coastal lagoon barrier height to inform coastal design and planning. Coast to Coast 2012, Brisbane, Australia, 17-21 September 2012.
Wainwright, David, Callaghan, David, Cowell, Peter and Woodroffe, Colin (2012). Coastal adaptation framework from geological to engineering time scales. Coast to Coast 2012, Brisbane, Australia, 17-21 September 2012.
Wainwright, D., Baldock, T. and Callaghan, D. (2012). Coastal Lagoon Entrance Management - What can models tell us?. 21st NSW Coastal Conference, Kiama, NSW, Australia, 6-9 November 2012. Australia: New South Wales Coastal Conference.
Wainwright, David, Callaghan, David, Jongejan, Ruben, Ranasinghe, Roshanka and Cowell, Peter (2012). How to weigh coastal hazard against economic consequence. 33rd International Conference on Coastal Engineering 2012, ICCE 2012, Santander, Cantabria, Spain, 1-6 July 2012. Reston, VA United States: American Society of Civil Engineers. doi: 10.9753/icce.v33.posters.31
Wainwright, D. J., Kidd, L. J., Guard, P. A. and Baldock, T. E. (2011). Morphodynamic modelling of entrance breakout for a coastal lake. Coasts and Ports 2011, Perth, Australia, 28-30 September 2011. Barton, ACT, Australia: Engineers Australia.

Thesis

Wainwright, David John (2012). Dynamic modelling of coastal lagoon opening processes. PhD Thesis, School of Civil Engineering, The University of Queensland. doi: 10.14264/uql.2015.411

Data Collections

Callaghan, David, Wainwright, David and Hanslow, David (2020). Statistical simulations of Swansea Channel flooding under uncertain sea level rise. The University of Queensland. (Dataset) doi: 10.14264/uql.2020.714
Wainwright, David (2015). Tabourie Lake artificial breach data. The University of Queensland. (Dataset) doi: 10.14264/uql.2015.640