MWH New Zealand Ltd
30 July 2007
Media Release
MWH Wins Road Innovation Award
MWH, in collaboration with Transit New Zealand, has won the 2007 New Zealand Road Innovation Award for its
ground-breaking work to identify environmental risk areas in the state highway network.
The award recognises the best roading paper delivered at a conference in New Zealand or overseas within the previous 12
months and was presented last night in Christchurch at the Transport07 Conference ”Transport – the Next 50 Years” by
Annette King, Minister of Transport.
The winning paper “Sensitive Receiving Environments at Risk from State Highway Runoff” was jointly authored by MWH’s
Laurie Gardiner, Alastair Osborne and Transit New Zealand’s Carl Reller. MWH was commissioned by Transit to undertake
the study in early 2007.
Road runoff can have major adverse effects on natural environments. MWH’s innovative geographic information system (GIS)
tool identified waterbodies potentially at risk from highway stormwater runoff. The tool will help highlight where best
to allocate resource to improve environmental performance.
Laurie Gardiner from MWH says: “This collaborative work is a significant step in assisting Transit to develop a more
sustainable transport system. Innovation is at the heart of technical progress, as exemplified by papers at this
conference, and the MWH team is honoured to be cited for this prestigious award.”
- ENDS