Vapour and Ground Gas Specialist Interest Group Wrap Up

Written by Daniel Hodges (CEnvP, Principal, Geosyntec Consultants) and Sam Willis (Senior Project Scientist, Alliance Geotechnical)

What has been the highlight of your Branch/SIG this year? 

This year the Vapour and Ground Gas SIG partnered with the Risk Assessment SIG to host the Gas and Vapour Symposium – What is the Risk? This was an amazing symposium filled with technical presentations and attended by over 140 people. We had fabulous keynotes speakers in Steve Wilson and Jen Martin, as well as a bustling trade hall.  Our three themes covered: advancements in sampling and field monitoring methods; risk considerations for vapour intrusion and ground gas; and remediation and management approaches. As a SIG, we were very happy host this day of technical learning for our industry and the quality of the presentations demonstrated a mature outlook for managing the risk for vapour intrusion and ground gas. The symposium was followed by two trainings sessions, one in Melbourne and one in Sydney.  The Melbourne session was a half-day hands on training session provided by Dane Egleton (CSI Australia) and Kristian Hansen (SGS). Both Dane and Kristian are very experienced practitioners and the session covered vapour and ground gas sampling techniques, common pitfalls, and best practice approaches. The Sydney session was a full day training session on advanced ground gas provided by Steve Wilson (EPG) and James Lucas (Core Environmental).   The course drew extensively on the wealth of UK guidance published since 2019 and addressed critical considerations for ground gas risk assessment. 

Images also available through ALGA’s Flickr page here: Gas and Vapour Symposium – What is the Risk? | Flickr)

What are you most excited about in the new financial year (1 July  2025 – 30 June 2026)

As a SIG we continue to foster growth for vapour intrusion and ground gas and we have ongoing projects related to this, including exploring the mechanisms for updating the NEPM to bring this key guidance document in line with current industry practices, particularly around ground gas and vapour intrusion guidance.  The NEPM was published in 2013 and as the industry matures, the underlying guidance should be updated to capture best practice and to recognise flexibility in the detailed application.  As a group we are aiming to gain momentum for a NEPM update and this would involve industry partnering with state and federal based regulators.

Off the back of the successful symposium in March, we are also excited to plan for our next industry event. These are great opportunities to showcase high quality technical presentations to likeminded practitioners and allows best practices to demonstrated.

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