AGS Townsville Symposium 2026

Resilience - Geotechnical engineering for extreme events

The Australian Geomechanics Society (AGS) QLD Chapter is pleased to announced that our 3rd biennial regional symposium will be held in Townsville. This will be a full-day event comprising technical presentations from peers in our field. Our theme this year is “Resilience: Geotechnical engineering for extreme events”.

AGS is growing, announcement for North QLD will also be made!

Thank you all for your support to our community!

John Eckersley Geotechnical Engineer (retired), previously James Cook University, Coffey Geosciences & AECOM

Slips, Boulders and Debris Flows: the Geotechnical Legacy of Tropical Cyclone Tessi

Dr Jun Sugawara Director (Geotechnical), Department of Transport and Main Roads

Geotechnical natural disaster response: Current practices and possible improvements in QLD

Eugene Lapore Principal Geotechnical Engineer, Worley

Geotechnical Risk Management in Tropical High Seismicity Mine Sites in Southeast Asia

Rhys Jones Technical Advisor, Operations, Queensland Reconstruction Authority

Practical guidance for successful and timely funding submissions after a disaster

Dr Peter To Senior Lecturer, James Cook University

New internal erosion testing

Sallyanne Brooke-Taylor Principal Dam Safety & Operations, Townsville City Council

Ross River Dam – Managing the Extremes of our Weather

Nicholas Thomas-Kinsella Dams Service Line Leader – APAC, Technical Director, Dams GHD

Kuranda Weir Recovery: A Case Study in Geotechnical Resilience Following an Extreme Event

Greg Hackney Senior Principal, EDG Consulting

Sarina Range Remediation after Cyclone Debbie: Outcomes and Performance

Dr Pramod Thakur Technical Executive, WSP

Performance-based geotechnical design for extreme events – A Case Study

Ian Thompson Director, CGC

Using 3D mapping to minimise uncertainty in disaster recovery and design

Matt Cochrane Senior Associate Geotechnical Engineer, SMEC

Creation of city scale landslide susceptibility maps using machine learning

Allan McConnell Founder, Insitu Geotech Services

Geo-calamities – three short stories of projects gone exceedingly awry

Women in AGS: Breakfast

On the morning of the Symposium the Women in AGS sub-committee is hosting a breakfast at Canto Kitchen & Bar JCU. While the breakfast is an optional event with separate registration, it is an opportunity for the women and men of North Queensland to join us for a casual networking breakfast. The event will finish at 8:15 am, enough time for you to head over to the Symposium (on campus), or back to your office.

Register for the WiAGS Breakfast

Sponsorship Opportunities

The AGS is pleased to offer three levels of sponsorship for this year’s symposium: Gold, Silver and Bronze. Sponsorship helps the AGS Queensland Chapter committee facilitate high quality events at competitive prices, and we encourage potential sponsors to consider supporting this event.

Interested parties can purchase a sponsorship online.

More information is available in the Sponsorship Flyer.

Registration

Members are required to log in to access the AGS member price, which is not transferable.

More information about logging in to this website can be found here.

Payment via credit card is available and processed by Stripe. The Australian Geomechanics Society will not store or have access to your credit card information, and Stripe adhere to strict security and PCI compliance for processing online transactions.

Upon purchase, an email and a tax invoice will be sent to the buyer. Attendees will also receive an email with their tickets attached, as well as a link to download the tickets if they are misplaced.

Information about discounts and refunds can be found here.

Engineers Australia members participating in AGS technical sessions can record attendance on their personal CPD logs. Members should refer to Engineers Australia CPD policy for details on CPD types, requirements and auditing guidelines.