Dr. Gordon O’Brien

Dr. Gordon O’Brien, lecturer at the University of Mpumalanga, is an environmental flow expert and practitioner with sound freshwater and riverine ecology expertise. He has been in charge for the development of an environmental flow methodology for the Nile Basin for NBI-GIZ, as well as various applications of regional scale ecological risk assessment techniques, incorporating ecosystem and statistical modelling techniques, for water resource management in southern, eastern, and central Africa. Gordon has specific experience with ecological water requirements and environmental flow assessments that are associated with river basin management as well as the construction and operation of dams, irrigation schemes and other major developments on large rivers in Africa including the Nile, Zambezi, Thukela and Vaal, Senqu and Nzoro and Kibali Rivers. In addition, Gordon has evaluated the environmental performance of major industries, the impacts of alien invasive species on indigenous species and multiple stressors to a broad range of ecological and socio-economic endpoints within numerous catchments on a reach to catchment scale (Nile, Limpopo, Vaal and Umvoti catchments). For more than a decade Gordon has been researching the biology and ecology of aquatic species and their use as ecological indicators throughout southern, eastern, and central Africa.

Education: PhD, MSc

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