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Dr Dirk Mallants

Senior Principal Research Scientist

https://people.csiro.au/m/d/dirk-mallants

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Contact details:

PO BOX 200
GLENSIDE SA 5065 AUSTRALIA

Biography

Dr Dirk Mallants is a senior groundwater and subsurface systems scientist with more than 30 years of experience leading and advising programs in groundwater sustainability and protection, contaminant transport, subsurface risk assessment, and radioactive waste disposal. He supports government and industry with the scientific evidence, modelling capability, and decision frameworks needed to assess complex subsurface systems and to manage long-term environmental risk with confidence.

Dirk brings a combination of technical depth, program leadership, and policy relevance. His expertise spans site characterisation, contaminant fate and transport, repository safety assessment, deep geological and borehole disposal concepts, and the design of monitoring and analytical capability needed to support defensible decisions on long-term subsurface risk. He is particularly recognised for integrating experimental observations, including environmental tracers, with coupled numerical models to evaluate groundwater behaviour, contaminant migration, and long-term hydrologic isolation performance in complex geological settings.

He has played key scientific and advisory roles in national and international radioactive waste programs. At the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK•CEN), he led performance assessment work for surface and deep geological repositories, contributing to safety case development, site investigations, and regulatory decision-making. In Australia, he served as a subject-matter expert to the South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission and contributed to the Indigenous engagement activities of the subsequent State-wide Community Consultation Agency (2015–2016). At CSIRO, he led a multidisciplinary RD&D program assessing the feasibility of a novel disposal method, that is deep borehole disposal of intermediate-level radioactive waste (2020–2023). That work integrated deep rock characterisation, borehole stability, coupled thermo-hydrological analysis, materials science, fault analysis, and post-closure safety assessment to test the practicality of a deep borehole disposal concept. He also served as Chair of the Management Board of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency’s Horonobe International Project (2023–2024), strengthening his international leadership credentials in geological disposal science and governance.

Beyond direct project delivery, Dirk has secured investment and built advanced analytical capability in environmental tracers, including noble gases and tritium, to improve understanding of shallow and deep groundwater systems and the capacity of low-permeability rock formations to provide long-term isolation from the hydrological cycle. He has fostered strategic partnerships that expand national capability, including collaboration with Adelaide University to establish one of the world’s first Atom Trap Trace Analysis facilities for ultra-trace krypton measurement in groundwater. These investments strengthen Australia’s ability to characterise deep groundwater systems and to support high-confidence assessment of sustainable groundwater use, waste disposal and contaminant mitigation options.

Professional Areas

Fields of Research

Current

Academic Qualifications

  • 1996

    PhD
    Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)

Achievements and Awards

  • 2023-2025

    Medium Infrastructure Program
    Science and Industry Endowment Fund

  • 2018-2020

    Medium Infrastructure Program
    Science and Industry Endowment Fund

  • 2016-2016

    Nuclear Fuel Cycle Community & Response Agency - Australasian Best Project of the Year
    International Association for Public Participation

  • 2016-2016

    Sir Frederick McMaster Fellowship for Professor Jirka Simunek
    CSIRO

  • 2014-2014

    OCE Cutting Edge Science Symposium "Critical Zones"
    CSIRO

  • 2012-2012

    Sir Frederick McMaster Fellowship for Professor Jasper Vrugt
    CSIRO

Grants

  • 01/04/1996-30/09/1996

    Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship (hosted by Saga University, Kyushu)

  • 28/11/2022-18/12/2022

    Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship (hosted by Japan Atomic Energy Agency)

Community and Corporate Citizenship

  • 31/10/2013-31/12/2016

    Australian Research Council College of Experts

  • 2014-2019

    Research Advisory Committee member for the Goyder Institute for Water Research

  • 2017-2021

    Independent Assessor for NZ Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment

  • 2000-2002

    Associate Editor Journal of Environmental Quality

  • 2012-2014

    Associate Editor Vadose Zone Journal

  • 2013-2015

    American Society of Agronomy - Associate Editor Soils

  • 2012-2013

    Associate Editor Journal of Hydrology and Hydrodynamics

Related links

Publications

We have publications by Dr Dirk Mallants