@conference {bnh-6513, title = {Future risk framework: understanding tomorrow{\textquoteright}s risk and what we can do to reduce it}, booktitle = {AFAC19 powered by INTERSCHUTZ - Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Research Forum}, year = {2019}, month = {12/2019}, publisher = {Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience}, organization = {Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Unless appropriate mitigation action is taken, disaster risk is likely to increase into the future due to factors such as climate change, population growth, economic development and an ageing population. Consequently, there is a pressing need to think about plausible future risks and how to best mitigate them. This paper presents the future risk framework, which provides a structured, stepwise approach for relevant agencies to explore future risk and what it means for their organisation. The framework consists of four main steps, progressively increasing in levels of insight into future risk, as well as increasing the level of quantification of risk. A key feature of the framework is the incorporation of sense-making and its implementation consists of a combination of participatory approaches and the use of data, information, modelling and analysis. Application of the framework is illustrated for the case study of Greater Adelaide, South Australia, highlighting the approaches used and the level of insight into future risk obtained at each of the four stages. A discussion on the challenges associated with using this insight to mitigate future risk is also provided, suggesting that a collaborative, multidisciplinary, multi-agency approach is needed to effectively mitigate all aspects of future risk, especially those associated with increases in exposure and vulnerability.\ 

Download the full non-peer reviewed research proceedings\ from the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Research Forumhere.

}, keywords = {Climate change, Disaster risk, mitigation, Planning, risk management, risk reduction}, url = {https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/australian-journal-of-emergency-management-monograph-series/}, author = {Graeme Riddell and Hedwig van Delden and Holger Maier and Aaron Zecchin and Roel Vanhout and James Daniell and Sofanit Araya and Graeme Dandy and Jeffrey Newman} } @conference {bnh-6388, title = {How Safe is Safe Enough? Melbourne Case Study}, booktitle = {Australian Earthquake Engineering Society 2019 Conference}, year = {2019}, month = {12/2019}, address = {Newcastle}, abstract = {

Residual risk exists in our buildings even if they were designed in conformance with modern codes of practice. The risk of being killed by earthquakes in Melbourne was discussed in the AEES 2018 Conference (Tsang et al. 2018a). This follow-up paper attempts to address a fundamental question in seismic design: {\textquotedblleft}How Safe is Safe Enough?{\textquotedblright} Various approaches have been implemented or proposed in the last decade for setting risk-targeted performance requirements for seismic design. A target collapse risk limit for a single building may be considered very low by some; however, the aggregated risk for society could become significant, especially for a metropolitan city like Melbourne. This paper introduces an approach proposed by the authors (refer Tsang et al. 2019for full details and discussion)for evaluating the adequacy of existing code level for collapse prevention and life safety by comparing societal risk functions based on regional earthquake loss modelling with a proposed regulatory requirement that aims to limit the earthquake mortality rate to {\textquotedblleft}as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP){\textquotedblright}. The proposed approach is then applied to Melbourne in a case study. The results show that the earthquake fatality risk for society appears to be unacceptable.

}, keywords = {building, Collapse, earthquake, Earthquake fatality, F-N function, Societal risk}, url = {https://aees.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/66-Hing-Ho-Tsang.pdf}, author = {Hing-Ho Tsang and James Daniell and Friedemann Wenzel and John Wilson} } @article {bnh-6141, title = {A universal approach for evaluating earthquake safety level based on societal fatality risk}, journal = {Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering}, year = {2019}, month = {10/2019}, pages = {1-24}, abstract = {

Residual risk exists in our buildings even if they were designed in conformance with modern codes of practice. Various approaches have been implemented or proposed in the last decade for setting risk-based performance requirements for seismic design of building structures. However, there is insufficient consideration about the aggregated risk for society, which could be significant especially for a densely populated metropolitan city. This paper introduces a rational and universal approach for evaluating the adequacy of structural safety requirements by comparing societal risk functions based on probabilistic loss assessment with a proposed regulatory requirement that aims to limit the mortality rate to {\textquotedblleft}as low as reasonably practicable\ (ALARP){\textquotedblright}. The proposed approach is then applied to Melbourne, Australia, in a case study, which shows that the earthquake fatality risk for the society appears to be unacceptable. The outcome can be used for justification of a seismic retrofitting policy or a required change of the design code level. The proposed scheme is also applicable to other natural hazards and for safety engineering applications generally.

}, keywords = {Building structure, Collapse, Earthquake fatality, F{\textendash}N, Seismic safety, Societal risk}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-019-00727-9}, url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10518-019-00727-9}, author = {Hing-Ho Tsang and James Daniell and Friedemann Wenzel and John Wilson} } @article {bnh-3916, title = {Review of literature on decision support systems for natural hazard risk reduction: current status and future research directions}, journal = {Environmental Modelling \& Software}, volume = {96}, year = {2017}, month = {10/2017}, pages = {378-409}, chapter = {378}, abstract = {

Natural hazard risk is largely projected to increase in the future, placing growing responsibility on decision makers to proactively reduce risk. Consequently, decision support systems (DSSs) for natural hazard risk reduction (NHRR) are becoming increasingly important. In order to provide directions for future research in this growing area, a comprehensive classification system for the review of NHRR-DSSs is introduced, including scoping, problem formulation, the analysis framework, user and organisational interaction with the system, user engagement, monitoring and evaluation. A review of 101 papers based on this classification system indicates that most effort has been placed on identifying areas of risk and assessing economic consequences resulting from direct losses. However, less effort has been placed on testing risk-reduction options and considering future changes to risk. Furthermore, there was limited evidence within the reviewed papers on the success of DSSs in practice and whether stakeholders participated in DSS development and use.

}, doi = {10.1016/j.envsoft.2017.06.042}, url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364815216311239}, author = {Jeffrey Newman and Holger Maier and Graeme Riddell and Aaron Zecchin and James Daniell and Andreas Schafer and Hedwig van Delden and Bijan Khazai and Michael O{\textquoteright}Flaherty and Charles Newland} } @conference {bnh-2949, title = {A spatial decision support system for natural hazard risk reduction policy assessment and planning}, booktitle = {AFAC16}, year = {2016}, month = {08/2016}, publisher = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, organization = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Brisbane}, abstract = {

The challenges facing environmental policymakers grow increasingly complex and uncertain as more factors that impact on their ability to manage the environment and its risks need to be considered. Due to a large number of influencing environmental and anthropogenic factors, natural hazard risk is difficult to estimate accurately, and exaggerated by large uncertainty in future socioeconomic consequences. Furthermore, resources are scarce, and the benefits of risk reduction strategies are often intangible. Consequently, a decision support system assisting managers to understand disaster risk has great advantage for strategic policy assessment and development, and is the focus of this extended abstract.
The spatial decision support system (SDSS) presented is being developed in collaboration with several South Australian government departments and funded by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC. It integrates multiple hazard models with a land use model which includes information on population and building stock to consider long term spatial and temporal dynamics of natural hazard risk. The integrated SDSS operates at a 100m resolution with a time-step of one year and can be used to model 20{\textendash}50 years into the future. Hazards included in the SDSS include riverine flood, coastal inundation, bushfire, heatwave and earthquake. Each is modelled dependent on the relevant physical properties of the hazard and include the impacts of climate change on hydro-meteorological, bushfire and heatwave hazard. The land use model is driven by land use demand (population and jobs), and allocates land accordingly.

}, author = {Graeme Riddell and Holger Maier and Hedwig van Delden and Jeffrey Newman and Aaron Zecchin and Roel Vanhout and James Daniell and Andreas Schafer and Graeme Dandy and Charles Newland} }