Showcase 2017 - Research Driving Change

• Simulations of a fire entering, propagating under and leaving a tree canopy are conducted using FDS [1], a physics-based model.
• The presence of a tree canopy effects the wind speed, which in turn effects the rate-of-spread of a fire.
• From the simulated data we extract the average sub-canopy wind speeds in the absence of a fire and measure the rate-of-spread of a fire.
• This is the first step to testing the wind-reduction factor approach used in current operational models.

Between 20-23 April 2015 the eastern coast of Australia was affected by a low-pressure system, known as an east coast low, which brought flooding, damaging winds and coastal erosion. This study utilises ensemble simulations to get a better understanding of the dynamics of this event, as well as its predictability. This is important for both forecasters and emergency services.

Some bushfires exhibit extreme behaviour that exceeds the bounds of existing predictive guides. Coupling between the fire and the atmosphere has been invoked as a cause of such unexpected behaviour. Events of this type are uncommon and cannot be investigated by conventional field experiments. This modelling project allows complex interactions between a fire and the atmosphere to be studied, potentially providing physically-based explanations that will lead to more reliable predictions and reduced risk to firefighters and the community.

This project will develop a pilot capability to predict impacts of extreme wind and rainfall on the built environment with the goal of improving timely mitigating actions by a wide range of stakeholders. This pilot project will initially focus on east coast low events that often severely impact the subtropical east coast of Australia via a range of hazards including high wind and rain.

In favourable atmospheric conditions, large hot fires can produce pyrocumulus cloud: deep convective columns resembling conventional thunderstorms. These in turn may generate strong surface winds, dangerous downbursts and lightning strikes that may enhance fire spread rates and fire intensity, cause sudden changes in fire direction, and ignite additional fires.

This project is addressing the need for an evidence base to inform decision making on the mitigation of the risk posed by Australian buildings subject to earthquake.

There is a real need in disaster resilience education for a more complete evaluation process by researchers and practitioners. The majority of evaluations have relied on knowledge retention being recapitulated in an interview or survey situation and not applied as many of these messages are intended. The focus of evaluations of disaster resilience education programs has been to assess the knowledge transfer to participants, but often neglects the skill development and application as well as changes in behaviour, in particular long term choices.

This project will seek to answer the following questions:

• What are the productivity rates of different types of firefighting resource that work on large fires?
• How do the productivity rates for large fires compare with existing initial attack productivity rates?
• To what degree do environmental factors, such as weather and topography impact resource productivity?

The focus of this research is to assess the performance of existing reinforce conrete (RC) wall and core buildings in response to a rare or very rare earthquake event in Australia. Ultimately, fragility functions for different performance objectives will be derived and cost effective detailing provisions will be recommended.

This project aims to identify and build best practice approaches to animal emergency management to enable engagement with animal owners, and other stakeholders in disasters and emergencies.

The main goal of this study is to determine the optimal procedure for the estimation of above-ground biomass in north Australian mesic savannas by using LIDAR remote sensing based methods.

The aim of this project is to examine evidence-based strategies that motivate appropriate action and increase informed decision-making during the response and early recovery phases of natural disasters. These are the results from work conducted over 2014-2017. We will be expanding on this project during 2017-2020.

Himawari-8 presents exciting opportunities to map fires in near real time. Exploiting information across temporal and spatial domains enables a new paradigm in fire detection and surveillance.

Internal pressures are generated inside a building during a wind storm from openings in the envelope. Internal pressures contribute to a large portion of the loads on a building, failures due to internal pressures are often seen post events. This project aims to provide more accurate internal pressure design criterion for wind loading standards, thus increasing resulience, survivability and improve vulnerability modeling of all building stock in Australia.

Who is most at risk? Why? What are they doing? How have vulnerability and exposure trends changed over time? What can we learn about the circumstances of these deaths? This information will assist agencies with planning, resourcing and community education. 

The Fuels3D app provides a low cost data collection method for estimating fuel hazard metrics. Testing of the app has demonstrated that it provides significantly greater repeatability and improved quantification of metrics than visual assessments.

Fuel on the ground, such as leaves, twigs and decomposing matter, accumulate over time and account for a large percentage of the total fuel load in forests. The air permeability of the litter layer is a critical factor that influences fire behaviour because the aire permeavility controls the amount of oxygen available for the combustion in the fuel bed.

When plans have an over-reliance on what happened in the past, the risk is that one misses the potential for a future that is different, unseen, and unimaginable. Hindsight, learning the lessons of the past, is necessary, but planning should be driven also by imagination and foresight. Are we planning for the next fire? Or are we planning for the next 'firestorm'? What do we think that will look like? In this setting, the greatest failure may well be the failure to imagine.

The first national-scale, pre-operational, near-real time live fuel moisture content and flammability monitoring system for Australia.

The work undertaken through the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC is part of a savanna-wide program of mostly web based fire mapping and related information to assist land managers with fire planning across very large tracts of land. We are developiuung the Savanna Monitoring & Evaluation Reporting Framework (SMERF) to provide easy to use, flexible, but sophisticated reports.

Effective risk mitigation strategies must be designed for long-term resiliency across a range of potential future scenarios. This requires efficient application, particularly by inexperienced users, of dynamic exposure models.

This project provides a comprehensive benchmark that will underpin the ability to manage the impacts of extreme water levels on coastal regions at local, regional and national scales.

Junction fires occur when two oblique fire lines intersect with one another. The interaction of the two fire lines means that junction fires can exhibit unexpected fire behaviour, with enhanced rates of spread in the vicinity of the junction point. Quantifying these interactions is essential for the development of next generation fire spread models, which will allow prediction of dynamic fire propagation.

Road infrastructure plays an important role after a disaster and is a vital factor influencing recovery and reconstruction activities. This project aims to develop a framework to measure social, environmental and economic consequences of disaster related road failure, which will help to understand the wider impacts of road failure in a post-disaster context.

The impact of changing coastal inundation hazards to people and property becomes increasingly uncertain across multi-decadal timeframes. Identifying 'thresholds' can better inform long-term coastal adaptation planning at local, state and national scales.

This study aims to understand a community's experience of the 2013 Forcett bushfire disaster in southeast Tasmania.

Volunteers were surveyed to identify the dominant and shared values of volunteers in the NSW SES and SA SES followed by participatory action research with units in the NSW SES. The findings have implications for all facets of volunteer engagement in the emergency service sector, including targeted recruitment, tailored training, differentiated management strategies, new models of engagement, and the alignment of organisational and personal values.

Volunteers are the lifeblood of Australian emergency services and constitute a unique skilled workforce that provides an essential public service. A number of emergency services have experienced annual volunteer turnover exceeding 20%, with major financial and capability implications. The research is seeking to better understand the primary motives for volunteering in Australian emergency services, and to determine what role the alignment of individual, unit and corporate values plays in volunteer satisfaction and turnover.

Building community resilience to natural disasters is a complex challenge that spans many policy areas. This project tackles it by delivering policy options that could help governments and emergency services to strenthen resilience in communities.

This project aims to develop a framework for understanding the ownership of risks from bushfires and natural hazards at the institutional level in order to improve risk governance.

Disaster resilience policy is being implemented via a range of programs and activites across Australia - effective implementation is critical for ensuring successful outcomes.

Prescribed burning is a widely accepted wildfire hazard reduction technique, however knowledge of its effectiveness remains limited.

Soil organic matter has strong effects on soil properties such as water holding capacity, soil structure and stability, nutrient availability and cation exchange capacity. Bushfire can change these properties depending on intensity and duration of heating. Pyrolysis coupled to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (pyr-GC-MS) is a novel technique that can been used for soil characterisation.

How does prescribed burning effectiveness in mitigating risk depend on the diverse and changing biophysical, climatic and human context of southern Australia?

This research is designed to develop a spatial approach to support the planning of the water quality in the areas subjected to bushfires, using a case study from the State of Victoria. In particular, this research involved the implementation of a hydrological model in order to predict the river water quality, to assist in the decision‐making process.

Wildfire removes the surface vegetation, releases ash, increases erosion and runoff, and therefore effects the hydrological cycle of a forested water catchment. It is important to understand changes in water quality in fire‐impacted catchments and how they recover post‐fire.

This new action‐research project will:

Australia faces increasing losses from natural hazard events. Resilient communities will be better able to anticipate hazards, withstand adversity, reduce losses and adapt and learn in a changing environment. The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index is a system to assess and report the resilience of Australian communities to natural hazards.

This project will address two complimentary areas of research relating to the long term recovery of communities after a disaster.

Adoption of location-based information sharing technologies and the emergence of digital volunteering has seen changes to community involvement in disaster management. We examine how geoweb 2.0 platforms, including crowd mapping and social media, can support elements of resilience building, and how these practices potentially undermine resilience.