Melbourne 2019: annual conference

Something like 8,000 years ago, Tasmania separated from mainland Australia. Species that occupied the same geographic range began a process of speciation. An example is Eucalyptus delegatensis subsp. tasmaniensis (EDST), which diverged from the mainland Eucalyptus delegatensis subsp. delegatensis, endemic to the Victorian Alps.

Rising public and professional expectations require a greater, more transparent understanding of the trade-offs involved in the management of landscape fire and prescribed burning. This project provides a quantitative trajectory of risk reduction for multiple values in response to differing prescribed burning strategies

In the context of dynamic environmental and demographic changes, one-directional, fragmented disaster management approaches are ineffective in delivering built-environment resilience across the temporal (from long-term to short term) and spatial (from macro to micro) scales.

Aim Large-fire suppression is poorly understood even though large bushfires (over 500ha) account for a disproportionate amount of both hectares burned and suppression expenditure. Resource use extends beyond what has been established in the literature. The aim of this study was to classify suppression using the fire management agencies language and operational protocols as a guide, to answer a deceptively simple question: ‘How are suppression resources being used on large wildfires?’

Australian communities face increasing losses and disruption from natural disasters. Disaster resilience is a protective system that arises from the capacities of social, economic and institutional systems to absorb the shocks of natural hazard events, and to learn, adapt and transform in anticipation of an uncertain future. The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index was used to profile the distribution of disaster resilience at a national level.

Natural hazards provoke considerable uncertainty but community members often ‘under-react’ when confronted with messages warning them of imminent hazards. How well do current emergency warning messages encourage community members’ readiness to act on emergency instructions?

A broken door or window during a windstorm allows wind to enter the building and push on the roof and walls, increasing the load on the structure. This project is improving existing techniques which characterize these loads by analyzing internal pressures measured in a wind tunnel model and Full-Scale buildings with different types of openings, volumes, porosity etc. The results are incorporated into a central model which can predict internal pressures with more accuracy than ever before.

The AFMS is available to anyone, including fire and land managers and other industries such as insurance and agricultural sectors and electricity and water suppliers. Individual community members such as farmers could also use the AFMS to assess how dry their property is when preparing for fire season

Natural hazard response efforts are increasingly reliant on broadcast warnings by agencies. While these warning systems are constantly improved through adoption of research findings and use of emerging platforms such as social media, improvements in community preparedness appear slow. One way to improve uptake of DRR messages might be to tap into influential trust relationships that already exist in communities.

The importance of school-based Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Education (DRRRE) has been emphasised in the UNISDR Sendai Framework and the Australian National Strategy for Disaster Resilience. In recent years, DRRRE has also been added to the National Curriculum. Yet, the scaled implementation of effective DRRRE in schools remains a significant challenge.

In extreme cases, embers transported in a bushfire plume have started new fires over thirty kilometres away. Even in less extreme situations, new ignitions a kilometre away can complicate fire management and threaten safety. The ability to forecast spotting due to ember transport in fire plumes would assist fire management and improve fire models.

Effectively managing the risks of fire to ecosystem resilience and threatened species is a commitment of Victoria’s Safer Together policy. Through collaboration with DELWP, and its partner agencies, the project team have developed a decision-making framework, including a Fire Analysis Model for Ecological values (FAME), to facilitate more effective and transparent consideration of ecological values in fire management decisions

Quality leadership is essential to retain volunteers and ensure the future sustainability of Australia’s Volunteer Emergency Services sector. Effective leadership education and training programs are needed to equip leaders with the skills and knowledge to inspire, retain and engage volunteers.

Navigating Uncertainty 2013 Forcett Tasmania bushfire disaster

Is it feasible to model firebrand load on structure using a physics-based model in WUI?

The research aims to provide a better understanding of the primary motives for formal volunteering in Australian emergency services, and the broader contemporary influences on such important civic participation

North Australia is at risk from bushfires, cyclones, storms and floods. In 2016-17 the average cost of major natural hazards was $11 billion for a region of ~ 1 million people. Emergency management resources are concentrated in the larger centres from Broome through Darwin to Townsville. Over 90% of people outside the larger population centres are Indigenous, and often at risk from natural disasters. In this research we found that remote communities were not involved in disaster management planning nor decision making, there are limited resources and little access to these resources.

This project investigates the use of remotely sensed soil moisture and inundation extent to improve the accuracy of operational flood forecast.

Urban Planning systems have considerable potential: to modify the impacts of natural hazards upon the built environment, humans and associated systems; and to contribute to resilience processes and outcomes. However, the full integration of planning systems with emergency management is still far from reaching its potential. The analytical framework presented here aims to support the identification of opportunities for Urban Planning to contribute to reducing disaster risk.

What are the key changes in urban planning regulations that have been introduced over time in Victoria, seeking to minimize the impacts of bushfires upon settlements?

Reinforced concrete buildings are common in Australia and have been commonly designed with little to no ductility. This poster presents a methodology to assess the potential vulnerability of buildings in seismic conditions and the need of retrofitting

We explore the effects of a small bushfire on the income trajectory of employed residents of Toodyay, a regional town in Western Australia. Our study reveals how detailed profiling, using public data, can overcome statistical limitations in disaster risk reduction exercises and better direct post-recovery interventions to minimise disruptions to important income streams in small regional towns.

Although schools have an emergency management plan for bushfire to keep students, staff and the broader school community safe, are these plans effective during a bushfire event?

The Full Carbon Accounting Model (FullCAM) is a software tool developed by the Australian Government, Department of the Environment and Energy, as a standardised method for carbon accounting. We made use of site specific data and the customizable procedure in FullCAM to
simulate the effects of prescribed burn events in eucalypt woodlands in south eastern Australia to evaluate the efficacy of this model for land managers.

What is the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety and alcohol abuse disorders (AUD) in career and volunteer firefighters, and what individual, operational and organisational factors contributed to and protected from their development?

Is the capacity of high-strength reinforced concrete columns in Australian infrastructure adequate for collapse prevention in a rare or very rare earthquake event?