Built environment - a statement on research priorities for natural hazards emergency management in Australia

Throughout 2015-2017, emergency service agencies around Australia participated in workshops hosted by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC to consider the major issues in natural hazards emergency management.

This publication on the built environment summarises the outcomes of one of these workshops and poses questions as a guide for a national research agenda in natural hazard emergency management.

As climate-related hazards grow in intensity and frequency and urban density increases there is increasing pressure to strengthen our infrastructure to reduce the risk to the community and to lower longer-term recovery costs.

Decisions around infrastructure construction and the built environment would benefit from more consideration of the risks of natural hazards.

A better understanding of the built environment and how it interacts with other factors will enable action to increase disaster resilience and can also provide tangible benefits for the community, such as reduced insurance premiums. There are a range of activities that can help to reduce vulnerability to aid community and individual resilience before, during and after disasters and emergencies. These activities include setting of a risk profile and building standards, infill and retro-fitting existing development, and critical infrastructure.

While it is widely recognised that disaster resilience of communities and landscapes can be improved through better linkages between the community, the emergency management sector and people that work in the built environment, this potential is not yet fully realised.

Contemporary ideas around disaster resilience are generally holistic, and the built environment is now understood to be a core component that will interact with other enabling and inhibiting factors such as mitigation measures, social capital and socio-economic status of the community. These interactions can become barriers that inhibit the ability to determine and articulate the cost of the transfer of risk for the protection of life and property.