Newsletter 1 - fatalities and building losses

This is the first of our quarterly newsletter updates for the project end-users and associates.  

Welcome and thank-you!

We would like to welcome all of our End Users and other interested parties to the project. Thank you to all those who have participated and provided feedback to get the project up and running.
We look forward to working closely with you over the next three years.

Project objectives
- An analysis of fatalities, in terms of demographics, social and environmental circumstances surrounding deaths.
- An analysis of people otherwise affected by natural hazards – injured, near-misses, rescued.
- An analysis of building damage and losses arising from natural hazard events over the last century.

The hazards to be studied include: floods, cyclones, earthquakes, heatwaves, severe storms and bushfires.

Major Outcomes
- A longitudinal and geographical examination of trends in the exposure and vulnerability of people and buildings.
- An understanding of the impact of changes to policy and procedures on life and property loss.
- An interpretation of trends in exposure and vulnerability in the context of emerging issues (eg. ageing population, population shifts, climate change), in order to determine potential future trends. - Development of hazard specific risk communication from the analysis of fatalities and injuries.
- Evidence-based data to assist with appropriate emergency management and government decision making.

Project deliverables

In addition to the quarterly and annual reports the following deliverables will be produced by the team.

30-Mar-14   - Submit journal article on an overview of Heatwave fatalities based on current knowledge

28-Nov-14  -  Report on data quality and completeness of historical natural hazard building losses

31-Dec-14  -  Report on data quality for fatalities from flood and the social and environmental circumstances surrounding each fatality.

29-May-15 - Report and submission of journal article on flood fatalities alongside a presentation of the results to relevant end-users.

31-Dec-15  -  Report on data quality for fatalities from tropical cyclone, earthquake, heatwaves and severe storm and the environmental and social circumstances surrounding each fatality

31-May-16  -  Workshop with end-users and stakeholders to discuss fatality and building loss data.

31-July-16 - Report and journal article on fatalities from tropical cyclone, earthquake, heatwaves, bushfire, and severe storm in Australia.

31-Dec-16 - Report and journal article of a detailed analysis of all historical natural hazard building losses (by state and time period), alongside a seminar.

30-Mar-17 - Report on the analysis of injury, near-miss and rescue data.

15-Jun-17  -  A report on the impact of changes to policy and procedures related to natural hazard risk

Project End Users

The following people have agreed to be End User representatives for the project. If we have missed anyone, please let us know.  We would also like an End User from Queensland and the Northern Territory to be on board too so if you know of anyone you think may be interested, please let us know!

Christopher Lee                               (OEH, NSW)
Belinda Davies / Simon Opper         (NSW SES)
Bob Stevenson