New online - December 2018

A number of new research outputs have been made available online this month.

Dr Tarn Kruger and Dr Blythe McLennan from the Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering team have published a report detailing the views of local government and local government association managers on the future of emergency volunteering. Through these interviews with local government stakeholders, they identify a number of current and future issues facing emergency volunteering.

A number of reports from the Cost-effective mitigation strategy development for building-related earthquake risk team have been published this month:

• Dr Hossein Derakhshan and Prof. Michael Griffith have published a report that describes the relationship between lateral drift of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings and structural damage from earthquakes. Through pushover tests on four building types, the team identified displacements corresponding to damage states and compared these to existing ASCE guidelines.
• A report has been produced by Dr Elisa Lumantarna, A/Prof. Helen Goldsworthy, Prof. Nelson Lam, Dr Hing-Ho Tsang, Prof. Emad Gad and Prof. John Wilson on the development of fragility curves for limited ductile reinforced concrete buildings. In it, the team provides sets of fragility curves for two types of reinforced concrete buildings and discusses the approach for their development.
• Dr Itismita Mohanty, A/Prof. Mark Edwards, Dr Hyeuk Ryu and Martin Wehner have authored a report on economic loss models for earthquake impacts in Australia. In particular, this report focuses on the economic benefits of retrofitting existing buildings for earthquake resilience, and offers frameworks for a range of Australian decision makers.
• A final report on the development of fragility curves for URM buildings has been published by Dr Jaroslav Vaculik and Prof. Michael Griffith. This report describes the methodology used to create fragility curves for seismically strengthened URM buildings based on reported performance of 78 heritage-listed buildings in the 2010-11 earthquakes in Christchurch.
• Prof. Griffith and Dr Vaculik have also published a progress report on retrofitting costs for URM buildings, outlining their findings on the developRetrofitting costs for URM buildingsment of accurate cost estimations for the seismic improvement of existing URM building stock through retrofitting.

Research conducted by the Fire spread prediction across fuel types project has been published in two reports this month:

• Dr Duncan Sutherland, Dr Jimmy Philip, Prof. Andrew Ooi and A/Prof. Khalid Moinuddin have produced a review of the current literature on the modelling and simulation of atmospheric boundary-layer flow over forest canopies. This review is intended to inform fire behaviour analysists of recent progress in sub-canopy modelling in order to aid in the development of simplified models for wind reduction factors.
• A report entitled Simulations of the effect of canopy density profile on sub-canopy wind profiles, authored by Dr Sutherland, Rahul Wadhwani, Dr Philip, Prof. Ooi and A/Prof. Moinuddin, describes the project’s initial progress in simulating the relationship between leaf area density and sub-canopy wind velocity, and discusses a potential approach for the modelling of sub-canopy wind velocity.

Graeme Riddell, A/Prof. Hedwig van Delden and Prof. Holger Maier from the Improved decision support for natural hazard risk reduction project have published a report on the relationship between urbanisation and flood risk, with a focus on a case study of the Gawler River catchment area. The report highlights the importance of considering changes in urbanisation and flood risk.

The team from the An analysis of building losses and human fatalities from natural disasters project have published a report on the experiences of people who shelter in place during severe flooding. In it, they focus on the experiences of individual during flooding in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales in March 2017, highlighting perspectives on awareness, information and warnings as well as describing people’s experiences of sheltering in place during the flood.

Two reports have been published from the Mapping bushfire hazard and impacts project:

• A report on the feasibility and benefits of using alternative satellite data in the Australian Flammability Monitoring System (AFMS) outlines the potential benefits of incorporating alternative sources of remote sensing imagery in the System to provide more accurate spatial and temporal data.
• The team have published a report on user feedback on AFMS Version 1.0, in which they summarise the initial responses of end users to the first iteration of the System and identify priority areas for future development.

The team from the Developing better predictions for extreme water levels project have published two reports this month:

• A web user guide has been developed for the project's interactive web tool. This report, authored by Prof. Charitha Pattiaratchi, Dr Yasha Hetzel and A/Prof Ivica Janekovic provides an overview of the website, as well as instructions on how to access and interpret the available extreme sea level data.
• The team has published a final report on the extreme sea level data  used in the development of the project’s outputs, as well as the methodology used in the production of the outputs that have been made available to end users and the public.

Two reports have been published outlining progress made in the Natural Hazards Exposure Information Modelling Framework project have been published this month:

• Dr Krishna Nadimpalli, Dr Itismita Mohanty, Dr Yogi Vidyattama, Dr Mohsen Kalantari and Prof. Abbas Rajabifard have authored a report suggesting guidelines to ensure consistency and reliability of natural hazard exposure information on a national scale. The report discusses the development of the framework, as well as specific exposure considerations for buildings, infrastructure, industry, communities and businesses.
• Dr Vidyattama has authored a report on the construction of a data reliability framework for the exposure information system developed by the project team. This report aims to make a reliability assessment framework that is available to a variety of users in order to ensure data consistency and quality in exposure information systems.

Farah Beaini and Prof. Mehmet Ulubasoglu from the Optimising post-disaster recovery interventions in Australia project have published a report which provides a demographic profile and descriptive analysis of Victorian areas affected by the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. In particular, this report aims to use specific demographic attributes provide context to the project’s research findings. This report is part of a series of demographic profiles that will be produced for each of the project’s case study areas.

The team from the Enhancing resilience of critical road infrastructure project have published a report on the failure mechanisms of bridges under floods, bushfires and earthquakes. The report identifies attributes of these structures that influence failure, and uses representative case studies to support vulnerability modelling of bridges.

The Improving the resilience of existing housing to severe wind events project has published two reports, authored by Alex Leblais and Dr David Henderson, as a result of simulated wind load testing on elements of housing construction.

• Simulated wind load strength testing of soffits outlines the results of full-scale simulated wind load strength testing of soffit lining on two configurations of eave samples. From these tests, the team identified areas of weakness and provide recommendations to improve soffit lining performance under extreme winds.
• The results of similar testing on entrance doors is presented in another report titled Simulated wind load strength testing of entrance doors. The team tested several configurations of entrance doors and highlighted areas of weakness in the configurations tested, providing recommendations for improvements in the resilience of entrance doors in cyclonic regions.

Dr Kevin Tory of the Improved predictions of severe weather to reduce community impact project has published a review of the literature on the modelling of buoyant plume rise. The report specifically focuses on areas of the literature that are of relevance to the sub-projects that are examining the development of an ember transport model and a pyrocumulonimbus prediction tool.

Three journal articles have been published based on CRC research in the last month:

An article based on completed CRC student Dr Billy Haworth’s PhD research has been published in Frontiers in Earth Science. Co-authored by Dr Eleanor Bruce, Dr Josh Whittaker and Dr Roisin Read, it discusses the ways in which Web 2.0 platforms can support or undermine community resilience through the emergence of volunteered geographic information and highlights ways in which these new technologies can be managed to ensure they allow for reliable, community-centred and socially inclusive practice.

An article based on work done by the Hazards, culture and Indigenous communities project has been published in Geographical Research. Authored by Annick Thomassin, Dr Timothy Neale and Dr Jessica Weir, it reviews the existing literature on engagement between natural hazard management agencies and Indigenous peoples in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, categorising the origins of these interactions and identifying the rationales that support them. The review aims to support existing, emerging and future collaborative engagement activities between agencies and Indigenous peoples.

The Magazine of Concrete Research has published an article from the Cost-effective mitigation strategy development for building-related earthquake risk project. The article, authored by Saim Raza, Dr Hing-Ho Tsang and Prof. John Wilson, examines the drift capacity of both normal-strength and high-strength reinforced concrete columns, applying existing drift models identified from the literature. The authors evaluate the extent to which these models are able to predict the drift capacity of these columns, and propose a unified set of models to expand on the existing models’ capabilities.