Flood authority set to benefit

The Gawler River Floodplain Management Authority is set to benefit from a nationally developed risk modelling and projection tool developed by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC and the University of Adelaide.

The Unified Natural Hazard Risk Mitigation Exploratory Decision support system (UNHaRMED) is an interactive modelling platform helping to assist decision making for planners and policy makers in measuring and managing risk. UNHaRMED shows the impacts of natural hazards on urban infrastructure and natural environments, and allows future changes to be taken into account, giving a more complete picture on the impact of certain polices, investments and land use management decisions.

Funding through the Commonwealth Government's Natural Disaster Resilience Program administered by the South Australian Fire & Emergency Services Commission, was recently announced, allowing the Gawler River Floodplain Management Authority to inform and align their stormwater and flood management strategies and their collective investment in mitigation activities across six local councils (Town of Gawler, Light Regional Council, Adelaide Hills Council, Barossa Council, Adelaide Plains Council, City of Playford).

The over $98,000 in funding will enable the Gawler River Floodplain Management Authority to use UNHaRMED to support development of a flood mitigation strategy and strategic plan for the floodplain. Researcher Graeme Riddell from the University of Adelaide explained that the funding will support further exploration of the use of UNHaRMED in supporting councils manage flood risk.

“We are excited to work with Gawler River Floodplain Management Authority on this project funded by the National Disaster Resilience Program. Councils are often where significant decisions are made that impact on our future risk profile, so the opportunity to use UNHaRMED supporting a mix of councils plan for a more flood-resilient future is great.”

UNHaRMED has been developed by the Improved decision support for natural hazard mitigation project, led by Prof Holger Maier and Graeme Riddell. The software has previously been used in Adelaide, Melbourne, Tasmania, and Western Australia.