New online - August 2020

Several new reports and journal articles are now available on the CRC website. Read the details in August’s wrap up.

CRC reports

John Handmer and Adriana Keating from The Risk Laboratory and the International Institute for Applied Systems Research and Ken Strahan (Strahan Research) were commissioned to undertake an assessment of the value of the research delivered by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC over the last seven years. The report estimates that the total value of the CRC’s research sums up to $850.1 million over 15 years, and relates to The value of disaster research project. 

Last month the CRC launched the Australian Disaster Resilience Index: a system for assessing the resilience of Australian communities to natural hazards. Along with the website tool, the research team from the University of New England—Dr Melissa Parsons, Dr Ian Reeve, Dr James McGregor, Dr Richard Stayner, Dr Judith McNeill, Dr Peter Hastings (Queensland University of Technology), Dr Sonya Glavac and Dr Phil Morley—released three new reports. The first is a short report summarising the Index as a whole. The longer report is divided into two volumes – the state of disaster resilience report and the design and computation report that comprises six chapters. Volume I assesses the state of disaster resilience in Australia at different levels, and Volume II describes the computation and other technical aspects of the Index in detail. Access the full list of research reports here.

From Monash University, A/Prof Valentijn Pauwels, Prof Jeffrey Walker, Dr Stefania Grimaldi, Dr Ashley Wright and Dr Yuan Li have authored a new report for the Improving flood forecast skill using remote sensing data project. The report presents guidelines on the optimal use of remote sensing data to improve the accuracy of hydrologic and hydraulic models and thus, improve the accuracy of flood forecasting.

Prof Lisa Gibbs (University of Melbourne), Phoebe Quinn (University of Melbourne), Prof David Johnston (Massey University), Dr Denise Blake (Massey University), Emily Campbell (University of Melbourne) and John Richardson (University of Melbourne) have released the 2019/20 annual report for the Recovery Capitals (ReCap) project. In the past year, the ReCap project has undertaken detailed evidence mapping against the community capital framework to increase understanding of the interacting influences of social, built, financial, political, human, cultural and natural capital on wellbeing outcomes.

A new report is available from the Cost-effective mitigation strategy for flood prone buildings project, written by Dr Tariq Maqsood from RMIT University) and Dr Ken Dale and Martin Wehner from Geoscience Australia. The report presents an assessment of the cost-effectiveness of flood mitigation strategies to residential buildings in Launceston, Tasmania through a benefit versus cost analysis.

The research and outcomes of the Cost-effective mitigation strategy for building related earthquake risk project York case study are presented and discussed in the case study final report by Martin Wehner (Geoscience Australia), Dr Hyeuk Ryu (Geoscience Australia), Prof Michael Griffith (University of Adelaide), Mark Edwards (Geoscience Australia), Neil Corby (Geoscience Australia), Dr Itismita Mohanty (University of Canberra),  Dr Jaroslav Vaculik (University of Adelaide) and Dr Trevor Allen (Geoscience Australia). The report offers recommendations for future retrofit strategy implementation in York and more broadly, in Western Australia.

A/Prof Ben Brooks and Dr Steven Curnin from the University of Tasmania wrote a report for the Improving decision-making in complex multi-team environments project that summarises the South Australian Department of the Premier and Cabinet and University of Tasmania ‘Stretching for Recovery’ program, which involved broadening research for decision-making for long-term recovery and offering the opportunity to run an additional workshop for South Australia.

Five modules that provide background information to support existing and potential collaborations between the natural hazards management sector and Indigenous peoples and their communities are presented by Dr Jessica Weir (Western Sydney University), Dr Will Smith (Deakin University) and Dr Timothy Neale (Deakin University) in a new report for the Hazards, culture and Indigenous communities project.

Journal articles

The journal article Implementing research to support disaster risk reduction by A/Prof Christine Owen (University of Tasmania), Noreen Krusel (Australasian Fire and Emergency Services Authorities Council) and CRC Utilisation and DELWP Program Manager Loriana Bethune was published in the latest issue of the Australian Journal of Emergency Management. The research relates to the Improving decision-making in complex multi-team environments project and reports on findings that led to the development of a research utilisation maturity matrix that encompasses four levels of maturity that play key roles in effective implementation of research.

Also published in the July issue of the Australian Journal of Emergency Management is an article by the entire Urban planning for natural hazard mitigation research team—Prof Alan March (University of Melbourne), Dr Graeme Riddell (University of Adelaide), Dr Leonardo Nogueira de Moraes (University of Melbourne), A/Prof Janet Stanley (University of Melbourne), Adj A/Prof Hedwig van Delden (Research Institute for Knowledge Systems), Prof Ruth Beilin (Univrsity of Melbourne), Prof Stephen Dovers (Australian National University) and Prof Holger Maier (University of Adelaide). Urban planning capabilities for bushfire: treatment categories and scenario testing sets out a framework demonstrating how urban planning, when coupled with appropriate decision support and future scenario testing, can reduce risks relating to bushfire while considering future growth.

Research by Yuxiang Tang (University of Melbourne), Prof Nelson Lam (University of Melbourne), Dr Hing Ho Tsang (Swinburne University of Technology) and Dr Elisa Lumantarna (University of Melbourne) was published in the Journal of Earthquake Engineering. The paper An adaptive ground motion prediction equation for use in low-to-moderate seismicity regions relates to the Cost-effective mitigation strategy for building related earthquake risk project and presents a set of expressions that can be used as ground motion prediction equations which resolve the generation of seismic waves into several components to represent earthquake ground motion behaviour.