New online - December 2020

The latest CRC research, including new final project reports and journal articles, is now available on the website. Read all the details in December’s summary below.

CRC final reports

With the Improving flood forecast skill using remote sensing data project now complete, the final report detailing the major outcomes and research findings is now available. This project investigated the use of remote sensing data to improve modelled flood forecast skill and value. It developed optimal ways to constrain and update hydrologic flood models using remotely sensed soil moisture data. The project also proposed an algorithm for the monitoring of floods under vegetation, and investigated optimal ways to use remote sensing-derived inundation extent and level to implement and calibrate the hydraulic model.  The results of this project enable improved predictions of flow depth, extent and velocity in the floodplain. The research team comprised of A/Prof Valentijn Pauwels, Prof Jeffrey Walker, Dr Stefania Grimaldi, Dr Ashley Wright and Dr Yuan Li from Monash University.

The Catastrophic and cascading events: planning and capability project has been completed and the research team comprising Andrew Gissing (Risk Frontiers), Steven George (Risk Frontiers), Dr Michael Eburn (Australian National University), Prof John McAneney (Risk Frontiers), Matt Timms (Risk Frontiers) and Stuart Browning (Macquarie University) have written the final project report, Planning and capability requirements for catastrophic and cascading disasters. Over three years, the project focused on the nature of catastrophic disasters and how they are conceptualised in the Australian context; the historical frequency of compound disasters in Australia; the most appropriate practices to plan and prepare for catastrophic disasters; and how businesses and community organisations can best be incorporated into planning and preparedness arrangements for catastrophic disasters. The key finding from this research is that existing principles for disaster planning and risk reduction are not effectively implemented to develop plans that consistently inform decision making. To improve this, a key utilisation output from the research has been an emergency management capability maturity assessment tool that can be utilised by governments and organisations to better understand potential capability gaps in the context of severe-to-catastrophic disaster scenarios. Outcomes of the research were presented as evidence to the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements.

CRC reports

Celeste Young (Victoria University), Dr Craig Cormick (Instinct and Reason) and Prof Roger Jones (Victoria University) have produced a report for the Diversity and inclusion: building strength and capability project. Learning as we go: developing effective inclusive management – case studies and guidance presents case studies and examples of best practice and knowledge that have been collated with experts within emergency management organisations who were part of this study into developing effective inclusive management. As practice is evolving rapidly, its purpose is to provide reference points for practitioners to support broader development of the diversity and inclusion agenda, showing that organisations are learnings and building as they go.

The report is a support document for the Diversity and inclusion framework for emergency management policy and practice which provides overarching concepts, principles and processes that guide management activities. As a result, it should be read in conjunction with the framework. Celeste Young spoke about the framework at the Diversity and inclusion in emergency management: from policy to practice online forum, hosted by the CRC in partnership with Women and Firefighting Australasia, Victoria University, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services and Fire and Emergency New Zealand in early December. Replay the webinar and the follow up Q&A.

Journal articles

Three new journal articles have been published that draw on research from the Cost-effective mitigation strategy for building related earthquake risk project:

Dr Hing Ho Tsang, Duc‐Phu Tran and Prof Emad Gad from Swinburne University have written a paper with Wen‐Yi Hung (National Central University) and Kyriazis Pitilakis (Aristotle University) for the Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics journal. Performance of geotechnical seismic isolation system using rubber‐soil mixtures in centrifuge testing discusses the research findings of a study into the dynamic interaction between structure and low-modulus foundation material using geotechnical seismic isolation. The study found that an average of 40‐50% reduction of structural demand can be achieved and found evidence in the increase in both the horizontal and rotation responses of the foundation.

Published in Recent Advances in Computational Mechanics and Simulations is a journal article by Rohit Tiwari, Prof Nelson Lam and Dr Elisa Lumantarna from the University of Melbourne. Modelling of Seismic Actions on Earth Retaining Structures discusses the results of finite elements analyses that were carried out on scaled-down retaining wall models. The capability of finite element models were evaluated for the replication of shaking table experiment results and it was observed that the models are highly sensitive to assigned nonlinear material models, especially for hardening and softening behaviour of backfill soil. The paper explains a detailed and simplified finite element modelling procedure for the simulation of seismic actions on earth retaining structures.

Yuxiang Tang (University of Melbourne), Prof Nelson Lam (University of Melbourne) and Dr Hing Ho Tsang (Swinburne University) have been published in the Seismological Research Letters journal for their paper, A Computational Tool for Ground‐Motion Simulations Incorporating Regional Crustal Conditions, which introduces a computational tool, namely ground‐motion simulation system, for generating synthetic accelerograms based on stochastic simulations.

Relating to the Threshold conditions for extreme fire behaviour project is research by Sergey Prohanov (National Research Tomsk State University), Dr Alexander Filkov (University of Melbourne), Denis Kasymov (National Research Tomsk State University), Mikhail Agafontsev (National Research Tomsk State University) and Vladimir Reyno (E. Zuev Institute of Atmospheric Optics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science) published in Fire. Determination of Firebrand Characteristics Using Thermal Videos discusses the development of new algorithms and laboratory experiments to generate firebrands. The analysis of their results indicated that further development of detection and tracking algorithms using the current approach will not significantly improve their accuracy, and as such, convolutional neural networks hold high potential to be used as an alternative approach.

Published in the Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management is the paper, Non‐technical skills for emergency incident management teams: A literature review, written by A/Prof Chris Bearman (CQUniversity), Philip Butler (Cardiff University)  and A/Prof Christine Owen (Univeristy of Tasmania). Drawing on research from the Improving decision-making in complex multi-team environments project, the paper reviewed the broader non‐technical skills (NTS) literature before focusing on the NTS required for emergency management. It was found that most NTS frameworks share four to five common skill categories, although there were greater differences at the element and behavioural marker level.

A comparison of terrestrial and UAS sensors for measuring fuel hazard in a dry sclerophyll forest was written by Sam Hillman (RMIT University), Luke Wallace (RMIT University), A/Prof Arko Lucieer (University of Tasmania), Dr Karin Reinke (RMIT University), Darren Turner (University of Tasmania) and Prof Simon Jones (RMIT University), and published in the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation. Relating to Sam Hillman’s PhD project, The utility of point clouds to estimate fuel hazards, the paper explores the use of image-based and Light Detecting And Ranging (LiDAR) 3D representations collected using Unoccupied Aircraft Systems platforms, for describing forest structure properties. The results indicate that information describing the below canopy vertical structure is present within the UAS LiDAR point clouds and can be exploited through this novel classification approach for fire hazard assessment. For fire prone countries, this type of information can provide important insight into forest fuels and the potential fire behaviour and impact of fire under different scenarios.