New online - July 2021

New final project reports and journal articles showcasing the latest Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC research is now available on the website. The details are in the July summary below.

CRC final reports

The final project report for the Effective risk and warning communication during natural hazards project has been written by Prof Vivienne Tippett, A/Prof Dominique Greer, A/Prof Amisha Mehta, Dr Paula Dootson, Prof Lisa Bradley, Dr Sophie Miller and Dr Scott Murray from the Queensland University of Technology. This research examined existing and modified communication to community members who may be affected by natural hazards to derive evidence-based insights into risk and warning communication during the response phase of emergencies. Through this project, the research team developed an evidence base for the context of risk and warning messages across multiple channels and sources, constructed evidence-based warning messages that overcome ambiguity caused by conflict between warning messages and socio-environmental cues, optimised warning messages to improve community members’ readiness to act in accordance with emergency instructions, and translated research findings into practical tools tailored to the existing and emergent needs of end-users. 

The Cost-effective mitigation strategy for flood prone buildings project has been completed and the final project report has been written by Dr Ken Dale (Geoscience Australia), Dr Tariq Maqsood (RMIT University) and Martin Wehner (Geoscience Australia). This research was targeted at assessing mitigation strategies to reduce the vulnerability of existing residential building stock in Australian floodplains. The project addressed the need for an evidence base to inform decision making on the mitigation of the flood risk posed by the most vulnerable Australian houses and complements parallel CRC projects for earthquake and severe wind. Through this project, the research team developed a building classification schema to categorise Australian residential buildings into a range of typical storey types, reviewed national and international mitigation strategies, and developed a floodproofing matrix to assess strategies for select story types. The results of this research form an evidence base to inform decision making by government and property owners on the mitigation of flood risk by providing information on the cost effectiveness of different mitigation strategies.

Dr Veronique Florec, Dr Abbie Rogers and Prof David Pannell from the University of Western Australia have written the final project report for the completed Economics of natural hazards project. This project aimed to provide evidence on the economic, social, and environmental impacts of natural hazards, in order to help hazard managers make better decisions about the allocation of resources for the mitigation of natural hazards impacts. The main focus of this research was the development of tools and materials that make it easier for natural hazards managers to estimate the value of mitigation, integrate intangible (non-market) values in economic analyses of mitigation, and evaluate the difference it makes to include non-market values. Through this project, the research team launched an online platform for the Value Tool for Natural Hazards, a searchable database of the best available non-market value estimates relevant to natural hazards; developed the Economic Analysis Screening Tool for the evaluation of the costs and benefits of mitigation options; created an online video course on the economics of natural hazards to explain economic concepts and how they are applied to evaluate different mitigation options; and conducted an online training course for managers and practitioners on how to use economics in natural hazards management.

CRC reports

Severe to catastrophic disasters pose the potential to overwhelm traditional emergency management approaches, necessitating the adoption of a whole- of-community approach. To date, there has been little research examining the role of Australian community organisations in disaster management although many organisations provide assistance. Relating to the Catastrophic and cascading events: planning and capability project is new research by Andrew Gissing and Steven George from Risk Frontiers that focuses specifically on the role and involvement of community organisations in disaster management. Community organisation involvement in disaster management presents a list of recommendations for consideration to improve the utilisation of capabilities offered by community organisations in disaster management.

This research has found a lack of knowledge in emergency management regarding collective capability requirements and the ability to manage severe-to-catastrophic disasters. As a result, the team developed the Capability Maturity Assessment Tool, which can be used by state and territory emergency management agencies, and at a national level, to assess the current maturity of capabilities within organisations. It uses a series of criteria that align with the National Disaster Preparedness Framework, and provides an overview of how to strengthen coordinated preparedness for severe-to-catastrophic disasters, especially when facing numerous concurrent or sequential disasters that result in resource conflicts. Andrew Gissing has written the Capability Maturity Assessment facilitators guide to support the implementation of the tool.

The Characterisation of synoptic weather features often associated with extreme events in south east Australia and Tasmania project, completed through the CRC’s Tactical Research Fund, has published a report on Stage 1 – common features of recent events. Authored by Dr Peter Love, Dr Tomas Remenyi, Nick Earl, Dean Rollins, Gabi Mocatta and Dr Rebecca Harris from the University of Tasmania, alongside Paul Fox-Hughes from the Bureau of Meteorology, this report identifies how negatively tilted troughs occur and the extent to which they are associated with extreme storms and fire weather. The research team conducted a review of previously documented cases of negatively tilted upper-tropospheric troughs associated with severe weather, and conducted detailed case studies of the role of negatively tilted troughs in the January 2003 Canberra bushfires and tornado outbreak in Perth in July 2014.

Journal articles

Disaster resilience in Australia: A geographic assessment using an index of coping and adaptive capacity was written by Dr Melissa Parsons, Dr Ian Reeve, Dr James McGregor,  A/Prof Graham Marshall, Dr Judith McNeill, Dr Richard Stayner and Dr Sonya Glavac from the University of New England, alongside Dr Peter Hastings from the Queensland University of Technology. Published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction and relating to The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index: A system for assessing the resilience of Australian communities to natural hazards project, the paper reports a national-scale assessment of disaster resilience, using the Australian Disaster Resilience Index which assesses resilience at three levels: overall capacity for disaster resilience; coping and adaptive capacity; and eight themes of disaster resilience across social, economic and institutional domains.

Relating to the Empirical analysis of spot fire and ember behaviour during extreme fire weather conditions project is research by Michael Storey, Michael Bedward, Dr Owen Price and Prof Ross Bradstock from the University of Wollongong, alongside Prof Jason Sharples from the University of New South Wales. Derivation of a Bayesian fire spread model using large-scale wildfire observations was published in Environmental Modelling & Software and uses a large set of remotely sensed wildfire observations, and explanatory data (focusing on weather), to demonstrate a Bayesian probabilistic rate of spread (ROS) modelling approach. The authors show that highly informative probabilistic predictions can be made from a simple Bayesian model containing wind speed, relative humidity and soil moisture, and provide current operational context to their work by calculating predictions from widely used deterministic ROS models in Australia.