Dr Adam Leavesley accepting the award for Outstanding Achievement in Research Utilisation at AFAC19
A national guide for working with volunteers and cutting-edge technology that is drawing on satellite data to produce fire hazard maps have been recognised for outstanding leadership in academic and research aims of the CRC.
At the AFAC19 conference powered by INTERSCHUTZ researcher Dr Blythe McLennan (RMIT University) and industry user Amanda Lamont (Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience) were awarded for Outstanding Achievement in Research Utilisation for their work on the CRC project Out of uniform: building community resilience through non-traditional emergency volunteering. This project has drawn on the practical experiences of our partner agencies in several states to develop a framework on best practices for engagement with spontaneous volunteers. Furthermore, the research has contributed to the national handbook collection of the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience with the publication Communities Responding to Disasters: Planning for Spontaneous Volunteers.
Researcher Dr Marta Yebra (Australian National University) and lead end-user Dr Adam Leavesley (ACT Parks and Conservation) from the Mapping bushfire and hazard impacts were also recipients of this award. This project uses cutting-edge technology to produce spatial information on fuel conditions, fire hazard and impacts. This information supports a wide range of fire risk management and response activities such as hazard reduction burning and pre-positioning firefighting resources and, in the longer term, the new National Fire Danger Rating System. This next generation of fire risk monitoring tools is available to land managers and fire services across Australia through our Australian Flammability Monitoring System and the ACT Parks and Conversation has been a leader in promoting this uptake among our partners.
This CRC award is presented annually at the Research Forum as part of our annual conference held in collaboration with AFAC, to recognise the importance of collaboration in ensuring research outcomes are adopted into practice.
Dr Blythe McLennan from RMIT University and Amanda Lamont from the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience receiving an award from Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC CEO Dr Richard Thornton.