The latest CRC research, including new final project reports, findings from quick response research, and journal articles, is now available on the website. Read all the details in the April summary below.
CRC final reports
The final project report for the Improving the resilience of existing housing to severe weather events project has been written by Prof John Ginger, Dr Korah Parackal and Dr David Henderson from James Cook University, and Martin Wehner, Dr Hyeuk Ryu and Mark Edwards from Geoscience Australia. This study identified vulnerable legacy house types across Australia and developed cost-effective retrofits for mitigation damage during windstorms. These evidence-based strategies will aid policy formation and decision making by Government and industry, and provide guidelines detailing various options and benefits to homeowners and the industry for retrofitting typical at-risk houses in Australia. The final report presents an overview of the research approach used for this project including the selection of house types, the development of the Vulnerability and Adaptation to Wind Simulation software and the Internet-based guidelines, Weather the Storm.
The Cost-effective mitigation strategy for building related earthquake risk project has been completed and the final project report has been written by Prof Michael Griffith from the University of Adelaide. The report contains a summary of the research undertaken by the research team towards the development of an evidence base to inform decision making on the mitigation of the seismic risk posed by the most vulnerable Australia buildings subject to earthquakes. Research was undertaken to understand the seismic vulnerabilities of existing unreinforced masonry and limited ductile reinforced concrete buildings and methods to address them seismic retrofit; assess the risk of building stock through the development of an economic loss model with trial evaluation; and advance an end-use focused research utilisation project in the area of community risk reduction – York, Western Australia.
CRC reports
Two quick response projects have been completed and the findings are now available.
The NSW March 2021 floods - data collection project team from Risk Frontiers, Steve George, Salomé Hussein, Dr Ryan Crompton and Thomas Mortlock, were deployed to the NSW Mid North Coast region to observe and report on significant flooding in the area. In addition to measuring flood depths and recording noteworthy damages to belongings and infrastructure, the team spoke with residents, business owners and rescue personnel. Discussions covered evacuation, emergency response and communication, community resilience, and the insurability of their homes. Read the full findings from this research in the report, NSW Mid North Coast flood impact research.
Judy Foulkes (University of Tasmania), Dr Steve Leonard (Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment Tasmania) and Prof David Bowman (University of Tasmania) have written a report on the Demographic effects of severe fire in montane shrublands on Tasmania’s Central Plateau to summarise the findings of the Assessment of post-fire recovery of sub alpine shrublands after the 2019 World Heritage Area Firesproject. The project reports on the regeneration response of a Tasmanian non-coniferous woody montane shrubland following the severe Great Pine Tier fire. The research findings highlight the fragility of shrubland in these high-altitude World Heritage Areas under a warming climate and potential increase in fire frequency.
Drawing on research from the Effective risk and warning communication during natural hazardsproject is the paper Managing problematic visual media in natural hazard emergencies, published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction and written by Dr Paula Dootson, Dr T.J. Thompson, Dr Daniel Angus, Dr Sophie Miller, Dr Edward Hurcombe and Adam Smith from the Queensland University of Technology. The paper identifies four specific types of problematic visual media that are common to natural hazard emergencies in Australia, and proposes a combination of reactive and proactive strategies that can be employed by emergency services agencies to manage the extent and impact of these problematic visuals.
Learning to learn from bushfire: Perspectives from Victorian emergency management practitioners was written by completed PhD student Dr Graham Dwyer from the University of Melbourne, and published in the Australian Journal of Public Administration. Relating to Dr Dwyer’s PhD project, We have not lived long enough: sensemaking and learning from bushfire in Australia, the paper explores what we can learn about public inquiries based on the experience of emergency management practitioners in the light of recent bushfire events and other crises highlighting the excruciating demands placed on practitioners and an escalating scepticism about whether public inquiries improve preparation for future bushfires.
Published in the journal Earth’s Future is the paper Intensifying Australian heatwave trends and their sensitivity to observational data written by Jyoteeshkumar Reddy Papari, Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick and Prof Jason Sharples from the University of New South Wales. The research analysed the trends in Australia-wide heatwave metrics (frequency, duration, intensity, number, cumulative magnitude, timing, and season duration) across 69 extended summer seasons. The findings not only emphasise that heatwaves are becoming hotter, longer, and more frequent, but also signify that they are occurring with excess heat, commencing much earlier, and expanding their season over many parts of Australia in recent decades.