Corey Shackleton

Realistic disaster scenarios help emergency managers better understand disasters. They allow for visualisation of potential impacts before disasters happen, and enable proactive planning for these events. This project developed realistic disaster scenarios using catastrophic loss models so that vulnerable areas, utilities and assets within our major cities can be identified.

This study has informed community flood warning campaigns, emergency services training and national policy initiatives by investigating the circumstances of all flood fatalities in Australia from 1900 to 2015. It has also compare the impacts of disasters from more than 100 years ago with more recent events.

By exploring the socio-demographic and environmental factors surrounding the 1,859 flood fatalities over 115 years, the research found distinct trends in relation to gender, age, activity and the circumstances of the death. These trends were analysed in the context of changes to emergency management policy and practice over time.

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.

This project addressed the data and knowledge gaps and requirements for disaster resilience, resource assessment, emergency management, risk mitigation policy and planning. It identified the fundamental data requirements and modelling framework to derive exposure information to enable a better understanding of the vulnerability of people, buildings and infrastructure.