Prof John Handmer
John Handmer leads RMIT’s Risk and Community Safety research group and holds adjunct professorial positions at ANU and at the Flood Hazard Research Centre in London. He has been a member of the National Flood Risk Advisory Group, and the national committee revising the Australian Emergency Risk Assessment Guide, and was Convener of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Network for Emergency Management, and Principle Scientific Advisor for the Bushfire CRC. He was a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC’s special report on extremes. His research group has won a number of research awards, and was commended in the recent report Excellence in Innovation in Australia. His most recent book is J Handmer and S Dovers (2013) Handbook of disaster policies and institutions: improving emergency management and climate change adaptation. He works on the human dimensions of emergency management and disasters.
Project leadership
How people volunteer to keep their community safe from natural hazards is changing. As our work and life commitments change, many people do not have the time to dedicate to traditional ways of volunteering with an emergency service, undergo the required training and develop the ability to respond to potentially dangerous situations. But they still want to help, and they still want to volunteer.
This project investigated current and emerging issues around volunteering and volunteers responding to disaster events, and the different factors that can influence people’s participation in non-traditional emergency volunteering.
Supervisory roles
| Project | Student |
|---|---|
| Community volunteering and disaster recovery | fjennings |
| Household decision making in bushfire self evacuation | kstrahan |
| Spontaneous volunteers in the emergency management sector | ggray |
Research team
| Type | Project | Research team |
|---|---|---|
| CRC Core Project | Scientific diversity and uncertainty in risk mitigation policy and planning | meburn, sdovers, tneale, jwodak, jhandmer, chansen, tmcgee, lclarke |
| CRC Core Project | Child-centred disaster risk reduction | khaynes, kronan, sdavie, mpetal, nireland, jhandmer, djohnston, Annette Gough, Belinda Davis, ealisic |
| CRC Core Project | Improving the role of hazard communications in increasing residents’ preparedness and response planning | jhandmer, djohnston, pdudgeon, pdunlop, Piers Howe, awearing |
| CRC Core Project | Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering | dkragt, aluksyte, dholtrop, mgagné, tkruger, jhandmer, hfarid |
