Tamsin Achilles

Children represent the most vulnerable demographic group in disasters – across the globe it is estimated that 30-50% of fatalities are children - while they are also most vulnerable to psychosocial impacts. Early research indicates that children are a resource for reducing current disaster risks and can also mitigate future risks.

The role of children’s disaster education in managing risk has been recognised as a major priority in the federal government’s National Strategy for Disaster Resilience. Yet, despite a recent surge in child-centred disaster research, the social, psychological, economic and political mechanisms that enable children to both understand and take action to reduce disaster risk remain largely unexplored and the evidence-base for best-practice remains limited.

This project is conducting a nationwide evaluation of programs and strategies based on a child-centred disaster risk reduction framework. It will develop cost-effective programs that reduce the risk and increase resilience for children, schools, households and communities.

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 project demonstrated a pilot capability to deliver wind and rain impact forecasts for residential housing from an ensemble of weather prediction models runs. The project focused on the wind and rainfall impact from the 20-22 April 2015 East Coast Low in New South Wales. Through the utilisation of Geoscience Australia’s HazImp software, the research team developed and tested a workflow that integrated the numerical weather forecasts, vulnerability relationships and exposure data at the community level. The project set up the end-to-end workflow from wind and rain hazard to spatial impact. These spatial impact outputs were delivered into the Visual Weather system at the Bureau of Meteorology, foreshadowing the possibility of easily achievable future visualisation to operational meteorologists.

This project focused on the two behaviours most frequently associated with flood fatalities: driving into floodwater in a motor vehicle, and recreating in floodwater. As the project comprised a number of studies it generated a substantial number of findings and insights, which have been condensed into a series of practitioner-focused Research into Practice briefs and a series of short videos to showcase key research findings and augment the briefs. Based on the research findings, the project team have led the co-development of National Community Service Announcements for flood with AIDR, the ABC and AFAC. Survey tools and findings about how people behave, perceive risks, and make decisions around floodwater were developed through this project and the research findings can be used to inform more targeted communications and safety-related training. The survey tools themselves can be used as an engagement tool both with communities and SES personnel. Surveys with SES personnel about entering floodwater included evaluation of organisational safety climate as well as risk taking behaviour, and the data provides a baseline against which a number of SES jurisdictions could evaluate work health and safety improvements and the effectiveness of a range of safety interventions.