Research
This project is part of the Black Summer research program funded by the Commonwealth Government through the 10-year extension of funding into natural hazard research in Australia.
The research is being completed through the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC's Tactical Research Fund.
This study focuses on the needs of elderly people displaced natural disasters, and the role emergency shelters can play in accommodating this sector of society. The study takes into account the rapidly aging population, especially in developed countries such as Australia.
NSW Stage 3 students (Years 5 & 6) how bushfire affects people, place and the environment. NSW Rural Fire Service member experts support teachers to deliver education outcomes and disaster resilience education (DRE) activity.
However, there is no understanding of the enablers and barriers to consistent, sustained and quality support from members. This project will identify and explore in-depth the DRE practices being applied by classroom teachers, the contribution of NSW Rural Fire Service experts to the classroom, and what DRE learning outcomes can be attributed to those NSW Rural Fire Service experts.
The research is being completed through the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC's Tactical Research Fund.
An investigation of spontaneous volunteers' social media engagement in emergency disaster management
Spontaneous volunteers can assist emergency services in crisis situations by providing complementary expertise and resources. This research analyses advances in technology and social media and how they have enabled spontaneous volunteers to participate in the actual crisis communication for major disasters.
The aim of the doctoral research project is to critically examine the companion animal emergency management response to and following the April 2017 Edgecumbe flood, including a review of the legal frameworks that affect companion animal emergency management; a review of related after action reports and other official documents; and analysing the perceptions of residents affected by the floodin
Jane Williamson is an ecologist and a PhD candidate at the Australian Catholic University. Her research interests include fire ecology, specifically determining ecologically sustainable fire interval guidelines that conserve both flora and fauna diversity.
Current research:
This project combines research and practice from diverse areas with the purpose of developing an integrated assessment framework that will allow practitioners to objectively evaluate the impacts that wildfire risk reduction strategies impose on society and the environment. Of interest are the correct identification, quantification and valuation of health impacts produced by fine particulate matter emissions from fire smoke.
This project is part of the Black Summer research program funded by the Commonwealth Government through the 10-year extension of funding into natural hazard research in Australia.
This research aims to develop an understanding of, and new approaches to, landscape design and planning in disaster risk reduction relating to bushfire. It will contribute to and integrate landscape specific measures into disaster risk reduction and urban planning, particularly in the case of bushfire in Victoria.
Many of the people living in poverty are caught in a vicious cycle of poverty regardless of where they live – low and middle income countries / high income countries). Recurrent disaster events escalate vulnerability and poverty levels. Though the link to poverty worsening the effect of natural disasters and vice versa are well established, not much has been explored in the way of understanding how children who live in poverty usually cope with these recurrent adversities The project will explore coping of children and families living in poverty during disasters in both Australia and India in order to exchange and build on the existing knowledge base. The project eventually aims to develop an intervention that builds their resilience in coping with adversities like disasters.
This thesis examines the components of the socio-cultural context of an Indonesian island community that reportedly led to a remarkably low level of casualties during the Indian Ocean Boxing Day tsunami in 2004. Various elements of the social context of the Simeulue Island community are being assessed for their contribution to disaster response behaviour, potentially including community participation, collective efficacy, empowerment and trust as well as the maintenance of traditional disaster response knowledge. The key factors that contributed to the disaster response behaviour will then be considered in Australian cultural settings with a view to improving risk communication and community resilience.
This study will provide a sound understanding of the movement capacity requirements of modern SAMFS firefighters. The findings will identify the physical demands of critical occupational tasks, aiding the teaching and programming of future training activities. This study will also assess the movement capacities of full-time firefighters at the SAMFS. The establishment of a contemporary ‘normative’ database of movement capacities in the SAMFS will be the first of its kind and will aid the development of future injury prevention initiatives.
Significant proportions of Australia’s population live in flash flood-prone areas within short duration catchments. The production of rain fields data products by the Bureau of Meteorology and recent advances in 2D hydrodynamic modelling, in conjunction with applied communications theory and practice, provide an opportunity to develop a short response catchment flood modelling and warning capability that delivers life-saving, accessible, timely, targeted and tailored warnings for flash flooding events.
This research is studying erosion and sediment transfer for post-fire monitoring. It aims to integrate the variables of an erosion model into spatial layers using GIS. Map algebra can then be utilised to quantify sediment transfer in catchments affected by fire. The project will enable the determination of regional post-fire erosion hazards and target locations for appropriate initiation of mitigation and conservation measures.
The aim of this research is to develop a stochastic fire effect model to predict the impacts of fire severity on the vegetation of selected national parks around Sydney. The main aim of the research will be achieved through the following research objectives: understanding the spatio-temporal patterns of bush fires considering important environmental variables, assessment and of burn severity using field sampling and geo-spatial fire indices and parameterising, calibrating, verification and validation of a stochastic fire effect model with the derived from geo-sampling (Geo-CBI) and geospatial information.
The outcome of this research will be a geo-spatial fire effect model integrating environmental parameters, geo-spatial fire information and climatic data as the model inputs, which will help to develop statistically reliable future environmental scenarios for the post-fire impacts on vegetation. The developed fire effect model will be developed with the spatio-temporal satellite image analysis and robust geo-processing techniques, so, a minimal data upgradation will be required to simulate the short and long-term impacts of bushfires. This model will be validated on the selected National Parks around Sydney, but, there will be a chance to improve and validate the developed algorithm for the whole Australia, which will minimize the time and cost of fire impact prediction.
This research project looks at the development of a new method to predict bushfire hazard using remote sensing and GIS data using machine learning algorithms.
The project will involve an injury analysis to identify a need for an occupational fitness evaluation process. In addition to the use of a 2-stage modified Delphi process to establish a list of validated critical occupational tasks unique to metropolitan firefighters in South Australia. Once identified these tasks may be used in further research to develop an occupational fitness evaluation incorporating the critical tasks.
This PhD research project focuses on exploring social media users' experience with risk communication in the changing new media environment.
Reliable predictions of fuel load and condition (especially moisture content) are one of the highest order priorities for fire-fighting and land management agencies in Australia. Fuel load and condition are critical for predicting the spread and behaviour of bushfires, and have until now been largely assessed using visual or semi-quantitative guides, that have been in place for decades.
The overall goal of my current research is to economically evaluate prescribed fire as a bushfire risk mitigation tool for southeast Queensland.
This project was commissioned and funded entirely by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Victoria.
This project was commissioned and funded entirely by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Victoria.
This PhD project aims to conduct extensive experimental and finite element modelling of MIF for structural engineers to rely focusing largely on typical Australian building construction systems.
Despite the plethora of international plans, guidelines, legislation and the increasing body of supporting academic literature regarding Animal Welfare Emergency Management (AWEM), New Zealand research remains relatively scant.
This project was commissioned and funded entirely by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Victoria.
This project aims to identify the strategies and recommendations that emergency services agencies could adopt in order to improve the mental health and wellbeing of their workforce.
This research aims to develop a far more complete and accurate performance based fire design methodology for steel bridges. It is investigating the ways in which the fire resistance of bridges can be improved by introducing passive fire protection measures. A vulnerability index for any given configuration of a steel bridge will be calculated.
The overarching goal of the research is to reduce community’s vulnerability to flood risks by enhancing risk reduction capacity of the built environment. The possible outcomes of the research include critical review of flood risk management policy and practices and identification of “fit for purpose” policy guidelines to deal with dynamic change. The research context is Melbourne, Victoria and the research findings will offer empirical data resources for end-user agencies. Further, since the research is covering a range of aspects related to response, recovery and mitigation of disaster risk via the process of urban planning, it offers greater potential to benefit the larger society exposed to the similar risks in addition to direct implication in the local urban development policies of the case study catchment.
This student project focuses on large scale flood models and their ability to interact with land use models, to assess future risk. This includes the evaluation of existing flood models on their suitability as large scale model, adapting such a model, and creating the computational framework to integrate the model into a land use model.
This project aims to address the serious social issues entwined with declining emergency services volunteering rates during times of community need.
This project is researching the interface between risk and emergency management to understand how risk informs government, emergency management, policies and procedures. It is using tsunami risk scenarios originating from an earthquake along the length of the Hikurangi Subduction (off New Zealand’s North Island) to research the way risk is understood, communicated, believed, and used, as well as what existing factors limit tsunami risk awareness and understanding.
This project is part of the Black Summer research program funded by the Commonwealth Government through the 10-year extension of funding into natural hazard research in Australia.
This project will examine the consequences of recent unprecedented landscape scale bushfires in northern New South Wales on a world heritage listed ecosystem renown for its diversity of ancient plant lineages which exhibit few obvious adaptations to increasing fire activity.
This project will use conceptual and mathematical models to examine the response of fire-adapted ecosystems to increased pressure from altered fire regimes and climate, with particular attention to the role of seed ecology. Temporal, spatial and floristic dynamics will be examined through systematic development of tractable models, sensitivity analysis and comparison with available observations. The separate and combined effects of management intervention and climate change will be assessed through the use of plausible future scenarios. A key theme will be to investigate factors which limit the ability of canopy and soil seed banks to buffer populations against changes in composition.
This project is part of the Black Summer research program funded by the Commonwealth Government through the 10-year extension of funding into natural hazard research in Australia.
This research will evaluate current land use planning policy in Melbourne, Australia in terms of how well it defines and addresses flood risk.
Socio-cultural and ethnographic research with Indigenous land-owners – the Nyangumarta Aboriginal community (Pilbara, NW WA) will identify if their knowledge and practices of anthropogenic burning of country is gendered. Specifically, Nyangumarta women’s knowledge and practices will be ascertained to support the Nyangumarta community re-implement a favourable fire regime and appropriate practices for the environmental management of their Indigenous Protected Area.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the parent reported changes in child behaviour and development at primary school commencement (through the SEHQ and similar data) in communities affected by bushfire and flood compared to unaffected communities.
This project is part of the Black Summer research program funded by the Commonwealth Government through the 10-year extension of funding into natural hazard research in Australia.
This research will build on existing knowledge and experience from cutting edge strategic thinking on network enabled agility to develop an innovative, future proof model for communities to not only adapt, but to thrive in uncertainty.
This study will develop a comprehensive and inclusive major emergency management framework, that can be applied across a number of jurisdictions and across multi-agencies for the response phase of an incident.
This PhD project will involve experimental/physical modelling scenarios for firebrand transport of varying number, mass, length, surface to volume ratio, etc. under various wind conditions; statistical analysis of the transport to determine some dynamic transport equations; obtain firebrand creation probability and ignition probabilities from other PhD studies; incorporation of firebrand creation probability, dynamic transport and ignition probabilities into an operational model; and comparison of the fire parameters to experimental/physical scenarios.
Supervisors:
A) Dr Weena Lokuge B) A/Prof. Karu Karunasena Contact: weena.lokuge@usq.edu.auUniversity of Southern Queensland
Road infrastructure becomes extremely important in enhancing the resilience of a community during and after a disaster event.
Supervisor
Dr Karen Joyce Charles Darwin University
The level of spatial and temporal detail provided by a Unmanned Airborne Vehicle (UAV) is unsurpassed by any other technology and there is a critical gap in the understanding of their use and exploitation to inform disaster management.
This project would suit a student with an engineering or mathematics background. It will draw on and add to the current CRC project, Using realistic disaster scenario analysis to understand natural hazard impacts and emergency management requirements, and several of the projects within the Hardening Buildings and Infrastructure cluster.
Supervisors:
A) Dr Elspeth Opperman B) Dr Matt Brearley Charles Darwin University
This PhD project is designed to explore the potential to develop a tool for the improved communication of heat stress risk and management of exposure of individuals.
Supervisors:
Prof. Holger Maier (holger.maier@adelaide.edu.au), Dr. Aaron Zecchin (aaron.zecchin.adelaide.edu.au), A/Prof.
Supervisors:
Dr Karen Joyce Charles Darwin University
The integration of spatial data into the disaster management cycle is critical to the success of decision support systems in the event of disasters. However in many cases the data exists in disparate locations, in incompatible formats, and the specific requirements are not even always well understood.
Interested students can be located at either QUT (Brisbane) or JCU (Townsville) and would ideally have an engineering, atmospheric science or physics undergraduate/Masters degree.
Supervisors:
Dr.
Supervisors:
A) Prof Mary Finlayson B) Dr Matalena Tofa Charles Darwin University
This project will explore perceptions of vulnerability and exposure to bushfires and natural hazards among diverse communities within Darwin, and the impacts of this vulnerability on health and wellbeing.
Supervisors:
Dr. Aaron Zecchin (aaron.zecchin.adelaide.edu.au), Prof. Holger Maier (holger.maier@adelaide.edu.au), A/Prof.
Supervisors:
A) Dr Peter Jacklyn C) Dr Margot Ford Charles Darwin University
Supervisor
Dr Karen Joyce Charles Darwin University
The management of BNH in northern Australia requires a detailed understanding of risk factors at a landscape scale.
This research aims to provide insight into the fundamental process of fire growth of bushland fine-sized fuels, focusing on how the ignition and subsequent fire spread of fuel particles are affected when different convective and radiative conditions are applied.
This study focuses on physics based modelling of grassfire behaviour over flat, sloped and patchy terrains through a set of simulations.
This research will determine the different options which exist for providing a compliance/enforcement program to address a significant gap in bushfire protection.
Over the past two decades, southern Australia has experienced a pronounced increase in destructive bushfire events. Based on climate change projections, the frequency and intensity of bushfires in the region is expected to rise.
Large bodied people or those people with morbid obesity are ‘conspicuously invisible’ in research relating to disasters. The Sendai Framework (UN, 2015) sets out the urgency to anticipate, plan for, and reduce disaster risk globally. Work is required to reduce exposure and vulnerabilities. Disaster risk reduction (DRR) approaches need to be broader and more people-centred.
The research project is to study the seismic retrofitting for the limited to non-ductile reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in Australia which make up the most of the Australian building stock.
This project is providing empirical measures and modelling of resources that are used for suppression of campaign fires. The research is examining historical data by evaluating recent campaign fires in Australia. Operational data is being used to generate models of current suppression resourcing and tactics. These models will be used to evaluate various resource scenarios in simulation studies.
This project was commissioned and funded entirely by Energy Networks Australia and is aiming to create a standardised approach for assessing the cost of catastrophic bushfires that involve powerlines.
This project proposes to measure bushfire fuel using remote sensing and the effects of fuel on fire behaviour.
This collaborative study aims to understand the social and ecological responses of the Secwépemc Nation’s people and territory to the 2017 ‘Elephant Hill’ wildfire, and to both document and inform the development of post-fire restoration and co-management initiatives -grounded in Secwépemc knowledge and traditional governance systems - that aim restore both ecological and cultural values in fire-adapted landscapes.
The goal of this project is to elucidate the requirements for effective and appropriate fire management in north Australian savannas through examination of case study examples describing varying resourcing levels and methods, and assessment of their effectiveness in sustainably meeting specified ecological targets.
Seismic Assessment and Design Philosophy of Reinforced Concrete in Australia
This PhD research focuses on the seismic retrofit of unreinforced masonry building (URM) facades using fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composites.
The research is being completed through the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC's Tactical Research Fund.
This research aims to forecast fuel moisture content (FMC) by coupling FMC and water cycle models. The FMC model is a physical process-based model and the water cycle model is the Australian Water Resources Assessment system landscape (AWRA-L) model.
This research involves a geospatial analysis of the January 2013 Forcett-Dunalley fire that burnt approximately 26,000 hectares of forest-dominated landscapes in SE Tasmania. It will examine geographic patterns of fire severity in different forest types using remote sensing techniques and analyse landscape factors governing this severity.
This research is comparing current Australian emergency services training, policies and procedures when the likelihood of exposure to asbestos is suspected or confirmed. It will ensure that these policies and procedures comply with Australian Standards and best practice policies. A workshop on asbestos awareness will be developed for use by emergency service organisations.
This research examines the impact of leadership development on organisational citizenship behaviour and social capital. It involves a training intervention using Self-Determination Theory. By training leaders how to satisfy the three basic psychological needs among their direct reports, the study is attempting to offer organisations a new way to cultivating organisational citizenship behaviour and social capital among organisational members.
Hannah's PhD research investigates the ecological impacts of catastrophic wildfire.
This research explores histories of migration and natural disasters in Australia by investigating migrants’ memories of bushfires and floods, and the long term legacy of such events. Oral history interviews will be conducted with people who were born overseas, migrated to Australia and happened to experience a natural disaster here. The study examines how the migration experience, coupled with a fire or flood, affects our understanding of place, home community and environment
Urban fire is common in all cities, especially in developing countries, due to more concentrated settlement planning; lack of safety in buildings; increased population growth and poverty.
This research will find out the process of fire and the relationships between urban fire and changes of urban planning to investigate the causes of urban fire and how urban planning plays a role in causes of fire and how can it provide solutions to mitigate urban fire risk.
Quantifying and characterising vegetation as fuel is essential for informing a wide range of fire management activities such as assessing bushfire risk, planning fuel treatments, and managing smoke emissions.
As climate change is predicted to increase the intensity and frequency of wildfires, preventing the 80-95% of wildfires caused by humans is paramount. In California (USA) and Victoria (Australia), wildfire management strategies have involved varying degrees of collaborative input from local peri‐urban communities to address the wildfire risks. However, community/agency collaboration has mostly focused on preparedness and response activities with limited attention given to the prevention of the ignition itself. By comparing wildfire prevention approaches in California and Victorian and involving agencies, real and virtual world communities, this research will examine whether a shared sense of responsibility between stakeholders can be fostered in online communities to prevent human caused wildfires.
This project asks whether a shift towards an ‘adaptive’ approach to fire could reduce current and future vulnerabilities of Australian bushfire-prone communities.
A 3D model of the bushfire data will be generated from the different data sets and loaded into a web-based system for firefighters and emergency services to view.
This project is part of the Black Summer research program funded by the Commonwealth Government through the 10-year extension of funding into natural hazard research in Australia.
This study focuses on the reduction of the severity of bushfires by exploring the method of hazard reduction burning. The research takes a voxel-based approach to estimate the volume of fuel loads in bushfire prone areas.
This research will analyse 20 years of Australian judicial and semi-judicial reports to discover the role of human capacity in emergency management.
What is the acceptable risk in the coastal zone: perspectives on coastal hazards and decision making
By its very nature the coast is in a constant state of flux. The most visible aspects of this change may be seen through the action of extreme hazards such as storms and cyclones, resulting in storm surges, flooding and erosion. In isolation, such events may not be so harmful, but with the increasing development of coastal communities, more and more people will be exposed to increasing risk.
This study is investigating the acceptable level of risk is for coastal communities.
Drivers continue to enter flooded road crossings in Australia, often with tragic outcomes. Given the expected increase in flooding predicted with climate change, designing better risk mitigation and community safety strategies requires understanding of the psychology behind a drivers’ decision to enter floodwater.
This research provides a case study of successful collaborative land management in remote Indigenous Australia, and a gendered analysis of the caring for country movement as a strategy towards community resilience. By employing resilience theory as a framework for analysis, this project contributes to the broader parent BNHCRC project “Enhancing remote north Australian community resilience”.
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