Published works

This report details a five-month utilisation project linked to the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC ‘Flood Risk Communication’ core research project[1]. The project aim was to deliver a nationally agreed set of public flood risk messages, informed by research and agreed by a national working group comprising SES representatives from all Australian states and territories.

Specifically, the messages developed in this project are ‘Community Service Announcements’ (CSAs) intended for initial use by ABC Emergency. These CSAs would typically be used in radio broadcasts during or in the lead up to, significant flood or storm events.

These CSAs are messages of around 30 – 60 seconds duration; however, they may be combined to produce longer segments. In rolling emergency broadcasts, they provide breaks between status updates and warnings from the relevant state or territory emergency services and on-the-ground reporting. These flood CSAs contain public safety information about flood risks, desired behaviours and calls to action, and sources of help or support.

The project was highly collaborative, made possible by the creation of a Flood CSA working group (CSA WG). The CSA WG comprised representatives of all state and territory emergency service agencies with responsibility for response in floods, mostly State Emergency Services (SES), along with a representative of the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), and representatives from the CSA product end user – ABC Emergency. This group was facilitated and supported by the report author and research Chief Investigator (CI) who also worked to incorporate research informed insights into the messaging, and a partner investigator (PI) from the research end user organisation, the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (AFAC). 

The project comprised three stages: scoping; co-development; testing and finalising.

1. SCOPING - this stage used consensus decision-making to identify and prioritise message topics and content areas.
2. CO-DEVELOPMENT– this stage involved message drafting and iterative review by the CSA WG to agree a provisional set of CSA messages.
3. TESTING AND FINALISING – this stage involved testing of the CSA messages through a series of focus groups with the public and a final round of review and refining based on their feedback to produce the final set of CSAs.

The final stage in this project is the end user production of the CSAs, i.e., professional recording and implementation ready for use. This last stage is outside the scope of the BNHCRC-funded project.

This report included details of the approaches taken and the outcomes in Stages 1 to 3.

The scoping stage of the project included use of a survey to aid the consensus process. Following agreement on the main content areas the second stage was co-development. In this stage the CSA WG was divided into small cross-jurisdictional ‘cluster’ groups to draft messages in two or three content areas, and this was followed by a whole-of-group iterative review process. A set of 26 provisional CSA messages were produced at the end of this stage.

In the final stage the ABC end user produced a set of first-pass audio recordings of each CSA. These were used for message testing with the public. Seven virtual focus groups were run with a total of 39 members of the public. Sample demographics were collected during this process to ensure national coverage across the sample and inclusion of a mix of genders, ages, and flood exposure. In addition, based on CSA message content, important sample characteristics were monitored to ensure inclusion of relevant target audiences in the sample, i.e., parents of younger children and youths/teenagers, drivers, large and small animal owners, and people living in rural locations.

Message testing included assessment of initial impressions, message understanding (words, structure), message ambiguity (intent, confusion), and relevance/utility to self and other. Focus group feedback was then fed back into a final set of edits for a last series of reviews and refining to produce the final set of agreed CSAs.

Nationally agreed Community Service Announcements

The final set of Flood CSAs comprises 26 messages. This includes messages that can be used in all phases of flood and storm events, although the majority are designed for use during an event. The messages cover a broad range of flood risk content including the need to prepare and leave early, risks associated with driving in floods, storms, and flash flooding, playing, and having contact with floodwater, issues for a range of animal owners, and safety considerations when cleaning up after flooding.

Following finalisation of the CSAs, these messages were approved by the AFAC SES Community Safety Group on 28 October 2021. These messages and the approach taken to develop them has now been written into an AFAC Procedural Guideline, which was endorsed by AFAC Council on 28 October 2021 and is available via the AFAC website[1].

The ABC has also finalised the production of the CSAs and these were distributed and available for broadcast from 8 November 2021.

Although the CSAs were created in response to a request by the ABC, and with their involvement, there is the opportunity for other broadcasters to use them too. It is important that those interested in using these CSAs consult the local State Emergency Service agency on which messages will be broadcast to ensure that this messaging complements and reinforces emergency services’ communications during the flood/storm emergency.