A model for relief and recovery

Ensuring communities are safe and resilient in the face of natural disasters is fundamental to emergency management organisations.

Research led by Dr Melissa Parsons at the University of New England is developing the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index, which has already begun to improve the understanding of disaster resilience, helping communities, governments and organisations to develop the capacities needed for adapting and coping with natural hazards.

While the study is assessing resilience across the country, Emergency Management Victoria is embedding the national findings to develop a better understanding of resilience at the state level. It has used the national research as baseline data to build a ‘living’ resilience index within the organisation, explains EMV’s research coordinator Dr Holly Foster.

“We have used the research as a basis for the Victorian platform, adapting it to our resilience needs in Victoria,” Holly says.

“Its primary function is as a relief and recovery tool, exploring the characteristics and attributes of communities to enable a better understanding of what relief and recovery would be required if an emergency were to occur. We want to be able to proactively meet community needs.”

It is only through the collaborative approach taken by the research team that mutually beneficial outcomes have been possible, with Emergency Management Victoria’s learnings feeding back into the larger national approach.

In Western Australia, the framework from the Australian Natural Disaster Index has been adopted by the Department of Fire and Emergency Service to frame their monitoring and evaluation framework, assessing their programs to ensure they support specific disaster resilience outcomes.