Conflicting world views: disjuncture between climate change knowledge, land use planning and disaster resilience in remote Indigenous communities in northern Australia

This paper examines the links between emergency management and land use planning in four remote Indigenous communities in tropical northern Australia and the extent to which such linkages produced better disaster resilience in these communities. The case study communities were chosen because they are in locations likely to experience increased frequency and/or intensity of extreme weather events, both slow (sea level rise, drought) and rapid onset (storm surges, cyclones, floods) as a consequence of climate change. We compared land use planning legislation, state level planning policies, statutory planning schemes, property registration systems and emergency management systems. We found a clear disjuncture between understanding the likely impacts of climate change and the collection of emergency management data and the consideration of hazards and risks in land use planning systems. We conclude that the land use planning systems in tropical northern Australia are still geared toward promoting and facilitating development and have not evolved sufficiently to take account of climate change impacts, including sea level rise. This disjuncture is particularly evident in the context of remote Indigenous communities in Australia and reforms to land use planning systems are urgently required to address this disjuncture.Copyright Information: Copyright the author

Conceptualizing community in disaster risk management

Community resilience is often assessed in disaster risk management (DRM) research and it has been argued that it should be strengthened for more robust DRM. However, the term community is seldom precisely defined and it can be understood in many ways. We argue that it is crucial to explore the concept of community within the context of DRM in more detail. We identify three dominating views of conceptualizing community (place-based community, interaction-based community, community of practice and interest), and discuss the relevance of these conceptualizations. We base this discussion on quantitative and qualitative empirical and policy document data regarding flood and storm risk management in Finland, wildfire risk management in Norway and volcanic risk management Iceland. According to our results, all three conceptualizations of community are visible but in differing situations. Our results emphasize the strong role of public sector in DRM in the studied countries. In disaster preparedness and response, a professionalized community of practice and interest appear to be the most prominent within all three countries. The interaction-based community of informal social networks is of less relevance, although its role is more visible in disaster response and recovery. The place-based (local) community is visible in some of the policy documents, but otherwise its role is rather limited. Finally, we argue that the measured resilience of a community depends on how the community is conceptualized and operationalized, and that the measures to strengthen resilience of a particular community should be different depending on what the focal community is.Peer reviewe

A Methodology for the Assessment of Climate Change Adaptation Options for Cultural Heritage Sites

Cultural sites are particularly important to Indigenous peoples, their identity, cosmology and sociopolitical traditions. The benefits of local control, and a lack of professional resources, necessitate the development of planning tools that support independent Indigenous cultural site adaptation. We devised and tested a methodology for non-heritage professionals to analyse options that address site loss, build site resilience and build local adaptive capacity. Indigenous rangers from Kakadu National Park and the Djelk Indigenous Protected Area, Arnhem Land, Australia, were engaged as fellow researchers via a participatory action research methodology. Rangers rejected coastal defences and relocating sites, instead prioritising routine use of a risk field survey, documentation of vulnerable sites using new digital technologies and widely communicating the climate change vulnerability of sites via a video documentary. Results support the view that rigorous approaches to cultural site adaptation can be employed independently by local Indigenous stakeholders

Sending a message: How significant events have influenced the warnings landscape in Australia

Publisher's version (útgefin grein)The Bureau of Meteorology has a mandate to issue warnings for weather and climate events that are likely to result in harm and loss. This service has been delivered in an end-to-end (science to service) context and warnings messages have typically been crafted to describe the current and predicted future state of the environment and recommended protective actions. However, the warnings landscape is evolving and Australian governments and emergency management agencies are adopting rapidly diversifying roles in a range of warnings processes. This evolution coincides with the shift in international strategies: from the mitigation and crisis management approach to the emphasis on building community resilience. Following a number of severe weather-related events that resulted in serious losses a series of Australian inquiries, reviews and social research investigated warnings efficacy. This included the National Review of Warnings and Information for Australia, with a recommendation suggesting that a Total Warning System concept be more formally considered across multiple hazards, rather than just flood, as it currently stands. Consequently, Australian warnings agencies are embracing a more people-centred approach recognising the need for messages to include detail of likely impact alongside an implied level of risk. Thus, developing capability to deliver impact forecasting and risk-based warnings services in a multi (natural) hazard context. With a key focus on flood, fire and tropical cyclone, this paper reviews international and national warnings policy documents and social research and explores the evidence-based evolution of warning services with respect to the Total Warning System concept.Deanne Bird has been supported by the Nordic Centre of Excellence for Resilience and Societal Security – NORDRESS, which is funded by the Nordic Societal Security Programme.Peer Reviewe

Exploring the circumstances surrounding flood fatalities in Australia—1900–2015 and the implications for policy and practice

This paper documents the analysis of the circumstances surrounding fatalities due to flooding in Australia between 1900 and 2015. This longitudinal investigation is important to understand changing trends in social vulnerability and to inform efficient and strategic risk reduction strategies. The basis of this analysis was PerilAUS, Risk Frontiers’ database of historical natural hazard impacts in Australia. This data was augmented and verified using coronial inquest records which provide detailed data concerning the social, demographic and environmental circumstances of each fatality. A statistical analysis of the data was undertaken, examining demographics (age, gender), location (state), seasonality, circumstances surrounding the fatality, environmental factors (e.g. the event intensity) and social factors (e.g. the decisions or actions which led to death). Overall there have been 1859 fatalities identified, with distinct trends in relation to gender, age, activity and reason behind the activity. Flood deaths have been declining. The majority of the fatalities are male (79.3%): however, since the 1960s the proportion of female to male fatalities has increased. Children and young adults (<29 years) make up the greatest proportion of the fatalities (53.8% of cases where age is known). The highest proportions of fatalities occurred while victims attempted to cross a flood-impacted bridge or road. The recommendations for emergency management policy and practice are discussed, outlining the need for a new approach that accounts for a continuum of measures including regulation and incentive, education and structural intervention.This research was funded by a research grant from the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (BNHCRC). Ethical approval for the project was granted from the Macquarie University Human Research Ethics Committee, reference no. 5201400073.Peer Reviewe

Practising an explosive eruption in Iceland: outcomes from a European exercise

A 3 day exercise simulating unrest and a large explosive eruption at Katla volcano, Iceland, was conducted in January 2016. A large volume of simulated data based on a complex, but realistic eruption scenario was compiled in advance and then transmitted to exercise participants in near-real time over the course of the exercise. The scenario was designed to test the expertise and procedures of the local institutions in charge of warning and responding to volcanic hazards, namely the volcano observatory, national civil protection, and the local university-science sector, as well as their interactions with the European science community and the London Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre. This exercise was the first of this magnitude and scope in Iceland and has revealed many successful developments introduced since the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull and 2011 Grímsvötn eruptions. Following the exercise, 90% of participants said that they felt better prepared for a future eruption. As with any exercise, it also identified areas where further development is required and improvements can be made to procedures. Seven key recommendations are made to further develop capability and enhance the collaboration between the volcano observatory, volcano research institutions and civil protection authorities. These recommendations cover topics including notification of responders, authoritative messaging, data sharing and media interaction, and are more broadly applicable to volcanic institutions elsewhere. Lessons and suggestions for how to run a large-scale volcanic exercise are given and could be adopted by those planning to rehearse their own response procedures.This work was funded by the European Community’s FP7 Programme grant 308377 (Project FUTUREVOLC).Peer Reviewe

Social dimensions of volcanic hazards, risk and emergency response procedures in southern Iceland

The Katla volcano in southern Iceland is one the most hazardous in the country. Frequent, destructive eruptions producing catastrophic jökulhlaup (glacial outburst floods), tephra fall and lightning hazards pose a serious risk to many local communities. Extensive geological and geophysical research details the current state of Katla and provides insights into past eruptive episodes but only one study, conducted with residents from two communities in 2004, had assessed Katla with respect to the local population. In order to develop successful risk mitigation strategies however, emergency management agencies must consider the hazard in conjunction with the varying factors affecting the society at risk. As a result, this research explores some of the social dimensions of hazard, risk and emergency response procedures in relation to Katla. The aim of the research is to provide a social framework for disaster risk reduction by offering an in-depth social assessment to complement the physical. Using mixed methods research, the study incorporates field observations during evacuation exercises, semi-structured interviews with emergency management officials and residents, and structured questionnaire interviews with residents, tourists and tourism employees. The research shows that each stakeholder group is inherently different and volcanic risk mitigation strategies need to be structured accordingly. Recent efforts which culminated in full-scale evacuation exercises in 2006 did not take this into consideration. On a practical level, these exercises indicated that most residents would respond positively to evacuation orders. At a conceptual level however, this research identified many contextual issues, (e.g. knowledge and perception of hazard and risk, level of trust) which affect people’s ability to adopt the recommended protective action. In rural communities, emergency management agencies need to consider local knowledge, livelihood connections and attachment to place in order to develop effective mitigation strategies. Within the tourism sector, emergency management agencies must ensure that education campaigns raise awareness of hazard, risk and emergency response procedures. Significant effort is still urgently needed to address disaster risk reduction in southern Iceland as Katla is thought to be in a heightened state of activity and an eruption, without prolonged precursory signals, is expected in the near future

Evaluation of morphometric parameters of drainage networks derived from topographic maps and DEM in point of floods

An evaluation of morphometric parameters of two drainage networks derived from different sources was done to determine the influence of sub-basins to flooding on the main channel in the Havran River basin (BalIkesir-Turkey). Drainage networks for the sub-basins were derived from both topographic maps scaled 1:25.000 and a 10-m resolution digital elevation model (DEM) using geographic information systems (GIS). Blue lines, representing fluvial channels on the topographic maps were accepted as a drainage network, which does not depict all exterior links in the basin. The second drainage network was extracted from the DEM using minimum accumulation area threshold to include all exterior links. Morphometric parameters were applied to the two types of drainage networks at sub-basin levels. These parameters were used to assess the influence of the sub-basins on the main channel with respect to flooding. The results show that the drainage network of sub-basin 4-where a dam was constructed on its outlet to mitigate potential floods-has a lower influence morphometrically to produce probable floods on the main channel than that of sub-basins 1, 3, and 5. The construction of the dam will help reduce flooding on the main channel from sub-basin 4 but it will not prevent potential flooding from sub-basin 1, 3 and 5, which join the main channel downstream of sub-basin 4. Therefore, flood mitigation efforts should be considered in order to protect the settlement and agricultural lands on the floodplain downstream of the dam. In order to increase our understanding of flood hazards, and to determine appropriate mitigation solutions, drainage morphometry research should be included as an essential component to hydrologic studies.11 page(s

Testing the use of a 'questionnaire survey instrument' to investigate public perceptions of tsunami hazard and risk in Sydney, Australia

The Indian Ocean tsunami (IOT) of December 2004 has demonstrated that the coasts of Australia are vulnerable to tsunami flooding. As a consequence of the IOT, the Australian Federal Treasurer announced in 2005 that the Bureau of Meteorology and Geoscience Australia will jointly develop and implement the Australian Tsunami Warning System. Effective response to tsunami warnings is highly dependent on public awareness and perception of tsunami hazard and risk. At present, no efforts have been made to investigate and publish public awareness of tsunami hazard and risk and as such, emergency managers have little idea of the likely challenges to effecting appropriate tsunami risk management. We develop a short questionnaire survey instrument and trial that instrument in order to investigate its suitability for generating information about the perceptions of tsunami hazard and risk in the Sydney region. We found that the design, layout and format of the questionnaire were suitable for our purpose and should be useful for generating information appropriate to emergency management agencies tasked with the responsibility of developing tsunami education campaigns and risk mitigation strategies in Australia. However, certain limitations, such as individual question design and format, should be considered before a much larger survey of various stakeholders is conducted.24 page(s