Delegates at the 2019 Australasian Natural Hazards Management Conference will help develop a strategic view on whether research and formal reviews of natural hazards from around Australia, New Zealand, and across the globe, are providing us with the best knowledge to deal with the extreme hazards of our future.

The program will be staged around an exploration of this massive impact. Based around a scenario of cascading natural hazards, the conference will investigate how our systems would cope today, before examining how the same series of events could play out in 2035. The scenario will analyse how a series of overlapping natural hazards pushes our systems – both natural and constructed – beyond their limits to the point of failure, where many lives and livelihoods are threatened. What would happen if a long-running heatwave and drought were to broken by a severe storm and widespread flooding along Australia’s coastal regions, and across the Tasman Sea into New Zealand?

Is our current state of knowledge in natural hazards adequately preparing us for an extreme weather event of a scale that is beyond our experience? 

Registration are now open. Support from the Australian Government/Department of Home Affairs has allowed us to keep the lowest prices open for longer - earlybird prices now apply until 27 May 2019.

Pricing (including GST)

Registration type            Earlybird        Full

CRC Member                    $550                $660

Non-member                   $660                $770-

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The program

This conference program will start with a scene-setting opening on the Monday evening, and features guest speaker Rob de Castella AO MBE, Director of the Indigenous Marathon Foundation, on the role of sport and community in disaster recovery. Tuesday will be dedicated to exploring the multiple impacts of an extreme weather event and their relationship to current research and emergency management policies, with a keynote from Mark Crosweller, First Assistant Secretary, National Resilience Taskforce., and Jo Horrocks, from the New Zealand Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management. Wednesday's program will begin with a keynote from Animesh Kumar - Deputy Head of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Regional Office for Asia and Pacific, with the sessions that follow drawing together all the necessary parts to take Australia and New Zealand into the next decade well prepared, focused, and confident to manage the extreme impacts of natural hazards.

The full conference program of keynote speakers, topic experts and community representatives is now available. 

Download the program. 

Your view is needed

Attendance at this conference will be limited to allow for plenty of good discussion and debate, both in a plenary format with expert speakers and in facilitated breakout sessions. Participants will be required to contribute. New ways of thinking about the issues will be encouraged. Your views will count. Your vision on how to use research and influence policy is needed.

Who should attend?

The conference is aimed at people who are called upon to deal with the impacts of natural hazards including those from research, government (local, state, and federal), fire and emergency service agencies, community and volunteer groups, health, insurance, finance, essential services (power, gas, water), and others.

Participants include:

• ABC Emergency 
• ACT Parks and Conservation Service 
• ACT State Emergency Service 
• ACT Parks and Conservation Service
• AFAC 
• Ambulance Victoria 
• Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience 
• Australian Energy Market Operator 
• Australian National University 
• Australian Red Cross 
• Australian Strategic Policy Institute  
• Bureau of Meteorology 
• CQUniversity 
• Country Fire Authority, Vic
• Country Fire Service, SA 
• Department of Fire and Emergency Services, WA 
• Deakin University 
• Emerge Associates
• Emergency Management Australia  
• Energy Networks Australia 
• Inspector-General Emergency Management Queensland 
• Geoscience Australia 
• International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis 
• Insurance Australia Group  
• Insurance Council of Australia 
• LendLease 
• Massey University 
• Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management, New Zealand 
• National Resilience Taskforce, Department of Home Affairs 
• Office of Environment and Heritage, NSW 
• Optus
• Planning Institute of Australia
• QBE Insurance 
• Queensland Fire and Emergency Services 
• Queensland Reconstruction Authority 
• Queensland University of Technology 
• Resilient Organisations NZ
• RMIT University 
• United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction 
• University of Adelaide 
• University of Canberra 
• University of Melbourne 
• University of New England 
• University of Queensland 
• University of Western Australia 
• University of Wollongong 
• VicRoads
• Victoria University 
• Western Australian Local Government Association  

The 12th Australasian Natural Hazards Management Conference is hosted by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, and takes place in Canberra from 17-19 June 2019 at the Australian Institute of Sport.

Sponsored by the Australian Government/Department of Home Affairs and supported by the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience, and Integrated Research on Disaster Risk, which is part of the International Science Council and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. The Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC is funded under the Australian Government/Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, Cooperative Research Centres Programme.

For sponsorship opportunities please contact Amy Mulder, Communications Officer at the CRC: amy.mulder@bnhcrc.com.au