New online - May 2016

New journal articles and reports on CRC research are now available online.

The Natural hazard exposure information modelling framwork project has completed a report on their work to date, with the project updating the existing National Exposure Information System database that provides fundamental and consistent knowledge around the elements of exposure of buildings, infrastructure, population and businesses under different natural hazards and the associated risk. 

The Cost-effective mitigation strategy development for building-related earthquake risk study has published a preliminary report on economic loss modelling. The report describes the frameworks developed for a range of stakeholders, including building owners, owners of both business premises and the business within, local government, state government and federal government. The scale of decision making metrics range from the individual building level, up to business precinct level exposures and the interdependence of building performance within them. 

Reviewing beach profiles and models applicable to the statistical modelling of beach erosion is the focus on the latest report from the Storm surge: resilience to clustered disaster events on the coast study. The report outlines the characteristics required of an appropriate model and reviews literature and model results to determine if existing approaches include the required physics and can be embedded within a suitable statistical framework for a stochastic analysis. It is anticipated that a hybrid model approach will be required, utilising existing process models in a new model suite. A discussion of modelling approaches is provided, together with a justification of the model proposed for the project.

As well as the above reports, a number of journal papers also feature new papers on CRC research. The Child-centred disaster risk reduction project has looked at child health and survial in a changing climate by reviewing the existing literature on the health impacts of climate change on children. The paper identifies children as key stakeholders in action and decision-making for mitigation and adaptation at a variety of scales, and highlights how child participation in research, policy, and practice will increase the effectiveness and sustainability of solutions for addressing the health impacts of climate change.

To provide insight into the integration of scientific knowledge into policy and practice, the Scientific diversity, scientific uncertainty and risk mitigation policy and planning study has reported the findings of a case study of bushfire practitioners in the Barwon-Otway area of south west Victoria. This region has recently been the site of multi-agency efforts to reduce the residual bushfire risk using the PHOENIX RapidFire bushfire simulator. 

A mechanics-based numerical approach has been developed by the Cost-effective mitigation strategy development for building-related earthquake risk study that quantifies the stiffness, strength, and ductility of fiber-reinforced polymer retrofitted RC beams, in which the fiber-reinforced polymer plates are anchored, pre-stressed, and adhesively bonded. The approach can cope with any degree of anchorage and pre-stress whether adhesively bonded or not, and is generic as it can be applied to any type of RC beam, anchor or fiber-reinforced polymer plate and any distribution of load. It also allows for discrete flexural cracks and for the formation of softening hinges should these occur, with worked examples given as a possible design approach. This paper provides a design tool for engineers to develop and quantify their own fiber-reinforced polymerretrofitting systems for beams with anchored plates.

PhD student Roozbeh Hasanzadeh Nafari complements a previous paper with a new flood loss function for commercial buildings, calibrated by using historic data collected from a flood in Bundaberg, Queensland in 2013. The paper indicates that Australia’s most prevalently used commercial loss estimation model is still subject to very high uncertainty. This paper is available as a free download.