Lessons learnt post-disaster

The latest edition of the Australian Journal of Emergency Management is now available, informed by CRC research and expertise.

The April 2018 edition focuses on lessons management and the debriefs and analysis that takes place after an emergency.

Professor Stephen Dovers reflects on the success of post-disaster inquiries and reviews and how they have contributed to lessons management. The research paper conducts an audit of recommendations from post-event reviews to discover the major themes that are presented in post-disaster recommendations. The paper establishes a comprehensive database that provides an overview of the recommendations that are made across multiple jurisdictions, hazards and inquiries.

Former CRC PhD student Graham Dwyer from Swinburne University writes about the anxiety and emotion that strikes incident management officers when a bushfire occurs. Graham’s PhD focused on the understanding and learning that takes place when an inquiry into a bushfire occurs. The article lists the degree of emotions which effect people in stressful situations, including before and during an emergency, as well as the inquiry processes itself. Graham argues that we need to ease the emotional burden on emergency management practitioners.

Also included in the journal are papers about sustainable volunteering, assessing resilience, animal emergency management and getting research into practice.

Released last year, NSW SES’s new volunteering strategy Volunteering Reimagined was informed heavily by CRC research. End-user Andrew McCullough discusses the initiative, which aims to make volunteering flexible and encourages community participation. The scheme has formalised flexible volunteering arrangements and introduces new policies which reflect the greater involvement of women, better technology and an ageing workforce in the volunteering landscape.

Dr Melissa Parsons (University of New England) and end-user Holly Foster (Emergency Management Victoria) write about embedding parts of the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index into the Victorian Emergency Management Community Resilience Index. The article discusses how to operationalise community resilience and take into account the priorities of different agencies.The Index will provide information on community resilience that can inform agencies and departments about recovery planning.

In the aftermath of the Sampson Flat bushfire in January 2015, researchers have written about the details surrounding animals and their owners. The research conducted by Dr Megan McCarthy and Dr Mel Taylor involves ten interviews with people directly involved in animal response during the bushfire. The article takes a deeper look at what we can learn from animal emergency management from South Australia’s experience and the legislation that ensures animals are considered when a bushfire or natural disaster occurs.

This edition also includes a research paper on how to use research in practice, with Dr Christine Owen explaining how agencies can adopt the latest research to keep their operations running at a premium. This study evaluates the success of certain agencies in adapting their operations to CRC research. Christine and the team conclude that senior managers are the most willing stakeholder to utilise the CRC’s research.  

A series of ten case studies which have been collected by Brenda Leahy detail how fire and land management agencies have shaped and used research based outputs from the CRC. Brenda provides examples of research utilisation across different areas of science and research as she discusses the critical success factors of each case study.

You can access the entire edition online for free. To receive printed copies of AJEM, you can subscribe to future print issues. If you would prefer to receive the free email alert for the online edition so that you don’t miss out, subscribe to email alerts. 

The Australian Journal of Emergency Management is published by the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience.