New online - June 2019

New publications on CRC research are now available.

CRC reports 

Dr Blythe McLennan (RMIT University) has authored a report about the Emergency Volunteering Shared Learning Network (EVN). The report documents the activities of the EVN during the programs pilot period and in conjunction with the Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project.  

The project Enhancing resilience of critical road infrastructure has a new report titled Analysis of design standards and applied loads on road structures under extreme events that looks at design codes of bridges, culverts and floodways in regards to natural hazards. The report is authored by Sujeeva Setunge, Chung Qing Li, Darryn McEvoy, Kevin Zhang, Jane Mullett, Hessam Mohseni, Priyan Mendis, Tuan Ngo, Nilupa Herath, Prof Karu Karunasena, Weena Lokuge, Buddhi Wahalathantri and Dilanthi Amaratunga.

Senani Karanuratne, Dr Malcolm Possell, Dr David Pepper and A/Prof Tina Bell have written a report from the Optimisation of fuel reduction burning regimes project on the use of the Full Carbon Accounting Model (FullCAM) software tool and its usefulness in determining carbon emissions released during prescribed burning. 

Journal papers 

From the Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project, Dr Darja Kragt and Dr Djurre Holtrop have written a narrative review on volunteering research in Australia, recently published in the Australian Journal of Psychology.  

A new paper by Dr James Hilton, Dr Stefania Grimaldi, Dr Raymond Cohen, Nikhil Garg, Dr Yuan Li, Steve Marvanek, A/Prof Vaneltijn Pauwels and Prof Jeffrey Walker from the CRC project Improving flood forecast skill using remote sensing data titled River reconstruction using a conformal mapping method has been published in Environmental Modelling and Software. The journal article looks at river bathymetry and bathymetric measurements.  

Dr Veronique Florec, Prof Michael Burton, Prof Daniel Pannell, Joel Kelso and George Milne have released a paper in the International Journal of Wildland Fire looking at where to prescribe burn in relation to burning near houses as part of the Economics of natural hazards project.  

Three journal articles have been published in relation to the Delivering effective prescribed burning across Australia ecosystems project: 

• Developing and testing models of the drivers of anthropogenic and lightning-caused wildfire ignitions in south-eastern Australia is a new paper by Dr Hamish Clarke, Rebecca Gibson, Brett Cirulis, Prof Ross Bradstock and A/Prof Trent Penman, published in the Journal of Environmental Management.  
• Brett Cirulis, Dr Hamish Clarke, Dr Matthias Boer, A/Prof Trent Penman, Dr Owen Price and Prof Ross Bradstock have a paper in the International Journal of Wildland Fire titled Quantification of inter-regional differences in risk mitigation from prescribed burning across multiple management values that compares how risk values and management values respond to prescribed burning. 
• Climate change effects on the frequency, seasonality and interannual variability of suitable prescribed burning weather conditions in south-eastern Australia is the title of a paper by Dr Hamsh Clarke, Dr Bruce Tran, Dr Matthias Boer, Dr Owen Price, Belinda Kenny and Prof Ross Bradstock published in the Agricultural and Forest Meteorology journal.  

Dr Danielle Every, Adj/Prof Jim McLennan, Dr Amy Reynolds and Josh Trigg have a paper titled Australian householders’ psychological preparedness for potential natural hazard threats: An exploration of contributing factors in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. The paper reviews the psychological preparedness of Australian households for natural hazards, and uses research from the 2015 Sampson Flat SA post-incident task force and the 2014 South Australia post-incident task force projects.   

Published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, Dr Rachel Westcott, Prof Kevin Ronan, Hillary Bambrick and Dr Mel Taylor have written an article titled Public health and natural hazards: new policies and preparedness initiatives developed from an Australian bushfire case study. The paper covers findings from Dr Westcott's recently completed PhD. 

Dr Ryan Hoult, A/Prof Helen Goldsworthy and Dr Elisa Lumantarna have had their paper Vulnerability Functions for RC Shear Wall Buildings in Australia published in Earthquake Spectra. The paper reports on findings from Dr Hoult's PhD.