Plenty of new CRC research is now available through the CRC website, including annual reports, journal articles and even a brand new book. Read all the details in September’s wrap up below.
From Victoria University, Celeste Young and Prof Roger Jones' latest report for the Diversity and inclusion: building strength and capability project presents a framework to provide a basis for practitioners to address the issues of the development of diversity and inclusion in the workforce. The Diversity and inclusion framework for emergency management policy and practice uses a strength-based approach, which builds upon current practice and expertise in the sector. The framework covers measurement, overarching principles, statements of inclusion as a tool, processes and risk mapping.
A historical analysis of compound natural disasters in Australia written by Andrew Gissing, Matthew Timms, Stuart Browning, Lucinda Coates, Dr Ryan Crompton and Prof John McAneney from Risk Frontiers and Macquarie University for the Catastrophic and cascasding events: planning and capabilityproject utilises a natural hazards loss databases to identify the frequency of historical compound disasters in Australia, considering their characteristics and climate influences. Results show that compound disasters have occurred frequently and are associated with the highest seasonal losses in terms of both insured financial losses and fatalities. They may occur coincidently with other societal stressors such as wars, recessions and pandemics further exacerbating their consequences. Though their component disasters most frequently occur in eastern Australia, events can comprise disasters in both the east and west of the continent. There is no temporal trend in their frequency when considering financial losses, but there is a downward trend when considering only fatalities. It is essential that future disaster risk assessments and plans consider compound disaster scenarios. Relationships with climate drivers may assist to forecast their occurrence.
A/Prof Tina Bell from the University of Sydney has written the 2019/20 annual report for the Optimisation of fuel reduction burning regimes project. The report provides an update on the research progress over the past 12 months including: landscape-scale modelling of the effect of prescribed burning on evapotranspiration, calibration and testing of FullCAM, testing of a fine fuel model that can be used to determine changes in biomass and carbon content in surface fuels without sample collection and analysis, and use of near infrared spectroscopy to determine fire intensity and severity.
For the Improving the resilience of existing housing to severe wind eventsproject, Dr Korah Parackal (James Cook University), Martin Wehner (Geoscience Australia), Prof John Ginger (James Cook University), Dr Hyeuk Ryu (Geoscience Australia), Dr David Henderson (James Cook University) and Mark Edwards (Geoscience Australia) have written the annual report for 2019/20. The major activity carried out over the last 12 months has been refining the VAWS software package using detailed wind loading and structural response test data and conducting a benefit-cost analysis for a range of retrofit or mitigation options.
Dr Harald Richter (Bureau of Meteorology), Craig Arthur (Geoscience Australia), David Wilke (Bureau of Meteorology), Mark Dunford (Geoscience Australia) and Martin Wehner (Geoscience Australia) have written the 2019/20 annual report for the Impact-based forecasting for the coastal zone: East Coast Lowsproject. Over the last 12 months, the research has shown that the inclusion of exposure and vulnerability information can outperform a wind impact forecast that only uses a plain wind hazard prediction, and the team has applied their impact forecast methodology to a second extreme weather case during May 2020 in Perth – an extra-tropical cyclone – finding that wind impact forecasts are sensitive to the fluctuations in wind gust forecasts.
Journal articles
Research by Cameron Yates, Harry MacDermott, Jay Evans, A/Prof Brett Murphy and Adj Prof Jeremy Russell-Smith from Charles Darwin University was published in the International Journal of Wildland Fire. The paper Seasonal fine fuel and coarse woody debris dynamics in north Australian savannas relates to the Tools supporting fire management in northern Australia project, and highlights the need to develop seasonally dynamic modelling approaches that better account for significant seasonal variation in fine fuel inputs and decomposition.
Published in the International Journal of Wildland Fire is the journal article Effect of weather forecast errors on fire growth model projections by A/Prof Trent Penman, Dan Ababei, Dr Jane Cawson, Brett Cirulis and Dr Thomas Duff from the University of Melbourne and William Swedosh and Dr James Hilton from CSIRO. Relating to the Fire coalescence and mass spotfire dynamicsproject, the paper examines the extent to which error in weather forecasts can affect fire simulation results.