Dr Veronique Florec

Researcher
About
Dr Veronique Florec

Dr Veronique Florec began her PhD at the Bushfire CRC and completed in 2016 at the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, developing an economic model for evaluating different prescribed burning strategies in south west Western Australia. The model incorporates both biological information related to bushfires and fire regimes, as well as economic information about prescribed burning, suppression and potential bushfire damages. Her PhD informed decision makers on the costs and benefits of different prescribed burning strategies, the return on their investment and the trade-offs between different options. Broadly, Veronique found that, in the long-term, not conducting any prescribed burning for several years in this ecosytem can be very costly, leading to large increases in damages and suppression expenditures. Results identify a threshold point (10 per cent of public land) up to which substantial economic benefits may be gained from increasing the area subjected to prescribed burning. But beyond this threshold, prescribed burning generates little additional economic benefits. Her research was featured in Hazard Note 42 – Investing in prescribed burning: how much should we spend? and has been published in the International Journal of Wildland Fire and the Australian Journal of Emergency Management. Veronique also presented her findings at the 2016 AFAC conference
and the CRC’s Research Forums in 2016 and 2018, and spoke at the PhD development day as part of the CRC’s 2017 Research Advisory Forum about life after a PhD.

Veronique is a strong supporter of women in the areas of science and emergency management. In March 2018, she was part of eighty female scientists from around the world who journeyed to Antarctica as part of the Homeward Bound Voyage, which aimed to heighten the impact of women with a science background who can influence policy and decision making.

Upon completing her PhD, Veronique led the CRC’s Economics of natural hazards project and was part of the research team on the Quantifying catastrophic bushfire consequence project for Energy Networks Australia. Through the Economics of natural hazards project, Veronqiue and her team developed the Value Tool for Natural Hazards and the Economic Assessment Screening Tool for natural hazards managers and policy advisors to estimate the value for money different investments in mitigation offer and how to include monetary values for intangible values when assessing mitigation benefits. Both are hosted on the CRC website.

Based on these two tools, Veronique developed and delivered a popular online training course than ran in 2021 for natural hazards managers and emergency management practitioners to build capacity within
the sector to use economic analysis to inform decision making. This was complimented by a ten part video series to explain the core economic concepts and models that are relevant to natural hazards mitigation. The video series, hosted on the CRC’s YouTube channel, covered the types of economics analyses available; their data requirements; how to evaluate mitigation options; estimating costs, benefits and value for money of mitigation; how to integrate intangible values; and how to deal with uncertainty.

Project leadership

This project aimed to provide evidence on the economic, social, and environmental impacts of natural hazards, in order to help hazard managers make better decisions about the allocation of resources for the mitigation of natural hazards impacts. The main focus of this research was the development of tools and materials that make it easier for natural hazards managers to estimate the value of mitigation, integrate intangible (non-market) values in economic analyses of mitigation, and evaluate the difference it makes to include non-market values. Through this project, the research team launched an online platform for the Value Tool for Natural Hazards, a searchable database of the best available non-market value estimates relevant to natural hazards; developed the Economic Analysis Screening Tool for the evaluation of the costs and benefits of mitigation options; created an online video course on the economics of natural hazards to explain economic concepts and how they are applied to evaluate different mitigation options; and conducted an online training course for managers and practitioners on how to use economics in natural hazards management.
Research team:

Student project

This PhD began at the Bushfire CRC and was completed in July 2016. It developed an economic model for evaluating different prescribed burning strategies. The model incorporates both biological information related to bushfires and fire regimes, as well as economic information about prescribed burning, suppression, and potential bushfire damages. The model uses the Australis wildfire simulator to simulate the spread of fires under different prescribed burning scenarios. The project has informed decision-makers on the costs and benefits of different prescribed burning strategies, the return on their investment, and the trade-offs between different options.
Supervisory panel:

Research team

Type Project Research team
Commissioned Research Quantifying catastrophic bushfire consequence vflorec, Kate Parkins, bcirulis

Resources credited

Type Released Title Download Key Topics
Presentation-Audio-Video 08 Aug 2023 Overview of Economic Analysis Screening Tool for economic analysis in natural hazard management File Save (0 bytes)
HazardNoteEdition 18 Aug 2021 Building economics capacity within emergency management: tools and training for managers and practitioners PDF icon Save (795.87 KB) economics, multi-hazard, policy
External Resource 27 Jul 2021 Economic Analysis Screening Tool File Save (3.58 MB) economics, multi-hazard, policy
Presentation-Audio-Video 23 Feb 2021 Video course introduction | Economics of natural hazards File Save (0 bytes) economics, mitigation, planning
Presentation-Audio-Video 23 Feb 2021 Types of economic analyses | Economics of natural hazards (1/10) File Save (0 bytes) economics, mitigation, planning
Presentation-Slideshow 17 Sep 2020 France-Australia Workshop: Day 2/Panel 2 Veronique Florec PDF icon Save (2.22 MB)
Presentation-Slideshow 09 Jul 2019 Helping decision makers get value for money from public investments in natural hazard mitigation economics, planning, policy
Presentation-Slideshow 18 Sep 2018 How economics can help make important decisions when information is missing PDF icon Save (1.42 MB)
Presentation-Slideshow 17 Apr 2018 Economics of natural hazards PDF icon Save (4.06 MB) decision making, economics, multi-hazard
HazardNoteEdition 09 Nov 2017 Investing in prescribed burning: how much should we spend? PDF icon Save (267.53 KB) economics, policy, prescribed burning
Presentation-Slideshow 07 Sep 2017 Where do we put our dollars? Economic analysis of different bushfire management options in Western Australia PDF icon Save (1.54 MB) economics, emergency management, fire
Presentation-Slideshow 07 Sep 2017 Including the intangible benefits of bushfire mitigation in economic analyses: a 'value tool' for informed decision-making PDF icon Save (1.01 MB) decision making, economics, mitigation
Presentation-Audio-Video 05 Sep 2017 Research Forum - AFAC17 File Save (0 bytes) communication, emergency management, multi-hazard
Presentation-Slideshow 18 Apr 2017 Including Intangible Values in Natural Hazards Decision Making PDF icon Save (712.27 KB) economics, multi-hazard, policy
HazardNoteEdition 15 Dec 2016 What can economics offer emergency services? PDF icon Save (891.78 KB) decision making, economics, policy
Presentation-Slideshow 31 Aug 2016 Think long term: the costs and benefits of prescribed burning in the south west of Western Australia - Veronique Florec PDF icon Save (4.43 MB) economics, fire impacts, prescribed burning
Presentation-Slideshow 17 May 2016 Economics of Natural Hazards File Save (14.46 MB) economics, emergency management, multi-hazard
07 Jul 2015 Veronique Florec PhD Progress Report 2015 PDF icon Save (68.31 KB)
Presentation-Slideshow 08 May 2015 Economic Analysis of Bushfire Management Programs: A WA Perspective Presentation PDF icon Save (562.64 KB) economics, prescribed burning
Presentation-Slideshow 08 May 2015 Economic Analysis of Prescribed Burning for Wildfire Management in WA PDF icon Save (2.1 MB) economics, prescribed burning
Presentation-Slideshow 10 Apr 2015 Economics of Natural Disasters 2015 NSW RAF Presentation PDF icon Save (618.22 KB) economics, multi-hazard, policy

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