Published works

The project tackles from an economics perspective issues relating to non-financial benefit estimation, risk analysis, and development of decision making frameworks that would help deliver value for money from public investments in natural hazard management. It has a broad scope in terms of natural hazards, including fires, earthquakes, floods, cyclones and tsunamis. It aims to improve the management of bushfires and other natural hazards by delivering the following outcomes:

1. Improved recognition of non-financial benefits of management and policy for natural hazards, influencing decisions about budget levels and about management and policy options.
2. Improved decision making about management and policy options considering the full range of relevant factors (technical, social, economic, environmental, policy).
3. Improved ability to discuss appropriate budget levels with policy makers and treasury.
4. Improved quality of economic analysis throughout the sector, resulting in stronger and more defensible analyses, and stronger support from Treasury.

 The research team has extensive experience non-market valuation, integrated modelling and the economics of environmental and natural resource management and policy. The integrated modelling work builds on our previous work on prescribed burning where we developed powerful approaches for evaluating the value for money offered by alternative management and policy options. For the valuation related work, we have recruited four outstanding environmental economists with extensive experience and high expertise in valuation to be collaborators in this research: Professor Peter Boxall (University of Alberta, Canada); Professor John Rolfe (Central Queensland University); Professor Rob Johnston (Clark University, USA); and Professor Nick Hanley (University of Sterling, UK).