The motivation for this project came from observations of widespread devastation during the 2011 and 2013 flooding in Queensland. A fundamental reason for this damage was inappropriate development in flood plains and a legacy of high risk building stock in flood prone areas.

The project is developing cost-effective strategies to mitigate damage to residential buildings from riverine floods. The research is providing evidence-based retrofit strategies for decisions concerning buildings with the greatest vulnerability in Australia.

Floods impact many Australian communities, with some communities inundated repeatedly due to inappropriate urban development in flood plain areas. This results in significant logistical issues for emergency management, disruption to communities, and considerable cost to all levels of government to repair damage and to enable communities to recover. There is a need for supporting information on the cost effectiveness of mitigating the risk posed by existing buildings either through retrofit, reconstruction on the site or relocation.

This project is building on existing research to broaden the knowledge of the vulnerability of Australian building stock to riverine flooding and is identifying suitable retrofitting strategies. Existing building schema have been assessed, both national and internationally. This led to the development of a new building classification schema to categorise residential buildings into a range of typical storey types. Mitigation strategies developed nationally and internationally have been reviewed.

A flood-proofing matrix has been developed to assess appropriate strategies for the five selected building types.

After the June 2016 flooding in Launceston, the significant mitigation works that had recently been completed to project the city were reviewed. This work highlighted the benefits of the mitigation (flood levees) in terms of likely damage had the levees not been in place. The research also assessed the effectiveness of further investment in mitigation works to reduce the residual flood risk.

Utilisation of this research involves gathering an evidence base comprising of vulnerability information and cost effective mitigation options along with the costs and benefits of investment to inform decision making by home owners to reduce flood risk.

This research will also be suitable for integration in a guideline document to estimate flood damage and to assess mitigation measures in consistency with the ADR Handbook 7. Flood risk managers will be able to utilise increased knowledge of flood vulnerability and mitigation at a suitable resolution which is compatible with existing level of exposure information.