Flood Risk in Australia: Whose Responsibility Is It, Anyway?

Box, Pamela; Thomalla, Frank; Honert, Robin van den

doi:10.3390/w5041580

Cited by 37 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…In Australia, floods are the most costly of all disaster types [4], contributing 29% of the total cost of the nation's economy and the built environment [5,6]. Accordingly, flood risk management is attracting more attention [7][8][9], and results are used to inform disaster management policy and support the development of risk reduction measures [10,11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Assessment of the Effectiveness of Tree-Based Models for Multi-Variate Flood Damage Assessment in Australia

Nafari

Ngo

Mendis

2016

Water

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Abstract:Flood is a frequent natural hazard that has significant financial consequences for Australia. In Australia, physical losses caused by floods are commonly estimated by stage-damage functions. These methods usually consider only the depth of the water and the type of buildings at risk. However, flood damage is a complicated process, and it is dependent on a variety of factors which are rarely taken into account. This study explores the interaction, importance, and influence of water depth, flow velocity, water contamination, precautionary measures, emergency measures, flood experience, floor area, building value, building quality, and socioeconomic status. The study uses tree-based models (regression trees and bagging decision trees) and a dataset collected from 2012 to 2013 flood events in Queensland, which includes information on structural damages, impact parameters, and resistance variables. The tree-based approaches show water depth, floor area, precautionary measures, building value, and building quality to be important damage-influencing parameters. Furthermore, the performance of the tree-based models is validated and contrasted with the outcomes of a multi-parameter loss function (FLFA rs ) from Australia. The tree-based models are shown to be more accurate than the stage-damage function. Consequently, considering more parameters and taking advantage of tree-based models is recommended. The outcome is important for improving established Australian flood loss models and assisting decision-makers and insurance companies dealing with flood risk assessment.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Assessment of the Effectiveness of Tree-Based Models for Multi-Variate Flood Damage Assessment in Australia

Nafari

Ngo

Mendis

2016

Water

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“…For example at the federal or national level, the focus of flood risk management is mitigation and disaster recovery (Box et al 2013 The advantages of these online flood risk resources include increasing flood risk awareness, having different level of detail and that it is free. However, a consolidation of these information sources may be a valuable direction in the future.…”

Section: Flood Risk Assessment Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is further complicated by the three-tiered system of governance: from federal, state and territorial, to local government (Box et al 2013). Federal government does not interfere with flood planning but focuses on providing funding for flood mitigation and disaster recovery (Box et al 2013).…”

Section: Unconsolidated Flood Risk Management Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, Box et al (2013) surveyed four groups of stakeholders in the east coast of Australia, across four high flood risk areas, namely local government; emergency services, insurance industry and local residents, and found that the first three groups were all concerned about complacency amongst the local residents. The study reviewed that lack of knowledge (i.e.…”

Section: Risk Perception In Flood Risk Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Federal government does not interfere with flood planning but focuses on providing funding for flood mitigation and disaster recovery (Box et al 2013). Laws are legislated at state or territorial level, and specific planning decisions are made at the local council/government level following state legislation (Doyle and Kellow 1995;Box et al 2013). …”

Section: Unconsolidated Flood Risk Management Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Extreme flood events in South East Queensland: evidence and implications

Lam¹

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The use of flood frequency analysis (FFA) to estimate both the magnitude and frequency of the design flood is severely limited by short gauging records. This thesis seeks to improve our understanding of the frequency and magnitude of extreme flood events, with an aim to advance flood risk management and policy planning through the integration of spatial and temporal extreme flood information. This research undertakes a field-work based regional study, collecting slackwater deposits (SWDs) as extreme flood archives and incorporates these as palaeoflood record of extreme flood events for SouthEast Queensland (SEQ).To do so, this study must first define an extreme flood, which is undertaken through the derivation of an Australian Envelope Curve (AEC). The resultant approach represents a significantly improved method to produce an AEC which comprises data from ~2700 gauges in SEQ.An alternative approach to flood frequency is also investigated in the form of a Probabilistic Regional Envelope Curve (PREC) approach which integrates additional spatial information, from homogenous regions. Results indicate that for gauges with either too few, or too many, extreme flood events, the PREC method shows significant changes to the estimated discharges of low % Annual Exceedance Probability (AEP) flood quantiles. A decision making process is provided to ascertain when this method is preferable for FFA.This thesis also examines historical and palaeoflood records that can provide significant upper-tail flood information, often missing from short gauging records. Palaeoflood studies and records have been spatially limited to bedrock settings, in climatic regions outside the subtropical environs of SouthEast Queensland. Reliable historical records are also temporally limited to the last ~200 years of European settlement. This study produced results on the timing and magnitude of past floods from over 30 SWDs across five catchments in the region, spanning a variety of depositional settings, contributing catchment areas, and discharge magnitude. Sensitivity analyses included tests for stable boundary conditions essential for reliable discharge reconstruction. Results show that cross sectional changes due to either aggradation or incision result in resultant changes in discharge that are within the uncertainty range for most of the concerned % AEP flood quantiles.Additional temporal extreme flood information derived from both historical and palaeoflood records are also integrated with gauge records for FFA. This approach reveals that a significant reduction in uncertainty associated with the estimated discharge of a flood quantile can be achieved.Importantly, the uncertainty associated with the 1% AEP flood discharge is reduced by 50-74%. iii

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What drives feelings of responsibility for disaster preparedness? A case of power failures in Finland and New Zealand

Nikkanen

Malinen

Laurikainen³

2023

Risk Hazard & Crisis Pub Pol

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The division of responsibilities for disaster preparedness between individuals and society is rapidly evolving: national‐level preparedness has made way for networked disaster risk governance, and citizens are also expected to play their part. Preparedness is shaped by various individual and socioeconomic factors, including previous disaster experience and perceptions of risk. However, little is known about whom citizens perceive to be responsible for preparedness. This study examines the factors associated with an individual's perception of their own responsibility in preparing for a disaster—long power failures—and the factors related to preparedness measures taken. As societal disaster context may impact perceptions of responsibility, we investigate preparedness through large‐scale surveys (n = 2028) in two countries: Finland, where the frequency of disasters is low, and New Zealand, which experiences disasters relatively often. We find that self‐efficacy strongly predicts perception of responsibility and actual preparedness measures in both countries. However, we show that New Zealanders feel more responsible for their own preparedness than Finns. This may be influenced by New Zealand's recent experiences of severe disasters and active preparedness‐related communication. In addition, previous experience with power failures and risk perception are connected to preparedness in both countries, echoing past research. We conclude that surrounding historical and societal context seem to shape the individual's feelings of responsibility for disaster preparedness, while self‐efficacy remains the most salient factor in empowering individuals to take responsibility.

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Flood Risk in Australia: Whose Responsibility Is It, Anyway?

Cited by 37 publications

References 14 publications

An Assessment of the Effectiveness of Tree-Based Models for Multi-Variate Flood Damage Assessment in Australia

An Assessment of the Effectiveness of Tree-Based Models for Multi-Variate Flood Damage Assessment in Australia

Extreme flood events in South East Queensland: evidence and implications

What drives feelings of responsibility for disaster preparedness? A case of power failures in Finland and New Zealand

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