Victoria – NCCARF and CoastAdapt Adaptation Library Archive

Enhancing disaster resilience and adaptability

Authors: Helen Boon, Joanne Millar, David Lake, Alison Cottrell and David King
Year: 2012

This factsheet describes the implementation and findings of a project that examined the community resilience of four disaster impacted communities: Beechworth (bushfire) and Bendigo (drought) in Victoria and Ingham (flood) and Innisfail (cyclone) in Queensland.The resilience of each community and its residents was enhanced or decreased by characteristics unique to that community. Nevertheless, each of the four communities retained a stable population despite the impact of disasters, suggesting individuals remaining in the community were resilient and the four communities were resilient overall. Resilience was found to be both an individual trait and a process. Being resilient was strongly linked to adaptability and having a sense of place. Important indirect influences on resilience are: financial capacity, family and neighbour support, communications, climate change knowledge and trust in communication sources. A number of key findings and recommendations resulting from this project are contained within the factsheet.

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Protecting structures from floodwater

Authors: Matthew Mason, Emma Phillips, Tetsuya Okada & James O’Brien
Year: 2012

This factsheet summarises the key findings from a project that analysed the damage to buildings in Queensland and Victoria following the 2010-11 eastern Australia floods. In the worst affected state, Queensland, 58 600 insurance claims accounted for $2.4 billion in insured losses. Many of these costs were due to inadequacies in Australian residential building practices which left houses vulnerable to damage and possible structural failure when exposed to floodwaters. By identifying a buildings specific vulnerabilities to different flood impacts, appropriate measures can be taken to reduce the future likelihood of their occurrence. This factsheet provides information on the different pressure forces and sources of damage affecting buildings during floods, and on addressing flood risk to new and existing structures. Nine recommendations are made to improve building resilience to floods. These are: 1) continue to develop accurate flood maps, 2) consider introducing independent flood assessment bodies, 3) expand proposed flood resistant design requirements in the Building Code of Australia (BCA), 4) set minimum freeboard restriction of at least 300 mm, 5) include storm surge and coastal wave areas in the BCA, 6) require buildings being repaired or raised due to flood events to apply flood resistant design methods, 7) promote cost-benefit analysis of retrofit methods, 8) update and maintain prescriptive technical design manual, and 9) allow for multiple flood levels in design and construction.

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Climate Change Adaptation in the Australian Alps, 2pp, factsheet.

Author: NCCARF
Year: 2012

This factsheet summarises key findings from a case study on limits to adaptation in the Australian Alps. In the Australian Alps, social, governance and knowledge issues were found to play an important but largely under-recognised role in limiting climate change adaptation. Stakeholders in the region are fairly advanced in planning and utilising a range of climate change adaptation strategies as well as acknowledging a wide range of biophysical, economic and social limits to those strategies. However, a range of biophysical, economic, ecological and social limits on many of these strategies mean that major impacts of climate change will still occur. For example, while snow making is the primary climate change adaptation response by the ski tourism industry, it will not be economically or physically viable, or socially acceptable, in the future. This factsheet contains further information on the current stressors, and future climate predictions and impacts for the Australian Alps. This is one of the six case studies conducted for NCCARFs Limits to Adaptation project to explore the underlying causes and potential to transcend limits in particular regions.

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Key Findings: Heatwaves: The southern Australian Experience of 2009

Authors: Jim Reeves, Colleen Foelz, Peter Grace, Peter Best, Torben Marcussen, Shahbaz Mushtaq, Roger Stone, Margaret Loughnan, Darryn McEvoy, Ifte Ahmed, Jane Mullett, Katharine Haynes, Deanne Bird, Lucinda Coates and Megan Ling
Year: 2010

This factsheet presents the key findings of a project conducted to understand adaptation lessons from the extreme heatwave that affected south-eastern Australia during the summer of 2009. Having been registered as one of the nations most severe episodes of high temperatures over an extended period of time, the heatwave resulted in the death of as many as 500 people and financial losses in the order of $800 million. The factsheet contains further information on the scale of the disaster, the characteristics that resulted in the damaging impacts of the event, the adaptation actions and vulnerability pre and post the event, the successes and failures of the events management, and lessons learnt. In particular, the problem associated with demographic changes in Australia is highlighted, including the ageing population, and the adaptation strategies required to increase their resilience. This study is one of a suite of Historical Case Studies of Extreme Events conducted under Phase 1 of the NCCARF Synthesis and Integrative Research Program to examine present-day management of climate variability and the lessons that can be learnt for adaptation to future climate change.

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Key Findings: Drought and the Future of Rural Communities: Drought Impacts and Adaptation in Regional Victoria, Australia

Authors: Anthony S Kiem, Louise E Askew, Meg Sherval, Danielle C. Verdon-Kidd, Craig Clifton, Emma Austin, Pauline M. McGuirk and Helen Berry
Year: 2010

This factsheet presents the key findings of a project conducted to understand adaptation lessons from the Big Dry, or Millennium Drought that affected rural communities such as Mildura and Donald (both in Victoria) from the mid-1990s. This case study found that there is more failure than success in terms of managing drought in Australia, particularly relating to drought and water policy and ensuring that rural communities receive the support they need. Although the research revealed that most farmers were doing ok it is clear that significant improvement is needed in terms of water policy and drought adaptation strategies to ensure the future of rural communities. The factsheet contains further information on the scale of the disaster, the impacts of the events, adaptation during and after the events, vulnerability pre and post the event, the successes and failures of the events management, and lessons learnt. This study is one of a suite of Historical Case Studies of Extreme Events conducted under Phase 1 of the NCCARF Synthesis and Integrative Research Program to examine present-day management of climate variability and the lessons that can be learnt for adaptation to future climate change.

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Impacts and adaptation response of infrastructure and communities to heatwaves

Impacts and adaptation response of infrastructure and communities to heatwaves: The southern Australian experience of 2009

Author: Queensland University of Technology
Year: 2010

From 27 Jan 8 Feb 2009, South-Eastern Australia experienced extreme heatwaves, with maximum daytime temperatures reaching 12-15 degrees celcius above average. The severity of the event and its co-occurrence with an emerging bushfire threat meant that government, councils, hospitals, emergency response organisations and communities were largely unprepared for a heatwave of this magnitude. Adaptation that occurred during the event was a result of reactive competence and capacity rather than proactive planning; reactive management of human health impacts (emergency, medical services) was relatively good in some areas. There was no clear public information or warning strategy, no clear thresholds for invoking emergency management or incident response, resulting in mixed messages to media and the public. Vulnerability was highlighted in the electricity supply (asset failures due to heat), transport (especially trains) and ports (melting bitumen surfaces), as well as in the interdependencies of critical infrastructure services (eg: loss of electricity affecting traffic lights and trains). Since the event, South Australia has implemented clearer communication, escalation and coordination processes, developing a whole of Government ‘all hazards’ approach to manage future events. Victoria has developed a bottom up plan dependent upon Local Governments to develop localised plans. Some community agencies are actively improving listing/contact/monitoring procedures for vulnerable groups. However, the potential of power utilities and transport to enhance their adaptive capacity remains limited because of regulatory barriers that prevent them from recouping investments through pricing. This study is one of the Historical Case Studies of Extreme Events conducted under Phase 1 of the NCCARF Synthesis and Intergrative research program.

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Climate change adaptation in the Australian Alps: Impacts, strategies, limits and management

Authors: C. Morrison and Catherine Pickering
Year: 2011

A stong awareness of climatechange occurring and identifying its impacts exists among stakeholders within the Australian Alps due, primarily to the fairly direct links between increasing temperatures and decreasing precipitaiton and natural snow cover. Data also shows that changes have already occurred in the region, including reduced natural snow cover, changes in fire frequency and intensity, changes in the timing of biological events such as flowering, animal migration/movement, and in plant and animal distributions. Planning for change, utilising a range of climate change adaptation strategies, and acknowledging a wide range of biophysical, economic and social limits to those strategies is also well demonstrated in the region. For example, while snow-making is the primary climate change adaptation response by the tourism industry, it will not be economically, physically or socially acceptable in the future. While stakeholders were capable of identifying a wide range of climate change impacts, a major gap identified in current stakeholder assessment of climate change is the importance of the Alps catchment nationally, particularly the importance of its water for Australias economy ($10 billion/annum for actual water and products from industries reliant on water supplies from the Alps).

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Analysis of damage to buildings following the 2010-11 Eastern Australia floods

Authors: Matthew Mason, Emma Phillips, Tetsuya Okada and James O’Brien
Year: 2012

Utilising observations of damage to buildings in Brisbane, Ipswich and Grantham, a predictive model for estimating flood loss and occupant displacement has been developed. The model can be used for flood risk assessments or rapid assessment of impacts following a flood event. This research quantifies the extent of damage to buildings in Queensland and Victoria following the 201011 Eastern Australia flooding, as well as analysing the role that building and planning controls have in mitigating or exacerbating flood damage. From the perspective of building inundation, the worst affected areas in Queensland were the Brisbane and Ipswich City Councils as well as the Lockyer Valley, Central Highlands and Rockhampton Regional Councils. In Victoria the Buloke, Campaspe, Central Gold Fields and Loddon Councils also reported significant levels of inundation. In all, insured losses reached $2.5 billion. This study found that more than 28,000 properties were inundated in Queensland with around half of these in Brisbane and one quarter in Ipswich. In Victoria around 2,500 buildings were affected throughout the state. Of the residential properties affected in Brisbane, around 90% were in areas developed prior to any form of planning or building controls relating to floodplain management (i.e. the late 1970s) and the vast majority experienced flooding during the 1974 floods.

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Drought and the future of rural communities: Drought impacts and adaptation in regional Victoria, Australia

Authors: Anthony S Kiem, Louise E Askew, Meg Sherval, Danielle C. Verdon-Kidd, Craig Clifton, Emma Austin, Pauline M. McGuirk and Helen Berry
Year: 2010

The Big Dry, or Millennium Drought, has affected southeast Australia (SEA) since the mid-1990s. Farmer debt in the Mildura region increased from $15 million in 2000-01 to $275 million in 2007-08. There was an annual average rainfall decrease of 17% for the region of Mildura and 10% for Donald. While similar to previous droughts in terms of annual rainfall deficits, the Big Dry drought was particularly damaging due to a number of coincidental circumstances, including the reliance of places like Mildura on irrigation water from the over-stretched Murray River water source, and the Global Financial Crisis. So far, there has been more failure than success in terms of managing drought in Australia, particularly relating to drought and water policy and ensuring that rural communities receive the support they need. Significant uncertainties currently exist around the climate science and modelling needed to produce the sort of forecasts farmers say they need, and unfortunately, this uncertainty will remain for the forseeable future. Therefore, the more urgent, and more achievable objective should be to robustly quantify this uncertainty, to develop tools to support decision making under uncertainty, and to build resilience (i.e. ability to re-configure without crucial loss) such that rural communities are capable of adapting to the climatic variability. In order to generate effective adaptation strategies to cope with projected increases to the frequency and magnitude of drought events, urgent investigation is required into: (a) why the already documented drought management solutions and priorities generated through previous research projects have not been implemented, (b) determining the barriers that are preventing implementation; and (c) how these barriers can be overcome.

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Socioeconomic implications of climate change with regard to forests and forest management. Contribution of Work Package 3 to the Forest Vulnerability Assessment

Authors: Geoff Cockfield, Tek Maraseni, Laurie Buys, Jeffrey Sommerfeld, Clevo Wilson and Wasantha Athukorala
Year: 2011

This review considers the potential direct socio-economic impacts resulting from biophysical impacts of climate change that include, changes in the production of timber, pulp and fuel and the locations of production; changes in the ranges of tree and other forest-utilising species; the intrinsic value of habitat quality and viability; the appearance, and therefore human perceptions, of some forests; carbon sequestration rates; the impact that trees have on soil salinity control; and water filtration services provided by forests. Climate change that contributes to the fragmentation of conservation forests will compound other effects, such as land use change around forests, land clearing and dieback. Unlike the ‘new’ biophysical manifestations of climate change, the socio-economic impacts are relatively familiar, rendering it reasonable to first contemplate the use of familiar institutions and instruments. This study considers one of the potentially most influential policy responses to be incentives for forest-based sequestration. This would help maintain, if not increase the conservation and production forest estates which would in turn generate economic benefits, though the extent of the net benefit depends on what land use is displaced. The results presented in this report are based predominantly on a literature review and a small-scale survey of respondents in towns from timber growing regions (Bombala in the Eden/Gippsland region; and Scottsdale in north-eastern Tasmania) to determine their response to climate change.

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