The October 2022 issue of the Australian Journal of Emergency Management (AJEM) features Natural Hazards Research Australia updates alongside the latest news, views, reports and research from the emergency management sector.
Published by the Australian Institute of Disaster Resilience, this AJEM issue opens with a foreword from Centre CEO Andrew Gissing. Andrew explains the vitality of end-user-driven research in generate positive change to enhance the safety, resilience and sustainability of communities.
“There is a strong role for research and science to inspire and support change,” Andrew said. “We must look ahead and embrace new approaches, collaborations and technologies. Research can help to assist the development of next generation capabilities across all hazards to confront the growing and evolving challenges of future decades.”
Andrew also reviewed the book Maitland Speaks: The Experience of Floods, published by Flood Plain Publishing, commenting that the book is an important contribution to disaster literature as it describes lessons relevant to all flood-prone communities and can be useful in informing responses to modern disaster management challenges, ensuring lessons of the past are not forgotten.
This AJEM issue also includes Co-designing predictive maps for community use during a bushfire, an article that profiles the latest research into optimising predictive map design and dissemination to support public protective action decision-making during a bushfire, conducted by the Centre in partnership with the Country Fire Authority (CFA), RMIT University, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Deakin University, Swinburne University of Technology, AFAC and the Bureau of Meteorology, as part of the Predictions in public: understanding the design, communication and dissemination of predictive maps to the public project.
This project, led by CFA’s Chloe Begg, is providing a set of evidence-based principles for predictive map design, communication, dissemination and education that is endorsed by the AFAC Predictive Services and Warnings group to improve community comprehension of map-based public information and warnings products. The article covers the work done to date in the project and explores the current challenge of translating knowledge about climate change into emergency management policy practice. Read more in the AJEM article: https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/ajem-october-2022-co-designing-predictive-maps-for-community-use-during-a-bushfire/, written by Chloe Begg, Angela Gardner (Emergency Management Victoria), Dr Erica Kuligowski and Amy Griffin (RMIT University), Dr Paula Dootson (QUT), Dr Timothy Neale (Deakin University) and Dr Graham Dwyer (Swinburne University).
Also featured in this issue of AJEM is research not conducted through the CRC or the Centre, but by affiliated researchers and end-users:
- Progress towards a new National Seasonal Fire Outlook – Paul Fox-Hughes (Bureau of Meteorology), et al.
- The Australian Fire Danger Rating System – Dr Simon Heemstra (AFAC)
- Towards an integrated hi-tech solution to detect small fires – Dr Marta Yebra (Australian National University)
- #RecoverSouthCoast: how Twitter can support and hinder recovery – Dr Tasmin-Lara Dilworth (University of Wollongong), et al.
- Bushfire evacuation decision support system use in incident management training – Dr Erica Kuligowski (RMIT University), et al.
- Evacuation modelling for bushfire: the WUI-NITY simulation platform – Dr Erica Kuligowski (RMIT University), et al.
Read the entire AJEM issue online or download the full PDF at https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/ajem-october-2022/.