Innovative research and researchers associated with Natural Hazards Research Australia (the Centre) were recognised through shortlisting and winning awards at the 2024 Resilient Australia Awards, including the inaugural Resilient Australia National Research for Impact Award.
Centre CEO, Andrew Gissing congratulated all this year’s winners and finalists, as well as the Australian Institute of Disaster Resilience (AIDR) for showcasing the breadth and innovation of Australia’s disaster risk reduction and resilience activities.
“We’re proud to be associated with many of the researchers and projects recognised through AIDR’s Resilient Australia Awards,” Andrew said.
“The projects, initiatives, researchers and communities highlighted through these awards demonstrate Australia’s willingness, capacity and capability to create safer, more resilient and sustainable communities in the face of natural hazards.”
Fire Centre: Building community resilience to bushfires through science translation from the University of Tasmania won the Resilient Australia National Collaboration and Partnership Award, which recognises projects that encompass activity across two or more partners, sectors, states or territories, and consistently demonstrate the power of collaboration and partnership when working toward a goal or mission with partners combining efforts and resources.
The Fire Centre is a bushfire research hub that integrates methods from a broad range of biophysical sciences and the humanities. The Fire Centre’s aim is to achieve a holistic understanding of bushfire disasters and develop cost-effective interventions and public education campaigns to build community resilience. We have developed deep collaborative relationships with local councils, fire-management agencies, Aboriginal communities contributing traditional knowledge, and world-leading fire scientists. It was established in 2018 by Professor David Bowman, the Centre Director, and is managed by Ms Meagan Porter.
The Centre has been remarkably successful in attracting grants, including a $3.4 million prestigious Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship awarded to Professor Bowman. The Laureate Fellowship is designed to develop adaptation pathways so Australian communities can co-exist safely and sustainably with intrinsically flammable landscapes. Two Natural Hazard Research Grants that involve a broad cross section of Australian stakeholders tasked with managing bushfire risk have also been awarded to the Centre.
The Centre was part of the NSW Bushfire Risk Management Research Hub and its second iteration of the NSW Bushfire and Natural Hazards Hub. A key outcome of this collaboration has been the development of the cutting edge FireTools software package by Dr Grant Williamson, which now underpins prescribed burning planning and reserve management throughout NSW. This work contributed to the first NSW Bushfire Hub receiving a Eureka Prize for applied research excellence.
University of Tasmania has awarded over $1 million to the Centre to build FireLab3, a globally unique fire laboratory that enables studies of plant flammability, smoke exposure, and the evaluation of whether bioenergy and biochar can be used to reduce wildfire fuel loads and thus bushfire risk.
The Centre has a deep commitment to public outreach and education including developing short online courses such as ‘Living with Fire and Bushfire’.
Fire Centre: Building community resilience to bushfires through science translation from the University of Tasmania was also a finalist in the Resilient Australia National Research for Impact Award category, showcasing research that is having or will have a significant impact on knowledge, capability and practice and will enhance disaster resilience outcomes as a result.
Also a finalist in this category was Centre project, Predictions in Public: Improving public-facing fire spread prediction map design, a partnership between Country Fire Authority (CFA) in Victoria, Department of Education Victoria, RMIT University, Queensland University of Technology Deakin University and Swinburne University of Technology.
For the first time, during the 2019-2020 Black Summer fires, authorities released bushfire spread prediction or impact zone maps to the public in NSW, ACT, and Victoria. The novelty and popularity of these predictive products led emergency management agencies across Australia - and in particular, the AFAC National Working Group for Public Information and Warnings (WG) and AFAC Predictive Services Group (PSG) – to want to better understand how the public received, interpreted, and acted on these maps, and where and when these maps would be useful in the future.
With so much public attention on these and other types of hazard maps, it is concerning that there is a lack of research focusing exclusively on hazard maps, and in particular fire spread prediction maps, in an Australian context. Therefore, the Predictions in Public research project, which is funded and supported by Natural Hazards Research Australia, was created to assess the extent to which community members use, comprehend, perceive, and act in response to maps, including incident and fire spread prediction maps in bushfires.
Predictions in Public, a highly collaborative and practitioner-led project by experts at the CFA in Victoria and the Victorian Department of Education (DE), involved researchers from four Australian universities (RMIT University, Queensland University of Technology, Deakin University, and Swinburne University of Technology) and emergency management personnel from each Australian jurisdiction. This project strives to develop an evidence base for a nationally consistent approach to the design, dissemination, and communication of public-facing fire spread prediction maps during future emergencies. By involving community members in this research via surveys, experiments, interviews and focus groups, the project addresses their information needs and, in turn, empowers communities to take action to protect their lives and the lives of their loved ones during future bushfire emergencies.
Social Recovery Reference Group in Tasmania was a finalist in the Resilient Australia National Government Award, recognising collaboration, sharing, building and enhancing social recovery across Australia.
In 2024, the Social Recovery Reference Group (SRRG) celebrates 40 years of collective effort in fostering collaboration, building capacity, and advancing social recovery outcomes nationwide. This group values the expertise we all bring and places a high value on collaboration and capacity-building. Since January 2022, the SRRG strategically targeted interventions to increase the effectiveness of social recovery efforts across all levels of government, non-government organisations, research organisations and communities throughout Australia. The SSRG acknowledges that social capital is a critical part of building resilience. This submission focuses on two key initiatives at the local level supporting the community-based recovery workforce and at the executive leadership level addressing complex national challenges. As the current chair, Tasmania is nominating the SRRG on behalf of all states and territories.
The Possibility Lab Community of Practice is the first of its kind and unique in Australia. We have developed an online network to support the community-based local recovery workforce with tools, tips, strategies and access to a network of professionals. People in these positions are typically placed in local government, newly appointed and may have minimal experience in social recovery. The Possibility Lab facilitates collaboration and knowledge-sharing, which is crucial to accelerate the capacity of those developing strategies and programs in pressurised, time limited roles.
At the executive leadership level, the SRRG has been pivotal in leading resilience building efforts (in alignment with the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience (2011)), by addressing pressing and complex issues such as post-disaster temporary housing. Harnessing the depth of collective expertise and influence, we have undertaken initiatives aimed at improving the temporary housing solutions post disasters, recognising this as a critical concern to recovering communities.
Through collaborative endeavours from local support networks and advocacy at the highest levels, the SRRG remains committed to advancing social recovery and building national resilience.