The built environment represents all that we have built to support and connect our way of life. It includes critical infrastructure, transport and road infrastructure, public, business and private buildings, and the provision of lifeline services and utilities, including food, health, water, electricity, and communications. There are complex relationships between the many different contributors to a functional, effective, safe and resilient built environment – with cross-dependencies that need to be understood, strengthened and managed.
Research in this theme can explore this area from many perspectives, including:
Physical built environment
- understanding resilient built environments at the local, regional and national scale
- funding of built assets, including insurance and insurability
- damage and reconstruction modelling of built assets affected by cascading hazard events
- retrofitting and strengthening of built assets
Physical systems, regulations and connections
- hazard-risk-informed land-use planning
- operating environments and regulations for essential services
- building standards and designs for new constructions and retrofit of existing structures
Human factors
- the way that people use and interact with the built environment to increase or decrease natural hazard risk
- human inputs into the development, maintenance and operation of the built environment
- why and how people make decisions at household and community levels to reduce natural hazard risks