Related - Floodplain Manager July 2021

WA Homes, Roads and Paddocks Flooded

Heavy rains and strong winds in southwestern Western Australia throughout July have caused extensive damage in Perth and have flooded farmland.

Perth has experienced its wettest July in more than 60 years, with rain falling every day except for three during the month. In early July, some suburbs of Perth experienced flash flooding as almost 50 mm of rain fell within an hour. Severe weather warnings were issued on the south-west coast in late July, where wind speed peaked at 135 kilometres per hour at Cape Leeuwin. A search is underway for a missing driver whose car was found in flood waters near Wagin in the Wheatbelt. An estimated 400,000 hectares of south coast farmland have been water damaged, with some farms reporting up to 75% crop losses. The crop losses are expected to be largely offset by a record grain harvest in the rest of the state, where abundant and consistent rains have boosted yields. .

(Read more here, here, and here).

Brisbane Flood Levels Updated

An estimated 7,000 properties have had their flood levels increased, while over 30,000 properties have had their levels decreased based on Brisbane City Council updated flood mapping.

Changes to the flood maps are based on the 2017 Brisbane River Catchment Flood Study and flood studies of five of Brisbane’s creeks. The mapping changes particularly impact the flood-prone suburbs of Yeronga, Chelmer, Graceville, Sherwood and Oxley. There is public concern that the changes will impact home insurance premiums, development applications and property values, and concerns have been voiced that more public consultation regarding the changes should have been undertaken. (Read more here).

New National Agencies for Natural Hazards, Resilience and Recovery

The Australian Government has announced the establishment of Natural Hazards Research Australia (NHRA) and the National Recovery and Resilience Agency (NRRA) to support multidisciplinary initiatives that promote natural hazard resilience and disaster risk reduction across Australia.

NHRA is a new natural hazards and resilience research centre and agency, with $85 million in funding over ten years to deliver critical research into natural hazards. It will take on the activities of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) and will promote multidisciplinary research into the natural hazard challenges faced by emergency services and communities across Australia, with a focus on floods, cyclones and bushfires. It aims to support the objectives of the Government’s National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework and work on the recommendations from the 2020 Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements, in collaboration with the NRRA and the new Australian Climate Service.

The NRRA was established in response to the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements and will focus on natural hazard resilience and disaster risk reduction. It will address the major challenges arising from bushfires, storms, floods, heatwaves, earthquakes, cyclones and other hazards. It aims to support communities impacted by disasters, and will have a strong on-the-ground presence to promote locally-led recovery initiatives that reduce disaster risk and mitigate against future impacts. The agency brings together the former National Drought and North Queensland Flood Response and Recovery Agency, and National Bushfire Recovery Agency, in addition to the disaster risk reduction and recovery services from the Department of Home Affairs, and the Rural Financial Counselling Program from the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (Read more here, here and here).

New Australian Climate Service Promoting Understanding of Natural Hazards

The newly formed Australia Climate Service aims to support Australia’s resilience to climate change and natural hazards.

It is a partnership between the Bureau of Meteorology, Geoscience Australia, CSIRO and Australian Bureau of Statistics to bring together information on climate and natural hazards. It is a customer-driven service and will support Emergency Management Australia, as well as the newly formed National Recovery and Resilience Agency. (Read more here).

FMA Paper Winners Announced

Floodplain Management Australia has announced the 2021 National Conference presentation winners.

Prawi Woods won both the 2021 Harold Sternbeck Medal for the best paper and the inaugural 2021 Young Floodplain Manager Outstanding Presenter Award for his paper titled, “Rehydrating the Floodplain to Save the Endangered Green and Golden Bell Frog.” Claire Turner has been named the winner of the 2021 Harold Sternbeck Highly Commended Award, and Catherine Walker and Dr Filippo Dall’Osso (Molino Stewart Pty Ltd) each received inaugural 2021 Young Floodplain Manager Highly Commended Presenter Awards. These competitions are held at the FMA Annual Conference to encourage excellence across all aspects of a Conference presentation. (Read more here).

National Assessment of Disaster Resilience

An article published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction has used the Australian Disaster Resilience Index to provide a nation-scale assessment of disaster reliance.

The index assesses three levels of resilience: overall capacity for disaster resilience, coping capacity and adaptive capacity. Researchers used eight themes to conceptualise the social, economic and institutional factors that contribute to disaster resilience across Australia. The results showed that 32% of Australia’s population lived in an area assessed as having high capacity for disaster resilience with the remainder having low to moderate capacity for disaster resilience. Those in the population with lower capacity for disaster resilience tended to be concentrated in more regional and remote locations geographically. Conversely, higher community capital and social cohesion observed in outer regional, and some remote areas was shown to support disaster resilience more than metropolitan counterparts which typically had less community capital and social cohesion. (Read more here).

Climate Change Will Intensify Australia’s Natural Hazards

The final report of the federal government’s Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub presents a clear link between climate change and current worsening bushfire weather conditions.

The Earth Systems and Climate Change (ESCC) Hub has closed after working on Australian climate change issues for six years and has produced a final summary report titled Climate change in a land of extremes: Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub (2015-2021). This report states that under climate change, Australia’s tropical rainforests are drying out, marine and land heatwaves are becoming more frequent and intense, and storms are increasing in intensity, causing increased flooding. Other key findings include the Tasman Sea is warming four times faster than the global average, and that changes to the East Coast Low phenomena are occurring. (Read more here and here).

Eastern Australia in for a Wet Spring

The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has declared that a negative phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) will increase the chances of a damp spring and flooding for eastern Australia.

The last negative IOD experienced in Australia in 2016 contributed to extensive flooding including in inland NSW. Along with more rain than usual, daytime temperatures could be below average for many parts of the south and east, while overnight readings will tend to be mild. Heavy rainfall and flooding in March in NSW have left many catchments wet thus further increasing the chance of flooding under the negative IOD conditions. A negative IOD also increases the chance of a La Niña event which was likely the exacerbator of the March 2021 floods. (Read more here).

Dams Across NSW Are Near Capacity

In stark contrast to recent years of drought, NSW dams’ total active storage percentage of rural water supplies currently stands at 73% of the total storage capacity.

Blowering Dam near Tumut, Wyangala Dam near Cowra, and Burrinjuck Dam near Yass are all between 89-99% full, with planned releases at Burrinjuck Dam being increased to 15,000 megalitres a day, up from 10,000, to make room for expected wet weather. The news has been welcomed by irrigators along the Lachlan River who rely of Wyangala Dam and have been granted an increased average access to 80 percent of their general security water licences. However, with the BoM forecasting a wetter than average spring, Water NSW is now monitoring dam levels for potential spills and talking to communities, checking flood gauges, ensuring the rivers are running well, and preparing for warnings. (Read more here).

High Tide Flooding to Increase Due to Lunar “Wobble”

A recent study from NASA suggests that flooding is set to worsen in the mid-2030s due to the lunar orbital phase combined with rising sea levels, with impacts for coastal flooding in Australia.

Flooding is already exacerbated when storms coincide with high tides, and the upcoming pull associated with the lunar wobble will mean that some high tides will be higher during this phase. This signals that there will be daily tidal rises, which will translate to worse tidal or “nuisance” flooding, as well as worse flooding from storms. Parts of Australia experiencing the largest tidal range will be most impacted by the wobble, including close to Broad Sound, near Hay Point in Queensland, and Derby in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. While these areas are not close to major population centres, many coastal Australian cities will also feel the impact of increased properties exposed to tidal and storm flooding. (Read more here and here)

Europe’s Deadly Floods: Causes and Impacts

Catastrophic flooding across central Europe in July turned deadly as extreme flood alerts were not acted upon in many parts of Western Germany.

From 12 to 15 July 2021, there was heavy rainfall over Europe, with areas south of North Rhine-Westphalia and north of Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany experiencing an average of 150 mm of rain in 24 hours, which is equivalent to over a month’s worth of rain. Many of the affected areas have not had such high magnitude flooding in the past 1,000 years. Flooding occurred across northern and central Europe including Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy. Germany and Belgium were the countries worst affected by floods, with 36 fatalities in Belgium and 170 in Germany. In Germany, the Ahr valley experienced the worst flooding seen in the region since 1910, as the river Ahr flooded buildings and caused at least 110 deaths. It is estimated that the floods have cost up to 2.55 billion Euros in insured losses.

According to some reports, the European Flood Awareness System produced extreme flood warnings, but Germany’s convoluted system of responsibility for disaster management resulted in a patchwork of flood emergency responses and many local communities being poorly prepared for the intensity of the flooding.

Climate change has been heralded as a significant cause of the extreme weather event. Higher air temperatures are increasing the atmosphere’s capacity to hold moisture, which leads to more intense rainfall. Further, climate change is also projected to increase the frequency of slow-moving storms, such as those experienced in Europe in June, which can dump a large volume of rain on a small area over an extended period of time. (Read more here, here, here here and here).

What Could Have Prevented the European Flood Disaster?

There is widespread criticism of Europe’s flood warning system in the wake of deadly flooding, which had several days’ warning.

The European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) is part of the EU’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service and provides early information on flooding to national and local authorities throughout Europe. Flooding of the scale experienced was forecasted several days in advanced of July’s deadly storms, with increased certainty as the event drew nearer. If authorities knew the event was coming and had sufficient warnings to evacuate people before the floods began, then why did so many people die? While the forecasts were correct, a breakdown in communication is blamed for the lack of early evacuation in the areas that required it. While the flood warnings all came from EFAS, each European country has its own system of issuing flood warnings to its citizens. Some areas, such as Limburg in the Netherlands, were evacuated early based on this advice, while other areas were not because of failure to act quickly on the flood information. In Germany, blame is also being placed on failures in warning sirens that had not been maintained, delayed calls for evacuation, as well as poor mobile phone warning systems that failed when networks were knocked out by the weather. Germany is now facing calls for authorities to be able to send out weather alerts to mobile phones, which is currently not allowed due to privacy concerns. Policies on how to manage flooding also differ between countries. Some nations, such as the Netherlands, have a long history of managing and engineering the waterways to mitigate flood impacts, and experienced less loss due to the recent floods. (Read more here, here, here, and here).

Europe Experiencing an Exceptionally Flood-Rich Period Compared to Past 500 Years

A new study finds that the past 30 years were among the most flood-rich periods in Europe within the past half century.

It found that the periods richest in floods were between 1560–1580 in western and central Europe, 1760–1800 in most of Europe, 1840–1870 in western and southern Europe, and 1990–2016 in western and central Europe. In the past, in most of Europe, flood-rich periods occurred during cooler than usual phases, while the current flood-rich period is occurring during a much warmer phase. Flood seasonality is more pronounced than it was previously. This provides a historical context for understanding how climate change is impacting flooding in Europe. (Read more here).

“One-in-One Thousand Year” Flooding in China

Almost 100 people have died in China’s Henan province due to heavy flooding in late July.

A record-breaking maximum rainfall of 202 mm in one hour was observed in Zhengzhou, which was triggered by a subtropical high in the western Pacific and the continental high-pressure area in the Sea of Japan and inland northwest China. In Zhengzhou, which is located on the Yellow River, flood prevention systems were overwhelmed as more rain fell in four days than usually falls in an entire year. At least 99 people have died from the flooding, and over 815,000 people were evacuated. Power was lost throughout the city, including to what is called the largest hospital in the world. Commuters were trapped on city trains as floodwaters rose rapidly. China’s military blasted a dam to release floodwaters to reduce flooding in Henan. While seasonal flooding in China is expected, rapidly growing cities, climate change, and the conversion of farmland into residential areas have worsened the impacts of floods. (Read more here, here and here).

India Flooding Claims over 250 Lives

During India’s typical monsoon season, a series of floods and landslides in the Indian state of Maharashtra have claimed at least 250 lives.

Maharashtra has experienced its heaviest rain in 40 years. Parts of the west coast of India received almost 600 mm of rain over 24 hours, triggering landslides, flooding rivers, and forcing release of dams that threatened to overflow. People living along the riverbanks and in low-lying areas where dam waters were released were evacuated, and about 90,000 people were rescued from flood affected areas in Maharashtra. Approximately 300,000 people have been evacuated in the state, with thousands in relief camps. The Indian states of Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Karnataka also saw flooding and landslides. Climate change is being cited as a cause for the increased intensity of monsoonal rainfall. (Read more here, here, and here).

Tropics Face High Vulnerability from Sea-Level Rise

Improved global satellite elevation mapping suggests that flood risk has been underestimated in the tropics due to a lack of reliable elevation data.

New LiDAR satellite data suggests that elevation measurements in the tropics had been previously incorrectly measured, resulting in inaccurate flood hazard assessments. Coastlines that were previously believed to be significantly above sea level have been found to be much lower than believed. This makes these areas much more prone to sea-level rise than previously believed. An estimated 400 million people live in low-lying areas at risk from sea-level rise by 2100, 72% of which are in the tropics and 59% in Asia alone. This shows that the burden of current and future coastal flood risk and sea-level rise falls disproportionally on tropical regions, particularly in Asia. (Read more here, here, and here).

Exposure to Coastal Flooding Doubles when Accounting for Tropical Cyclones

A new study finds that past work may have underestimated global exposure to low-probability coastal flooding.

Integration of tropical and extratropical cyclone data suggests that accounting for low-probability tropical cyclones significantly increases the global exposure to coastal flooding. The exposure analysis showed that 78 million people are exposed to a 1-in-1,000 year flood caused by extratropical cyclones, which more than doubles to 192 million people when also accounting for tropical cyclones. This information on future storms combined with future sea-level rise projections, is important to help prioritise areas facing the highest flood risks. (Read more here).

Bias in Global Regional-Scale Coastal Flood Risk Assessments

Current and future coastal flood risk has been found to be biased due to not accounting for human adaptation.

This bias may lead to an overestimation of coastal flood risk by 2100 by up to a factor of 1,300. Even if adaptation is accounted for, uncertainty surrounding how coastal populations will adapt to sea-level rise introduces a significant amount of bias in flood models. Other factors that limit certainty in global flood assessments include socio-economic development, elevation data, ice sheet modelling, and greenhouse gas emissions projections. Reducing uncertainty in flood projections requires community-based efforts, and better reporting and understanding of the source of uncertainties in models. (Read more here).

Pathways to Managed Retreat from Sea-Level Rise

New research highlights the need for strategic coastal retreat and the ways in which it can be managed.

Low-lying coastal cities across the world are grappling with the reality of increased flooding due to rising high tide levels, known as high tide or “nuisance” flooding. In the United States, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warns that coastlines are projected to experience three to seven high-tide flooding days in 2021, which rises to 25-75 days by around the year 2050. The city of Charleston in the southeast of the United States already saw a record-breaking 14 days of high-tide flooding in 2020. Ideas for managed retreat range from transforming streets into canals, to raising the city above flood waters, to buying flood-prone properties to create open spaces for stormwater parks. The highest-risk areas are generally home to low-income and minority communities, which means that addressing climate risks will come hand-in-hand with addressing historic legacies of segregation and disinvestment in underserved communities. How areas will choose to transform will depend on how societal values are prioritised. The implementation of managed retreat will involve a decades-long process of cross-pathway action that includes community engagement, vulnerability assessment, land use planning, active retreat, compensation, and repurposing. (Read more here, here and here).

Communities Building Flood Resilience

Growing evidence shows that social ties are key to building resilience from disasters, and that some of the best mitigation and recovery efforts are community-grown.

A recent report shows that community ties are key to helping residents rebound after a disaster. It found that the most resilient communities are those where families and individuals have others that they can rely on for help, have established relationships with emergency response agencies, or have collective plans for dealing with disasters. An example of community response to disasters is community brigades that provided early warning and first response operations during floods in Tabasco, Mexico. Other global examples include community disaster management initiatives in Tanzania, Bangladesh, and Cameroon. They often involve partnership with government and international organisations, such as the World Bank, and aim to empower local communities to manage their response to and prevention of flood hazard. (Read more here, here, here, here and here).

Modelling Community Flood Vulnerability and Resilience

New studies have published frameworks on how community flood vulnerability and resilience can be modelled.

Modelling vulnerability and resilience allows more accurate estimations of flood risk and helps to understand flood losses. Vulnerability has been empirically modelled as the expected fraction of property loss that is uninsured within a community, which was calibrated using data from hurricanes in the United States. An Iranian study has also established a framework for qualitatively assessing flood resilience based on social, economic and institutional dimensions. This study found that high resilience requires all three of these components interacting well with each other and with people. Application of these approaches allows systematic assessments of largely qualitative data. (Read more here and here).

Quantifying the Effect of Policy Change on Flood Losses

Recent research presents a quantitative approach to measuring the impact of policy changes on flood losses.

While past research has qualitatively examined flood risk reduction from policy change, a new paper looks at the quantifiable changes to determine the effect of policy changes on flood losses at the community-level. This is done at a high resolution by using building archetypes to model flood vulnerability at the community scale, accounting for uncertainties in flood damages. This approach has been applied to a variety of flood mitigation measures that have an impact on both flood hazard and exposure. In the future, this can be applied to cost-benefit and feasibility analyses of mitigation scenarios. (Read more here).

Using AI to Monitor Floods from Space

Worldfloods is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) pioneered flood mapping tool specifically designed to be deployed through specialised low-cost satellites.

The system aims to fill the gap in availability of high-resolution imaging resources, particularly in flood-prone developing countries. It is being tested as a low-cost means of detecting floods and providing information to recovery agencies on the ground using hyperspectral imagery, a newly developed flood segmentation algorithm and machine learning. (Read more here).

Using Remote Sensing to Improve Flood Response

High-resolution satellite imagery is being used in Somalia to monitor river breakages and to inform early action for flood mitigation.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation has developed an Early Warning System (EWS) for Somalia through which early warning information regarding floods is generated and delivered to the relevant local agencies and vulnerable communities. The EWS relies on river gauging stations and a network of climate observers to gather information, which is then disseminated via an SMS alert system and web-based information sharing platforms. In addition, the project uses high-resolution satellite imagery to monitor river breakages and inform early action, such as closing the open riverbanks. Historically, open riverbanks have led to extensive and damaging flooding resulting from only minor flood levels. Further, satellite imagery is used to identify areas and populations at risk of flooding, informing the plans of response agencies and the allocation of resources. The EWS and the information for early action generated by remote sensing are intended to improve Somalia’s flood response and to protect vulnerable communities. (Read more here).

International Floods

There were 49 international floods reported across 32 countries in July 2021. At least 616 people died and more than 2.6 million were displaced.

In addition to the floods in Europe, India and China reported above, other internationally significant floods included:

Nepal

Heavy rainfall has triggered floods, severe flash floods and landslides across 13 districts in Nepal. At least 10 people have died and 52 homes have been severely damaged or destroyed. The Chitawan District alone recorded two separate landslide incidents. (Read here).

Chad

Torrential rain hit Chad’s south-western Tandjilé Prefecture from late June through to early July, causing flooding and leaving 20,000 people in need of shelter and assistance. The UN reports that five people have died, over 4,000 houses have been destroyed and 30 educational and health buildings have been damaged. (Read here and here).

Kyrgyzstan

At least 15 people have died in floods and mudslides in the Aksy district in the Jalal-Abad Region of western Kyrgzystan. Heavy rainfall caused flooding that swept away houses in two villages and killed six members of the same family. A state of emergency has been declared in the affected rural districts. (Read here).

Pakistan

Heavy rainfall in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan on 11-12 July and then again on t18 July resulted in devastating flash floods, roof collapses and a landslide. There were over 20 fatalities reported, with flash flooding killing 10 people in four separate incidents. (Read here).

Tajikistan

Flash flooding and mudslides have caused extensive damage in Tajikistan’s Sughd Region. On 19 July, mudslides and floods raced through several villages, killing at least 12 people, damaging houses, roads, bridges, power lines and water infrastructure and sweeping away livestock. (Read here).

Indonesia

The West Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan Provinces of Indonesia experienced extensive flooding for several days from 13 July. Over 26 villages were flooded in the Sintang Regency and over 19,000 people were affected by flooding in the Kapuas Hulu Regency, with 5,002 houses and 217 public buildings damaged. (Read here).

Yemen

Heavy rainfall from 16 July caused flooding in Yemen’s Governorates of al-Mahrah, Hadramawt, Shabwa, Abyan and Al Jawf. There were at least 14 fatalities and flood-devastated crops, as well as damage to roads and communications infrastructure. (Read here).

Philippines

Typhoon Fabian enhanced severe weather caused by the southwest monsoon to bring heavy rain and severe flooding in the Philippines. From 22 July, over 80,000 people evacuated their homes, including 20,000 from low-lying areas of the capital Manila. Flooding and landslides caused damage to 572 houses. (Read here and here).

Diary

Eighth International Conference on Flood Management
Where: The University of Iowa, USA
When: 9 to 11 August 2021
For more information visit here

Australian Disaster Resilience Conference 2021
Where: International Convention Centre, Sydney, NSW
When: 18 to 19 August 2021
For more information visit here

International Conference on Flood Recovery, Innovation and Response
Where: 30 to 31 August 2021
When: Online
For more information visit here

Flood Expo
Where: Birmingham, UK
When: 22 to 23 September 2021
For more information visit here

24^th International River Symposium
Where: Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre and Online
When: 27 to 30 September 2021
For more information visit here

Australian Disaster Resilience Conference 2021
Where: International Convention Centre, Sydney, NSW
When: 6 to 7 October 2021 (Postponed)
For more information visit here

FMA National Conference, Toowoomba
Where: Toowoomba
When: 18 to 20 May 2022
For more information visit here

Resources

Ensuring Flood-Risk Research Helps the Vulnerable

An article published in the Journal of Nature has proposed five measures to implement in flood-risk research to ensure that studies are not skewed towards resilient places and people, and to improve data, metrics, and inclusion. (Read here)

BeFloodReady Preparedness Video

UK’s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs has released an animated short video to raise awareness of its BeFloodReady preparedness resources. (Read here)

Natural Hazards Lessons for Australian Schools

Cool Australia has published a selection of Australian curriculum-linked disaster resilience education resources for Year 7 and 8 geography students. The lessons in this unit are designed to inform students about natural hazards in the local environment and ways to reduce risk, prepare, respond and recover from a disaster or emergency. (Read here)

Gender Equity and Social Inclusion in Flood Disasters

Part one of a two-part blog has emphasised that factoring in gender equity and social inclusion to flood resilience is key to active engagement and empowerment of social groups that experience disproportionate effects of flood disasters. (Read here)

World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Disaster Report

The WMO has released a report summarising global water-related hazards data over the past 50 years. The report found that floods were the third highest disaster in terms of fatalities with 58,700 deaths recorded between 1970-2019. Furthermore, floods and storms presented the highest economic cost in Europe at $515 billion. (Read here)

Guidance on Recommended Uplifts for Water and Sewerage Companies

A UK research group has used UK Climate Projections (UKCP) high resolution 2.2 km data (UKCP Local) to derive more robust rainfall uplift estimates to help water and sewerage companies and flood risk management authorities to prepare for future increases in rainfall intensities from global warming. (Read more)

Cost-Effective Mitigation for Flood Prone Buildings

The Bushfire and Natural Hazards Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) project entitled Cost-effective mitigation strategy development for flood prone buildings has developed a building classification schema to categorise Australian residential buildings into a range of typical storey types. Using this schema, vulnerability curves were developed featuring reduced losses achieved through appropriate mitigation strategies for the five selected storey types. The results aim to inform decision making by government and property owners on the mitigation of flood risk by providing information on the cost effectiveness of different mitigation strategies. (Read more)

Mapping the Way to Climate Resilience

Telecom AT&T is using spatial data analysis and location information to determine the impact of worsening storms on its service-delivery infrastructure such as cell towers, cables, and servers. (Read more)

Earth Systems and Climate Change (ESCC) Hub Climate Change in a Land of Extremes Report

The Earth Systems and Climate Change (ESCC) Hub has produced a summary report of its climate change science and engagement activities from 2015-2021. The report details several case studies from across Australia to discuss how disaster risk may affect communities under a changed climate, and what mitigation measures are recommended to increase resilience. (Read more)

Mapping Global Climate Change Impacts

Carbon Brief has produced an interactive map of 405 global extreme weather events to demonstrate the link between human-caused climate change and extreme weather such as floods. The study found that in 70% of cases an extreme weather event could be linked to human-caused climate change. (Read more)

2011 Brisbane Floods Class Action Closed

Natural Hazard and Spatial Analyst Job Opportunity with Molino Stewart

Heat Refuges in Blacktown

Third Annual Environmental Audit for Parramatta Light Rail Completed