The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) and Geoscience Australia (GA) have developed a long-term partnership in order to better understand and reduce the risks associated with earthquake hazards in the Philippines. The Project discussed herein was supported by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). Specifically, this partnership was designed to enhance the exposure and damage estimation capabilities of the Rapid Earthquake Damage Assessment System (REDAS), which has been designed and built by PHIVOLCS. Prior to the commencement of this Project, REDAS had the capability to model a range of potential earthquake hazards including ground shaking, tsunami inundation, liquefaction and landslides, as well as providing information about elements at risk (e.g., schools, bridges, etc.) from the aforementioned hazards. The current Project enhances the exposure and vulnerability modules in REDAS and enable it to estimate building damage and fatalities resulting from scenario earthquakes, and to provide critical information to first-responders on the likely impacts of an earthquake in near real-time. To investigate this emergent capability within PHIVOLCS, we have chosen the pilot community of Iloilo City, Western Visayas. A large component of this project has been the compilation of datasets to develop building exposure models, and subsequently, developing methodologies to make these datasets useful for natural hazard impact assessments. Collection of the exposure data was undertaken at two levels: national and local. The national exposure dataset was gathered from the Philippines National Statistics Office (NSO) and comprises basic information on wall type, roof type, and floor area for residential buildings. The NSO census dataset also comprises crucial information on the population distribution throughout the Philippines. The local exposure dataset gathered from the Iloilo City Assessors Office includes slightly more detailed information on the building type for all buildings (residential, commercial, government, etc.) and appears to provide more accurate information on the floor area. However, the local Iloilo City dataset does not provide any information on the number of people that occupy these buildings. Consequently, in order for the local data to be useful for our purposes, we must merge the population data from the NSO with the local Assessors Office data. Subsequent validation if the Iloilo City exposure database has been conducted through targeted foot-based building inventory surveys and has allowed us to generate statistical models to approximate the distribution of engineering structural systems aggregated at a barangay level using simple wall and roof-type information from the NSO census data. We present a comparison of the national and local exposure data and discuss how information assembled from the Iloilo City pilot study - and future study areas where detailed exposure assessments are conducted - could be extended to describe the distribution of building stock in other regions of the Philippines using only the first-order national-scale NSO data. We present exposure information gathered for Iloilo City at barangay level in a format that can be readily imported to REDAS for estimating earthquake impact.

This document presents a new set of earthquake hazard maps for consideration in the next revision of the earthquake loading code AS1170.4 "Structural design actions: Part 4 Earthquake actions in Australia". The earthquake catalogue used here includes events up until 2011. It is a combined version of several catalogues provided by external agencies. This represents the most complete catalogue of earthquakes compiled for Australia. The catalogue is more consistent through conversion of various magnitude measurements into a 'pseudo ML' scale. A systematic logic is used to select preferred magnitude types. Aftershocks, foreshocks and mine blasts have been identified and the declustered catalogue used here is cleaner than any previous Australian catalogue. Earthquake source zones applied in the hazard map use a unique combination of three different layers, which capture seismic characteristics at sub-national, regional and high-activity point scales. The map is one of the first in the world to apply a semi-quantitative measure of Mmax for majority of the source zones in the map. We apply recently developed ground motion prediction equations based on modern methods and data. These equations were used to calculate the ground motion at a range of response spectral accelerations, rather than just calculating the hazard for peak ground acceleration (PGA). A suite of maps is calculated using GA's Earthquake Risk Model (EQRM). The EQRM is open-source, allowing the results to be tested or modified independently. The final 2012 Australian earthquake hazard maps for a range of return periods and response spectral periods are presented herein.

Coastal communities in Australia are particularly exposed to disasters resulting from the coincidence of severe wind damage, storm surge, coastal flooding and shoreline erosion during cyclones and extra-tropical storms. Because the climatic drivers of these events are stronger during or across specific years (e.g. during La Nina periods), they can repeatedly impact the coast over periods of weeks, months or up to a few years. The consequences of individual events are therefore exacerbated with little or no opportunity for recovery of natural systems or communities. This poster summarises the objectives, approach and methodology for this storm surge project. A contribution to the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC.

The Australian Flood Risk Information Portal (the portal) is an initiative of the Australian Government, established following the devastating floods across Eastern Australia in 2011. The portal is a key component of the National Flood Risk Information Project (NFRIP), and aims to provide a single point of access to Australian flood information. Currently much of Australia's existing flood information is dispersed across disparate sources, making it difficult to find and access. The portal will host data and tools that allow public discovery, visualisation and retrieval of flood studies, flood maps, satellite derived water observations and other related information, all from a single location. The portal will host standards and guidelines for use by jurisdictions and information custodians to encourage best practice in the development of new flood risk information. While the portal will initially host existing flood information, the architecture has been designed to allow the portal content to grow over time to meet the needs of users. The aim is for the portal to display data for a range of scenarios from small to extreme events, though this will be dependent on stakeholder contributions. Geoscience Australia's Australian Flood Studies Database is the portal's data store of flood study information. The database includes metadata created through a purpose-built data entry application, and over time, information harvested from state-operated catalogues. For each entry the portal provides a summary of the flood study, including information on how the study was done, what data was used, what flood maps were produced and for what scenarios, as well as details on the custodian and originating author. If the study included an assessment of damage, details such as estimates of annual average damage, or the number of properties affected during a flood of a particular likelihood will also be included. During the last phase of development downloadable flood study reports and their associated flood maps have been added to the portal where available. As the portal is populated it will increasingly host mapped flood data, or link to flood data and maps held in authoritative databases hosted by State and Territory bodies. Mapping data to be made accessible through the portal will include flood extents and to a lesser degree information on water depths. The portal will also include water observations obtained from Geoscience Australia's historic archive of Landsat imagery. This data will show whether a particular location was 'wet' at some point during the past 30 years. While this imagery does not necessarily represent the peak of a flood or show water depth, the data will support the validation and verification process of hydrologic and hydraulic flood modelling. This work will prove useful particularly in rural areas where there is little or no flood information. The portal also provides flood information custodians with the ability to either upload mapped data directly to the portal or to make this data accessible via web services. Data management tools and standards, developed through NFRIP, will enable data custodians to map their data to agreed standards for delivery through the portal. A portal framework and supporting principles has been developed to guide the maintenance and development of the portal.

Geoscience Australia is currently drafting a new National Earthquake Hazard Map of Australia using modern methods and models. Among other applications, the map is a key component of Australia's earthquake loading code AS1170.4. In this paper we provide a brief history of national earthquake hazard maps in Australia, with a focus on the map used in AS1170.4, and provide an overview of the proposed changes for the new map. The revision takes advantage of the significant improvements in both the data sets and models used for earthquake hazard assessment in Australia since the original maps were produced. These include: - An additional 20+ years of earthquake observations - Improved methods of declustering earthquake catalogues and calculating earthquake recurrence - Ground motion prediction equations (i.e. attenuation equations) based on observed strong motions instead of intensity - Revised earthquake source zones - Improved maximum magnitude earthquake estimates based on palaeoseismology - The use of open source software for undertaking probabilistic seismic hazard assessment which promotes testability and repeatability The following papers in this session will address in more detail the changes to the earthquake catalogue, earthquake recurrence and ground motion prediction equations proposed for use in the draft map. The draft hazard maps themselves are presented in the final paper.

This document is intended to provide a record of the participants, program, and discussions held at the Fire Weather and Risk Workshop, held at Peppers Craigieburn in Bowral, from 1st -4th September 2011. The workshop was attended by 77 delegates and was sponsored by the ACT Emergency Services Agency, Geoscience Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology, and the Federal Attorney Generals Department. These proceedings include the: - workshop program - executive summary by the workshop organizers - presentation abstracts (optional) - summaries of presentations and discussions (compiled at the workshop by the session chairs and scribes) - survey of participants- expectations of the workshop (received prior to the workshop) - results of a post-workshop evaluation - list of participants. This document also includes an invited journalistic-styled article by science journalist, Nick Goldie (Senior Deputy Captain, Colinton Rural Fire Brigade, NSW RFS) which provided an independent view on the activities that occurred over the three days.

Tropical Cyclone (TC) Yasi crossed Queensland's Cassowary Coast during the night of the 2nd and 3rd of February, 2011. The cyclone was forecast by BoM (2011) to be a severe storm with wind gusts forecast to exceed the design gust wind speeds for houses set out in AS4055. Following the passage of the cyclone, it was evident that the severe wind and large coastal storm surge had caused significant damage to the region's building stock. Geoscience Australia (GA), together with collaborators from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, New Zealand (NIWA), Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) and Maddocks & Associates, undertook a survey of damage to the region's buildings caused by severe wind and storm surge.

This document describes a structure for exchanging information to assist discovery and retrieval/transfer of flood information, including GIS flood mapping data. The draft class model represents metadata, data and summary information that supports the goals of the National Flood Risk Information Project (NFRIP) to improve the quality, consistency and accessibility of flood information. This document describes the data model that will be used to create an application schema.

Stochastic finite-fault ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs) are developed for the stable continental region of southeastern Australia (SEA). The models are based on reinterpreted source and attenuation parameters for small-to-moderate magnitude local earthquakes and a dataset augmented with ground-motion records from recent significant earthquakes. The models are applicable to horizontal-component ground-motions for earthquakes 4.0 <= MW <= 7.5 and at distances less than 400 km. The models are calibrated with updated source and attenuation parameters derived from SEA ground-motion data. Careful analysis of well-constrained earthquake stress parameters indicates a dependence on hypocentral depth. It is speculated that this is the effect of an increasing crustal stress profile with depth. However, rather than a continuous increase, the change in stress parameter appears to indicate a discrete step near 10 km depth. Average stress parameters for SEA earthquakes shallower and deeper than 10 km are estimated to be 23 MPa and 50 MPa, respectively. These stress parameters are consequently input into the stochastic ground-motion simulations for the development of two discrete GMPEs for shallow and deep events. The GMPEs developed estimate response spectral accelerations comparable to the Atkinson and Boore (2006) GMPE for eastern North America (ENA) at short rupture distances (less than approximately 100 km). However, owing to higher attenuation observed in the SEA crust (Allen and Atkinson, 2007), the SEA GMPEs estimate lower ground-motions than ENA models at larger distances. A correlation between measured VS30 and ?0 was developed from the limited data available to determine the average site condition to which the GMPEs are applicable. Assuming the correlation holds, a VS30 of approximately 820 m/s is obtained assuming an average path-independent diminution term ?0 of 0.006 s from SEA seismic stations. Consequently, the GMPE presented herein can be assumed to be appropriate for rock sites of B to BC site class in the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP, 2003) site classification scheme. The response spectral models are validated against moderate-magnitude (4.0 <= MW <= 5.3) earthquakes from eastern Australia. Overall the SEA GMPEs show low median residuals across the full range of period and distance. In contrast, ENA models tend to overestimate response spectra at larger distances. Because of these differences, the present analysis justifies the need to develop Australian-specific GMPEs where ground-motion hazard from a distant seismic source may become important.

The datasets created to produce the emergency mapping support products which contributed to fulfilling GA's arrangements in supporting the outcomes sought by the Australian Government during disaster events.