This document reports on a workshop held at Geoscience Australia during November, 2013 to develop vulnerability functions for buildings in the SE Asian region as input to the UNISDR's Global Assessment of Risk programme.

Dungog is a country town of approximately 2,100 people (2011 census) located at the junction of Myall Creek and the Williams River in the Hunter Valley, NSW. It was severely impacted on the 20th and 21st of April, 2015 by flooding in both of these watercourses. This report presents the findings of a short post-disaster damage survey undertaken by Geoscience Australia on 13 May, 2015. It includes an analysis of the survey data and makes comparisons with existing models for building damage in high velocity flow regimes. Comparisons were made with the most current flood study for the town, both in depth of inundation and predicted flow velocities. The town is situated on undulating topography which rises from quite flat countryside close to Myall Creek and the Williams River to become quite steep terrain at the southern end of the town. Like many Australian country towns, Dungog's building stock consists of a core of older buildings, many predating World War 1, surrounded by residential buildings of all ages up to the present day. Most commercial retail buildings are located on Dowling Street, the main north-south thoroughfare, and are of unreinforced masonry construction. Light industrial buildings are generally steel portal frame construction with a variety of cladding materials. Some light industrial buildings are located on low terrain around the north end of town while the more modern light industrial buildings are located in a new part of town at the north-west corner of the urban area. There were 1015 private residential dwellings in Dungog recorded in the 2011 census. Residential buildings range from older, clad timber frame houses on low stumps to more modern construction styles such as brick veneer and cavity brick houses with slab on grade foundations. The floodwaters damaged approximately 46 houses and directly impacted five businesses. Six of the impacted houses exhibited velocity-related damage for which video footage taken at the time of the flood was available and enabled an estimate of water velocity to be made. Hence, although only a small survey was undertaken, the flood afforded the opportunity to gather some data on velocity related flood damage to Australian house types for use as validation points on velocity-depth fragility curves for one Australian house type. Typically such validation data is difficult to obtain due to paucity of information relating to estimates of water velocity accompanying building loss.

<div>Steelmaking value chains are economically important to Australia, but the need to decarbonize traditional steel-making processes could disrupt existing supply lines. Hydrogen-based iron and steel production offers one pathway for reducing the carbon intensity of steel. Here, we present maps assessing the costs of hydrogen-based direct reduction of iron oxides (to produce hot briquetted iron), optionally coupled with steelmaking in an electric arc furnace (i.e. the H2-DRI-EAF value chain). Developed as part of the Exploring for the Future program and in collaboration with Monash University, these models build off the functionality of the Green Steel Economic Fairways Mapper (beta release), with additional enhancements to the modelling algorithm to reflect constant furnace operation, the incorporation of costings to transport the produced hot briquetted iron or steel to domestic ports, and the optimisation of facility capacities. The capacity of facilities (including solar and wind generation, proton exchange membrane [PEM] electolysis, battery storage, and hydrogen storage tanks) are determined by the 1 Mtpa production target and the local availability of renewable energy resources, as modelled according to 2019 data sourced from the Renewables.Ninja (https://www.renewables.ninja/; Pfenninger & Staffell, 2016; Staffell & Pfenninger, 2016). The high-resolution (approximately 5.5 km pixels) maps reflect our preferred technology cost assumptions (see Wang et al., 2023) for the year 2025. Iron concentrate feedstocks are assumed to cost AU$150 per tonne, reflecting approximate costs for 65 % Fe pellets as derived from magnetite ores. Conversions to USD assume US$1.00 = AU$0.73.</div><div><br></div><div>Geoscience Australia's Exploring for the Future program provides precompetitive information to inform decision-making by government, community and industry on the sustainable development of Australia's mineral, energy and groundwater resources. By gathering, analysing and interpreting new and existing precompetitive geoscience data and knowledge, we are building a national picture of Australia's geology and resource potential. This leads to a strong economy, resilient society and sustainable environment for the benefit of all Australians. This includes supporting Australia's transition to a low emissions economy, strong resources and agriculture sectors, and economic opportunities and social benefits for Australia's regional and remote communities. The Exploring for the Future program, which commenced in 2016, is an eight year, $225m investment by the Australian Government.</div>

<div>Mineral exploration and development involves the selection of potential projects which must be evaluated across disparate characteristics. However, the distinct metrics involved are typically difficult to reconcile (e.g. geological potential, environmental impact, jobs created, value generated, etc.). Separate stakeholders—with different goals and attitudes—will reasonably differ in their preferences as to which categories to prioritize and how much weight to give to each. These conflicting preferences can obscure optimal outcomes and confound project selection.</div><div><br></div><div>In this presentation, we will discuss how early-stage exploration decisions can be treated as multi-criteria optimization problems. We show how this approach can be used to effectively evaluate and communicate competing criteria, and locate regions that perform best under a range of different metrics. We then outline a mapping framework that identifies regions that perform best in terms of geological potential, economic value and environmental impact and demonstrate this approach in a real-word example that highlights new exploration targets in the Australian context. Abstract presented at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting 2023 (AGU23) https://www.agu.org/fall-meeting

<div>The energy and resources industries are two essential pillars of Australia’s economy and vital sectors in the global transition to a sustainable and net-zero economy. To enhance Australia’s competitiveness, there is an urgent need to explore technical and strategic challenges and opportunities to unlock domestic hydrogen and green steel development pathways that are suitable for the Australian resources and manufacturing ecosystem. </div><div><br></div><div>Held on 30 August 2023 in Perth, Western Australia, this workshop provided Australian stakeholders in the hydrogen, iron ore and government sectors a forum to share, discuss and provide insight on a broad range of aspects relevant to hydrogen and green steel development opportunities across Australia—including identifying investment hurdles, technical challenges and knowledge gaps, and fostering new innovation and collaboration opportunities.</div><div><br></div><div>As part of the Exploring for the Future program, Geoscience Australia, in collaboration with Monash University, premiered its Green Steel Economic Fairways tool, which utilises geoscience knowledge and data to highlight regional opportunities of high economic potential for hydrogen and green steel industries in Australia.</div><div><br></div><div>The recording of the workshop presentations is available on YouTube.</div>

This report presents the initial building vulnerability schema proposed for the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Collaborative Research Centre (BNHCRC) project entitled 'Improving the Resilience of Existing Housing to Severe Wind Events'. The project is a collaboration between the Cyclone Testing Station of James Cook University and Geoscience Australia. The report discusses the utility of a building schema and identifies which building attributes are the most important for distinguishing between housing classes of different vulnerabilities in the Australian building stock.