Natural hazards have an impact on every Australian State and Territory. These hazards include bushfires, cyclones, earthquakes, floods, landslides, severe weather, tsunami and volcanoes. These phenomena threaten lives and damage private and public assets, as well as disrupt water, power, transport and communication services. These hazards and their associated impacts also can seriously affect employment, public administration and incomes to industry, agriculture and commerce.

Landslide in Australia, for the most part, is not seen as a major threat to our urban communities. However, this general belief is far from the reality of the situation. Our history of landsliding is highlighted with devastating events such: <li>Thredbo landslide, July 1997; 18 people killed</li> <li>Gracetown cliff collapse, September 1996; 9 people killed.</li> In Australia, there have been 37 recorded fatal landslides since 1842, which have been responsible for the deaths of 83 people. It is almost certain that these statistics are incomplete and that the number of fatalities is much higher. The city of Wollongong is on Australia's east coast, approximately 80 km south of Sydney. Today, Wollongong has one of the highest population growth rates in NSW. Since 1887, 478 landslides have been recorded at Wollongong, at least two people have been killed, more than 200 buildings destroyed or damaged and there is constant disruption to infrastructure and services. It is estimated that between 1989 and 1996, the cost of landsliding to railway infrastructure alone in Wollongong was A$25 million annually. Extensive areas of the Wollongong hinterland are prone to landsliding from heavy rainfall events, as demonstrated by the August 1998 storms. During this event, 148 landslides were reported and access to the city was cut by landslides and floodwaters for up to 24 hours. It is estimated that up to A$100 million dollars damage resulted.

Landslides are one of Australia's most dangerous natural hazards and result from a mass movement of material down a slope or cliff face. This 50 page booklet explains the nature of landslides and gives examples of various historical landslides that have occurred in Australia. Student activities with answers included. Suitable for upper primary and high school teachers.

This set of Australian landslide images illustrates the causes of landslides, both large and small, and other earth movements. A set of 15 slides with explanatory text; includes images of Thredbo, NSW, Sorrento Vic., Gracetown WA and Tasmania.

Legacy product - no abstract available

The cost of landslide is underestimated in Australia because the impact and loss associated with these events are not readily reported or captured. There is no reliable source of data which highlights landslide cost to communities and explains who currently pays for the impacts and associated costs. The aim of this document is to investigate and analyse landslide costs within a Local Government Area (LGA) in order to highlight the varied landslide associated costs met by the local government, state traffic and rail authorities and the public. It is anticipated this may assist in developing a baseline awareness of the range of landslide costs that are experienced at a local level in Australia. Local government authorities across Australia are required to manage and mitigate landslide hazards. The Illawarra region of New South Wales (NSW) is one example of an area in Australia continuously affected by slope failure, often resulting in damage to property or infrastructure as well as occasional injuries and fatalities. Landslide losses are described for the region of Wollongong in NSW using a series of case studies to highlight the different types of landslide cost met by different parties, the variations in the landslide types that occur and the different cost components arising from them. This approach was chosen due to variations across the quality, availability and consistency of data. It was found that many generic natural hazard cost models are inappropriate for determining landslide costs because of the differences in the types of landslide movement and damage. Further work is recommended to develop a cost data model suitable for capturing consistent landslide cost data. Better quantification of landslide cost is essential to allow comparisons to be made with other natural hazard events at appropriate levels. This may allow for more informed policy development and decision making across all levels.

On the 30th September 2009 a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck West Sumatra in the Padang and Pariaman regions. It caused widespread damage to buildings and resulted and an estimated 1,117 fatalities. Thankfully the event was not accompanied by a tsunami that could have had additional devastating impacts and a greatly increased mortality. Under its mandate the AIFDR responded to the earthquake event with the objective of deriving an understanding of the factors that had contributed to outcome. It supported a team of Indonesian and international engineers and scientists who collected and analysed damage information that could subsequently be used for future disaster risk reduction in West Sumatra and Indonesia more broadly. The activity was jointly led by the Centre for Disaster Mitigation at the Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) and Geoscience Australia. This report provides a background to the region, describes the nature of the earthquake and its impacts, details the survey activity and outlines the significant outcomes that has come from it. Importantly, it makes several recommendations to assist in the regional reconstruction after the event and to guide future development in the Padang region and Indonesia more generally.

It is impractical for a single agency in Australia to hold responsibility for maintaining a national landslide database. Geoscience Australia has successfully demonstrated the benefits of adopting information management strategies as one solution in bringing local, regional and national scale landslide data together. In the first time that networked service oriented interoperability has been applied to a natural hazards domain, Australia now has an up-to-date central landslide database that makes full use of diverse data across three levels of government . The approach is centred upon a 'common data model' that addresses aspects of landslides captured by different agencies. The methodology brings four distinct components together: a landslide application schema; a landslide domain model; web service implementations and a user interface. Sharing and exchanging data more efficiently through an interoperable approach ensures that full value is made of available information, and that responsibility for collecting and maintaining this data is shared across all agencies. Specific-purpose data not only continues to serve the needs of individual database custodians, but also now serves a broader need. Such a system establishes the foundation for a very powerful and coordinated information resource in Australia through its ability to collate and characterise large volumes of information, and provides a suitable basis for greater investment in data collection. At a minimum the pilot project provides Australia with a framework for a centralised national landslide inventory, which can connect other available landslide databases. There is also considerable capacity for this approach to provide State Governments with a simple way to compile and maintain their own state-wide databases, and to extend the approach across other natural hazard databases and integrate data from other domains.

The comprehensive Landslides Kit contains the following education products; - Landslides student activities booklet of 11 reproducible activities and suggested answers (catalogue item 23853) - Australian Landslide slide set - (item 25330) - Landslide A4 paper 3D model - class set of 30 (item 33165) - Slump A4 paper 3D model - class set of 30 (item 33186) Suitable for primary Years 5-6 and Secondary Years 7-10.

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