In addition to the devastating 1989 Newcastle earthquake, at least four other earthquakes of magnitude 5 or greater have occurred in the surrounding Hunter region since European settlement in 1804. Some of these earthquakes caused damage in areas that, at the time, were sparsely populated. Similar events, were they to occur today in populated areas, would certainly cause significant damage. The frequency with which these events have occurred in the Hunter region suggests that earthquakes pose a genuine threat to the communities there. This study presents the most comprehensive and advanced earthquake risk assessment undertaken for any Australian city to date. It has focused on the economic losses caused by damage to buildings from earthquake ground shaking, and not on the impacts from other, secondary hazards such as soil liquefaction and surface faulting. The study has adopted a probabilistic approach that makes allowances for the variability that is inherent in natural processes as well as the uncertainty in our knowledge. The results from this project will assist decision-makers involved in local and state government, policy development, the insurance industry, engineers, architects, and the building and finance industries to manage potential damage and loss of life from earthquakes in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie. The results also have implications for the earthquake risk facing larger Australian cities such as Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. This is due to a number of factors, including similarities between the earthquake hazard in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie and other parts of Australia, and similarities between the urban environments, particularly the composition of the building stock.

To achieve the RELACS Program's aim of improving the capabilities of the Rabaul Volcanological Observatory to locate and interpret volcano-related earthquake activity near Rabaul, a program of seismic field observation was undertaken in the Rabaul area by a consortium of institutions with significant experience in seismic work, viz AGSO, ANU, and the Universities of Hokkaido and Wisconsin. This Record describes post survey data processing of RELACS field data undertaken at the ANU, the University of Hokkaido and AGSO 1998-99. It also includes CDs of data files containing information on seismic recording stations, seismic shots, some earthquake locations, the arrival times of seismic waves, and seismic record files from stations in the international SUDS format.

The AGSO Cities Project was established in 1996 to undertake research directed towards the mitigation of the risks faced by Australian urban communities that are posed by a range of geohazards. Geohazards are broadly defined to include all earth surface processes with the potential to cause loss or harm to the community or the environment. The ultimate objective is to improve the safety of communities, and consequently make them more sustainable and prosperous. To provide a realistic focus to this research, and to achieve practical outcomes, the Cities Project is using a series of case studies based on Queensland centres to develop and test its science and techniques. Cairns is the first of these multi-hazard case studies. Cairns is the most northerly of Queensland's cities and one of the fastest growing communities in Australia. It is also an isolated community, located some 1 400 km from Brisbane (Figure (i)). Cairns has a resident population of approximately 120 000 and this total can exceed 150 000 at the height of the tourist season.

Mackay, in Central Queensland, lies about mid way between Brisbane and Cairns and with a resident population around 71,400. The Mackay urban area, which is the focus of this study, is home to around 59,000. This study makes extensive use of Geoscience Australia's Risk-GIS method, which is a fusion of the decision support capabilities of geographical information systems, or GIS and the philosophy of risk management. The analysis of risk involves assessing the levels of hazard at Mackay, developing an understanding of the vulnerability of the elements which are at risk within the community and synthesising a range of event scenarios. A comprehensive building database is used to generate damage assessments for the various scenarios with each suburb ranked for its contribution to overall community vulnerability and for exposure to the various hazards. These two rankings determine total risk for each suburb by hazard, which allows the overall community risk from the various hazards to be compared.

National Exposure Information System - Program for Brisbane 21-22 October 2010 Agenda

NEXIS Queensland Stakeholder Engagement Workshops Minutes Policy makers, researchers and asset managers attended the Queensland stakeholder engagement workshops to better understand the National Exposure Information System (NEXIS) and the benefits it currently provides. The workshop also provided the opportunity for participants to contribute towards the advancement of NEXIS by guiding the alignment of its development strategies to better meet their future needs.

The National Exposure Information System (NEXIS) is a major capability being developed by Geoscience Australia. NEXIS provides nationally consistent exposure information to support risk assessments of buildings, people and infrastructure to various hazards. Three key components are central to an understanding of risk; the hazard, what is exposed and how vulnerable the exposed elements are. NEXIS provides the exposure component.

Fundamental to an understandng and management of risk is reliable information about what is exposed to natural hazards and threats. Exposure includes people, buildings, business activity and critical infrastructure. Geoscience Australia (GA) has undertaken the development of the National Exposure Information System (NEXIS) which is a significant national capability to provide reliable and up-to-date information for decision makers. NEXIS collects, collates, manages and provides the information required to assess community exposure, impacts and risk. Presently the capability consistently defines national residential and business exposure using a largely statistical approach with information aggregated at buildings level. The exposure information is derived from the best available datasets and includes a broad range of useful information fields. Progressively this information is transitioning to more specific information in collaboration with a range of data custodians. Furthermore, the capability is being extended to institutional buildings (schools, hospitals, government buildings, emergency assets etc.) and infrastructure assets. Alignment of future development to the needs of stakeholders is vital.

Decision making on community, government and business vulnerability and risk requires a reliable understanding of the nature of the assets at risk. These include people, buildings, economic activity and critical infrastructure. Collectively they are termed 'exposure' and Geoscience Australia (GA) has developed a system which now defines a wide range of exposure types in a current and consistent way on a national scale. The capability is called the National Exposure Information System and is now widely known by the acronym NEXIS. This investment was prompted initially by the agency's own information needs, but more recently development resources have been supplemented with contributions made by other stakeholders to meet their information needs.

No abstract available