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  • In response to the catastrophic flooding in south east Queensland in early 2011 that caused between AUS$5-6 billion damage, the Australian Government initiated the National Disaster Review; an independent review into the insurance arrangements for individuals and businesses for damages and losses due to flood and other natural disasters. The review emphasised that consumers need to be aware of the risks they face, and highlighted the lack of consistency in the collection and provision of flood risk information. In response the Australian Government committed AUS$12 m over 4 years to the National Flood Risk Information Project (NFRIP). NFRIP was established to improve the quality, availability of accessibility of flood information across Australia and commenced in July 2012 with Geoscience Australia as the technical lead and Attorney Generals department taking the policy lead. The project comprises three core activities. 1) Development of the Australia Flood Risk Information Portal (AFRIP; www.ga.gov.au/afrip ), an online flood information portal that provides free access to authoritative flood study information and associated mapping from a central location. Centralising this information will make it easy for the public, engineering consultants, insurers, researchers and emergency managers to find out what flood information and mapping exists and where, and to better understand their risk. 2) Analysis of Geoscience Australia's historic archive of satellite imagery from 1987 to the present to provide an indication of how often surface water has been observed anywhere in Australia over the period of the archive. These Water Observations from Space (WOfS; www.ga.gov.au/wofs ) provide baseline information that can be used when no other flood information is available and an understanding of where surface water may impact assets and utility infrastructure. 3) Improving the quality of future flood information by completing the revision of the Australian Rainfall and Runoff guidelines (ARR; www.arr.org.au ). ARR is a series of national guidelines, methodologies and datasets fundamental for flood modelling that was updated in 1987 and modified 1997. The revised guidelines will provide flood professionals with information and data necessary to produce more accurate and consistent flood studies and mapping into the future. This presentation will provide a brief summary of the NFRIP objectives and progress to date, discuss some of the problems encountered in sourcing and making natural hazard and risk information public, and reflect on the broader challenges in the communication of risk to the wider community.

  • A multihazard (volcano, earthquake, tsunami) assessment for East New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea.

  • Internal advice on tsunami, earthquake and severe wind hazards for the Vanimo Port region, derived from large-scale hazard assessments. This advice (refer TRIM D2021-52746) was provided to the Australia Pacific Climate Partnership (APCP) as part of Geoscience Australia's (GA's) contributions to the program. (In confidence report to APCP, not for distribution)

  • The Earthquake Scenario Selection is an interactive tool for querying, visualising and downloading earthquake scenarios. There are over 160 sites nationally with pre-generated scenarios available. These represent plausible future scenarios that can be used for earthquake risk management and planning (see https://www.ga.gov.au/about/projects/safety/nsha for more details).

  • These videos are recordings of online secondary teacher professional learning sessions, delivered by Geoscience Australia’s Education Team. “Can I Fall Down the Cracks?” Plate Tectonic Misconceptions Part 1 This session focused on common misconceptions that are encountered when teaching plate tectonics. The student misconceptions addressed are: 1. We can’t see the tectonic plates (starting at 5:35) 2. The mantle is made of liquid rock (starting at 11:25) 3. The plates move by convection in the mantle (starting at 17:35) 4. When plates collide one always goes under the other (starting at 22:15) 57 minutes total duration, with Q&A with an expert scientist starting at 34 minutes. “Can I Fall Down the Cracks?” Plate Tectonic Misconceptions Part 2 This session focused on common misconceptions that are encountered when teaching hazards associated with plate tectonics. The student misconceptions addressed are: 1. Earthquakes are measured using the Richter scale (starting at 3:15) 2. The magnitude of an earthquake depends on how far away it is (starting at 7:20) 3. Earthquakes can be predicted (starting at 10:52) This section includes a description of Raspberry Shake equipment: low cost earthquake monitoring for the classroom 4. There are no volcanoes in Australia (starting at 18:25) 5. You can surf a tsunami (starting at 24:17) 51 minutes total duration, with Q&A with an expert scientist starting at 37 minutes.

  • To determine the magnitude of severe wind gust hazard due to thunderstorm downbursts using regional climate model output and analysis of observed data (including radar reflectivity and proximity soundings).

  • The Severe Wind Hazard Assessment project aims to provide DFES with intelligence on the scale of impacts that could arise from major tropical cyclone events in communities along the northwest and western coast of WA. We simulated category 3 and 5 scenarios in the northwest, and category 1 and 3 scenarios down the west coast. Simulations included translating the local-scale wind fields into the level of damage to residential housing, through the application of vulnerability models applied to residential buildings which had been categorised on the basis of attributes such as construction era, roof type, wall type and location. Some scenarios produce impacts that are comparable to past events (e.g. the category 5 scenario for Exmouth is similar to TC Vance). Other scenarios are catastrophic, such as the category 3 scenario for Geraldton, where nearly all residential buildings in the city are extensively or completely damaged. The different outcomes for communities arises because of the different profiles of residential buildings in each community. Geraldton lies outside the cyclonic regions defined in AS/NZS 1170.2, so houses are not explicitly designed cope with to the extreme winds that can arise in TCs, hence major impacts were found there in our analysis. DFES used these scenarios to guide planning and preparations for events, such as TC Veronica in March 2019, guiding decisions on preparations and recovery options, which are explored in a companion paper. Abstract presented at the 2020 Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society 2020 National Conference (http://amos-2020.w.amos.currinda.com/)

  • Historical reports of earthquake effects from the period 1681 to 1877 in Java, Bali and Nusa Tenggara are used to independently test ground motion predictions in Indonesia’s 2010 national probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA). Assuming that strong ground motion occurrence follows a Poisson distribution, we cannot reject Indonesia’s current PSHA for key cities in Java at 95% confidence. However, the results do suggest that seismic hazard may be underestimated for the megacity Jakarta. Ground motion simulations for individual large damaging events are used to identify plausible source mechanisms, providing insights into the major sources of earthquake hazard in the region and possible maximum magnitudes for these sources. The results demonstrate that large intraslab earthquakes have been responsible for major earthquake disasters in Java, including a ~Mw 7.5 intraslab earthquake near Jakarta in 1699 and a ~Mw 7.8 event in 1867 in Central Java. The results also highlight the potential for large earthquakes to occur on the Flores Thrust. We require an earthquake with Mw 8.4 on the Flores Thrust to reproduce tsunami observation from Sulawesi and Sumbawa in 1820. Furthermore, large shallow earthquakes (Mw > 6) have occurred in regions where active faults have not been mapped identifying the need for further research to identify and characterize these faults for future seismic hazard assessments. <b>Citation:</b> Jonathan Griffin, Ngoc Nguyen, Phil Cummins, Athanasius Cipta; Historical Earthquakes of the Eastern Sunda Arc: Source Mechanisms and Intensity‐Based Testing of Indonesia’s National Seismic Hazard Assessment. <i>Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America </i>2018; 109 (1): 43–65. doi: https://doi.org/10.1785/0120180085

  • Economic analysis of natural hazards (wind, flood and storm surge) Australia wide. See more info in: http://www.garnautreview.org.au/

  • Using the wind multiplier code (https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/82481) and an appropriate source of classified terrain data, wind multipliers for all of Queensland at (approximately) 25 metre resolution were created. The wind multipliers have been used to guide impact assessments as part of the Severe Wind Hazard Assessment for Queensland.