Australian building codes through the Australia/New Zealand Wind Actions Standard as well as the wind engineering community in general rely to a significant extent on the peak wind gust speed observations collected over more than 60 years by the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). The current wind loading code and the performance of our infrastructure (residential, commercial, industrial and critical infrastructure) is based primarily on the Dines anemometer interpretation of the peak gust wind speed. In the early 1990's BoM commenced a program to replace the aging pressure tube Dynes anemometer with the Synchrotac and Almos cup anemometers. As of October 2008 only six Dynes anemometers remain in operation.

Global climate change is putting Australia's infrastructure and in particular coastal infrastructure at risk. More than 80% of Australians live within the coastal zone. Almost 800,000 residences are within 3km of the coast and less than 6m above sea level. Much of Australia's land transport is built around road and rail infrastructure which is within the threatened coastal zone. A significant number of Australia's ports, harbours and airports are under threat. Australia's coastal zone contains several major cities, and supports agriculture, fisheries, tourism, coastal wetlands and estuaries, mangroves and other coastal vegetation, coral reefs, heritage areas and threatened species or habitats. Sea level rise is one physical effect of rising sea temperatures and is estimated at about 0.146m for 2030 (IPCC 2007) and up to 1.1m for 2100 (Antarctic and Climate Ecosystems CRC). The warming is likely to result in increases in intensity of both extra-tropical and tropical storms (spatially dependent) which are predicted to increase storm surge and severe wind hazard. Beaches, estuaries, coastal wetlands, and reefs which have adapted naturally to past changes in climate (storminess) and sea level over long time scales, now are likely to face faster rates of change. In many cases landward migration may be blocked by human land uses and infrastructure. Adaptation options include integrated coastal zone assessments and management; redesign, rebuilding, or relocation of capital assets; protection of beaches, dunes and maritime infrastructure; development zone control; and retreat plans.

Cliff Head is the only producing oil field in the offshore Perth Basin. The lack of other exploration success has lead to a perception that the primary source rock onshore (Triassic Kockatea Shale) is absent or has limited generative potential. However, recent offshore well studies show the unit is present and oil prone. Multiple palaeo-oil columns were identified within Permian reservoir below the Kockatea Shale regional seal. This prompted a trap integrity study into fault reactivation as a critical risk for hydrocarbon preservation. Breach of accumulations could be attributed to mid Jurassic extension, Valanginian breakup, margin tilt or Miocene structuring. The study focused on four prospects, covered by 3D seismic data, containing breached and preserved oil columns. 3D geomechanical modelling simulated the response of trap-bounding faults and fluid flow to mid Jurassic-Early Cretaceous NW-SE extension. Calibration of modelling results against fluid inclusion data, as well as current and palaeo-oil columns, demonstrates that along-fault fluid flow correlates with areas of high shear and volumetric strains. Localisation of deformation leads to both an increase in structural permeability promoting fluid flow, and the development of hard-linkages between reactivated Permian reservoir faults and Jurassic faults producing top seal bypass. The main structural factors controlling the distribution of permeable fault segments are: (i) failure for fault strikes 350??110?N; (ii) fault plane intersections generating high shear deformation and dilation; and (iii) preferential reactivation of larger faults shielding neighbouring structures. These results point to a regional predictive approach for assessing trap integrity in the offshore Perth Basin.

The Australian National Coastal Vulnerability Assessment (NCVA) was commissioned by the Federal Government to assess the risk to coastal communities from climate related hazards. In addition to an understanding of the impact/risk posed by the current climate, the study also examined the change in risk under a range of future climate scenarios. This assessment will provide information for application to policy decisions for, inter alia, land use, building codes, emergency management and insurance applications. Geoscience Australia coordinated the work undertaken to quantify the impact on property and infrastructure. This included the development of SMARTLINE, a nationally-consistent database of coastal morphology for the entire country, which provides critical information on the geology and landforms and their potential susceptibility to instability or degradation due to environmental or climatic factors. In a first-order attempt to assess the climate-change induced hazard to the coastal landscape, SMARTLINE data have been combined with sea-level rise (SLR) projections for 2030 and 2100, and 1 in 100 year current-climate storm surge estimates to determine potential areas of inundation and zones of instability where coastal recession due to SLR is predicted. Additionally, cyclonic wind hazard along Australia's northern coastline has been estimated using Geoscience Australia's Tropical Cyclone Risk Model, utilising synthetic tropical cyclone event sets derived from IPCC AR4 global climate models. The hazard levels have been modified for terrain, topographic and shielding effects to reflect localised variations in wind hazard.

This final paper for the session presents the results of the new draft earthquake hazard assessment for Australia and compares them to the previous AS1170.4 hazard values. Draft hazard maps will be presented for several spectral periods (0.0, 0.2 and 1.0 s) at multiple return periods (500, 2500 and 10,000 years). These maps will be compared with both the current earthquake hazard used in AS1170.4 and with other assessments of earthquake hazard in Australia. In general the hazard in the draft map is higher in the western cratonic parts of Australia than it is in the eastern non-cratonic parts of Australia. Where regional source zones are included, peaks in hazard values in the map are generally comparable to those in the current AS1170.4 map. When seismicity 'hotspot zones are included, as described in the previous paper, several of them produce much higher hazard peaks than any in the AS1170.4 map. However, such hotspots do not affect as large an area as many of those in the current AS1170.4 map. Finally, hazard curves for different cities will also be presented and compared to those predicted by the method outlined in AS1170.4.

This document describes opportunities for supporting the Philippines CSCAND agencies to enhance their capacity to assess the risk and impact from natural hazards based on an assessment of current gaps. The CSCAND agencies include the Mines & Geosciences Bureau, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, Philippine Atmospheric, the Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, the National Mapping and Resource Information Agency, and the Office of Civil Defence. It is important to note that efforts to assess natural hazard risk are only one mechanism by which the CSCAND agencies support the reduction of disaster risk in the Philippines and that this paper covers only a part of the disaster risk reduction activity spectrum.

When considering structural design with regard to wind loading, the Australian building code through the Australia/New Zealand Wind Actions Standard (AS/NZS 1170.2, 2002) as well as the wind engineering community in general, relies to a significant extent on the peak wind gust speed observations collected over more than 60 years by the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). The wind-loading performance of our infrastructure (resilience) is based primarily on the Dines anemometer interpretation of the peak gust wind speed. In the early 1990's BoM commenced a program to replace the aging pressure tube Dines anemometer with the Synchrotac and Almos cup anemometers. This paper presents the results of a reanalysis of the current BoM peak wind gust database for the non-cyclonic region (Region A) of AS/NZS 1170.2 (2002). We compares estimates of the 500-year RP peak wind gust hazard magnitude derived of varying observing record lengths obtained from 31 "Region A" BoM sites. Region A was considered for this initial study as record length would contain a significant number of extreme events (synoptic or thunderstorm) over decadal time scales (i.e. extremes not dominated by one or two tropical cyclone events). To isolate the issue of anemometer replacement, only wind stations located at airports (consistent exposure) and with more than 30 years of record were considered. The methodology was formulated to explore the consistency of peak wind gust measurements due to issues surrounding equipment upgrading. Comparison of results indicated that the recent period (1990-2006) appears to have a reduction in significant events (13 of 31 sites have a mean 500 year RP below the 95% confidence limit for the 500 year RP estimate using the total record). Future plans are to calibrate some existing Dines instruments in-situ in an effort to provide sufficient information to fully specify the dynamic response over the range of operating conditions

This framework is a reference for individuals and agencies involved in bushfire risk assessment in Australia who seek to improve information on bushfire risk from quantitative methods compared to qualitative methods. It is aimed at bushfire researchers and risk managers in fire, planning and related agencies. Computational bushfire risk assessment is in an early stage of development in Australia. It is an opportune time to establish a framework sufficiently broad that it will accommodate pre-existing and new methods to assess bushfire risk while encouraging innovation. Current methods for assessing bushfire risk in Australia use different terminologies and approaches, and application of an overarching framework improves the potential to compare methods and confidence in comparing results between studies.

Extreme events in a changing climate A climate event is 'extreme' when it (or a series of events) occurs with greater intensity, frequency or duration than is normally expected. Every region of the world experiences extreme events from time to time and natural climate variability already produces extreme events in Tasmania. This includes heat waves, cold waves, floods, droughts and storms. Extreme events can have devastating and wide ranging effects on society and the environment, impacting infrastructure, agriculture, utilities, water resources and emergency planning.

This presentation will provide an overview of some of the work currently being undertaken at Geoscience Australia GA) as part of the National Coastal Vulnerability Assessment (NCVA), funded by the Department of Climate Change (DCC). The presentation will summarise the methodology applied, and highlight the issues, including the limitations and data gaps.