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  • More than 17,000 dwellings in the Brisbane and Ipswich area were flood affected when the Bremer and Brisbane Rivers exceeded major flood levels in January 2011. Significant damage was caused to property and many households were severely disrupted for extended periods of time. The disaster prompted a large effort and a range of provisions to enable the clean-up of the direct damage and the promotion of recovery. The disaster provided a valuable opportunity to examine the community recovery following the event and to consequently obtain a better understanding of the resilience of Australian households to flood. During April and May 2012 Geoscience Australia, in collaboration with the New Zealand National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research, conducted a postal survey of residents in the flood affected areas of Brisbane and Ipswich. The response to the survey was very encouraging with nearly 1,300 households responding. The survey covered a range of topics including preparation in the days leading up to the flood inundation, evacuation behaviour, economic impacts and subjective well-being. It also included the reconstruction undertaken and associated recovery in the days, weeks, and months following the flood event. The presentation examines the survey data obtained and focuses on vulnerability and reconstruction. It discusses the composition of vulnerable households (for example people with disabilities, no access to a motor vehicle, single parents with young children), household well-being after the flood event (for example physical, emotional and financial stress) and building fabric issues (for example mould or warped timbers) during the reconstruction phase. Also examined are the steps taken to mitigate against future flood events. The presentation compares two different socio-economic areas and looks at any differences in recovery between the two areas. The survey analysis can point to what householders might experience following the January 2013 flooding in Queensland and NSW.

  • Workshop notes, includes "NDC in a box Virtual Appliance" software

  • Presentation at the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility Conference in 2013 (Sydney). This presentation is based on the "Reforming Planning Processes Trial: Rockhampton 2050" report (GeoCat 75085) Potential impacts of climate change present significant challenges for land use planning, emergency management and risk mitigation across Australia. Even in current climate conditions, the Rockhampton Regional Council area is subject to the impacts of natural hazards, such as bushfires, floods, and tropical cyclones (extreme winds and storm surge). All of these hazards may worsen with climate change. To consider future climate hazard within council practices, the Rockhampton Regional Council received funding from the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Grants Program Project for a project under the Settlements and Infrastructure theme. This funding was provided to evaluate the ability of urban planning principles and practices to accommodate climate change and the uncertainty of climate change impacts. Within this project, the Rockhampton Regional Council engaged Geoscience Australia to undertake the modelling of natural hazards under current and future climate conditions. Geoscience Australia's work, within the broader project, has utilised natural hazard modelling techniques to develop a series of spatial datasets describing hazards under current climate conditions and a future climate scenario. The following natural hazards were considered; tropical cyclone wind, bushfire, storm tide, coastal erosion and sea-level rise. This presentation provides an overview of the methodology and how the results of this work were presented to the Rockhampton Regional Council for planning consideration.

  • This presentation was delivered at the 30th NZ Geothermal Workshop in Taupo, New Zealand (10 - 13th November 2008). It summarises the key initiatives the Australian Government and State Governments have in place to support the growth of Australia's young geothermal industry.

  • Powerpoint presentation for "Advanced Topics in Carbon Capture and Storage" 7-10 April, Porto Alegre, Brazil

  • Subtitle: Behind the Scenes of Geofabric Version 3 Pilot & the Future of Geospatial Surface Water Information The Bureau of Meteorology's Australian Hydrological Geospatial Fabric (Geofabric) was established in 2008 as the spatial information database to support water accounting and resource assessment mandated under the Water Act 2007. Foundation layers for Geofabric versions 1 and 2 were developed from 1:250K streamline data and the 9 second resolution national DEM. The uses of the Geofabric data have expanded to new disciplines and have resulted in increased demand for finer national resolution. Version 3 of the Geofabric is now under development in a collaborative project between Geoscience Australia, CSIRO, Australian National University (ANU) and the Bureau of Meteorology. The foundation inputs for Geofabric version 3 are based on the integrated national surface hydrology dataset which uses the best available scale data from the jurisdictions and the 1 second resolution SRTM DEM. This significant enhancement presents both challenges and opportunities. This presentation at the Surveying & Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI) ACT Region conference on 16 August 2013 aims to show the work being undertaken in the pilot areas of the Namoi and Murrumbidgee River Regions.

  • The record is a presentation given by Adrian Fisher to staff of the Aditya-Birla Nifty copper mine and to staff at the Geological Survey of Western Australia, August 2007. It describes the planning behind the Paterson AEM survey, to be acquired in 2007-2008.

  • Australia's thorium resources currently amount to 452,000tonnes Th of which 364,000tonnes (80.5%) occur in heavy mineral sand deposits, 53,300tonnes (11.7%) in a vein type deposit at Nolans Bore in the Northern Territory and another 35,000tonnes (7.7%) are in an alkaline trachyte plug at Toongi in New South Wales. This distribution of thorium resources differs from the world wide distribution where 31.3% of the resources occur in carbonatites, 24.6% are in placers, 21.4% in vein type deposits and 18.4% in alkaline rocks. This variance is at least partly due to relatively more, although still inadequate, data on thorium resources being generated by the very active heavy mineral sand operations around Australia. Even where thorium analyses have been carried out for other types of deposits that host thorium, such results are not published since thorium is not considered to be economically important. All of Australia's thorium resources occur in multi-commodity deposits, dominantly the heavy mineral sands and in rare earth deposits where the extraction cost would be shared with if not totally supported by the other commodities in the deposit. Because there has been no large-scale demand for thorium, there has been little incentive for companies to assess the cost for the extraction of thorium resources. Hence there is insufficient information to determine how much of Australia's thorium resources are economic for purposes of electricity power generation in thorium nuclear reactors. Geoscience Australia is currently engaged in upgrading its database on thorium resources as part of the five-year Onshore Energy Security Program and Australia's figures on its thorium resources will be refined as a result of this work. Because of limited demand, there has been very little exploration for thorium in Australia. As part of its five year Onshore Energy Security Program, Geoscience Australia is in process of upgrading its continent wide airborne radiometric coverage and is conducting a low density geochemical sampling program across the continent. These programs will help to develop a better understanding of the geological and geochemical environment of thorium in Australia and provide basic pre-competitive data to reduce risk the level of risk for the mineral exploration industry. Assessment of thorium resources by the minerals industry in the future will depend upon the development of commercial-scale thorium nuclear reactors and the resulting demand for thorium resources.