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.

Climate change is expected to increase severe wind hazard in many regions of the Australian continent with consequences for exposed infrastructure and human populations. The objective of this study is to provide a nationally consistent assessment of wind risk under current climate and to provide preliminary indications of the effects (impact) of future hazard under several climate change scenarios. This is being undertaken by considering wind hazard, infrastructure exposure and wind vulnerability of infrastructure (residential buildings). The National Wind Risk Assessment (NWRA) will identify communities subject to high wind risk under present climate, and which will be most susceptible to any climate change related exacerbation of local wind hazard. While there is significant uncertainty on what the likelihood of extreme winds will be in the future, the understanding of current local wind hazard for the Australian region is also in need of improvement. Australian wind hazard is based on the statistical analysis of extreme wind observations and engineering judgement. Observations include peak 3-second gusts captured at about 30 meteorological measurement stations, mainly located at significant city and regional airports. These provide poor spatial texture with regard to wind hazard. This study is taking advantage of modelled wind hazard assessments (current climate) being developed at Geoscience Australia utilising separate techniques for the three main wind hazards: tropical cyclones; thunderstorms; and synoptic winds. A stochastic model based on observed and modelled cyclone tracks is used to obtain an understanding of cyclonic wind hazard, whilst two statistical approaches involving observed and modelled vertical instability and mean wind speed fields (via high-resolution regional climate model) are the basis for the thunderstorm and synoptic wind hazard.

The coastal zone is arguably the most difficult geographical region to capture as data because of its dynamic nature. Yet, coastal geomorphology is fundamental data required in studies of the potential impacts of climate change. Anthropogenic and natural structural features are commonly mapped individually, with their inherent specific purposes and constraints, and subsequently overlain to provide map products. This coastal geomorphic mapping project centered on a major coastal metropolitan area between Lake Illawarra and Newcastle, NSW, has in contrast classified both anthropogenic and natural geomorphological features within the one dataset to improve inundation modelling. Desktop mapping was undertaken using the Australian National Coastal Geomorphic (Polygon) Classification being developed by Geoscience Australia and supported by the Department of Climate Change. Polygons were identified from 50cm and 1m aerial imagery. These data were utilized in parallel with previous maps including for example 1:25K Quaternary surface geology, acid sulphate soil risk maps as well as 1:100K bedrock geology polygon maps. Polygons were created to capture data from the inner shelf/subtidal zone to the 10 m contour and include fluvial environments because of the probability of marine inundation of freshwater zones. Field validation was done as each desktop mapping section was near completion. This map has innovatively incorporated anthropogenic structures as geomorphological features because we are concerned with the present and future geomorphic function rather than the past. Upon completion it will form part of the National Coastal Geomorphic Map of Australia, also being developed by Geoscience Australia and utilized in conjunction with Smartline.

Australia is exposed to a wide range of natural hazards, including earthquake, cyclone, landslide, flood, storm surge, severe wind, bushfire, coastal erosion, hail storm and drought. How each person will fare in the event of a natural hazard is influenced not just by exposure to infrastructure, but also by personal attributes, community support, access to resources and governmental management. This network of factors affecting social vulnerability to natural hazards, combined with the complex linkages found in cities and the behaviour of the hazard itself, all contribute to the development of a risk assessment.

We have applied new modelling and analysis techniques to develop a revised understanding of the regional wind hazard across Australia.0 This modelling has enabled the development of a wind hazard map for the Australian region. Regional wind hazard has been assessed by utilising statistical-parametric models, dynamical downscaling and spatial interpolation techniques allowing the derivation of estimates of wind hazard from three different phenomena - tropical cyclones, thunderstorms and synoptic storms. Across much of the interior of the country, the revised estimates of regional wind speeds are comparable to the regional wind speeds specified in the existing Australian - New Zealand wind loading standard (AS/NZS 1170.2 2010), generally to within 10 percent for the design wind speeds (500-year return period gust wind hazard). The regional wind speeds derived in AS/NZS 1170.2 were determined from analysis of long-term records (observations) of daily maximum gust wind speeds. A preliminary assessment of wind risk for the four case study regions, utilising the new modelled hazard methodology as well as the climate simulations, indicated little change in the hazard during the 21st century and therefore little or no change to the wind risk associated with the current residential building stock. When population projections were utilised to infer increased number of buildings (all built to the present standard), the proportion of legacy buildings within the building population declined resulting in a decline in wind risk.

Samples of primary-treated effluent were examined by laser particle sizer, photographic image-analysis and in settling/rinsing experiments in order to determine particle sizes and falling/rising speeds through seawater. Using a 1.7 m column and 24 h experiments, it was found that approximately 22% of the particles settle out of suspension, 3% rise to the surface and 75% remain in suspension. Between 80 and 100% of the falling particles reach the bottom in less than 6 h.A good correlation (r=0.95) was found between the cumulative mass of particles at the base of a settling column and particle falling velocity. In contrast, a poor correlation (r=0.57) was found between median particle size and falling velocity. The falling particle sizes did not follow a log-normal distribution as might be expected. This is probably explained by the fact that larger particles are composed of flocculated material and vary in density from the smaller particles. Particles with a diameter of < 80 m make up 90% of the mass of material that sinks.A fairly good correlation was found between percent cumulative mass and rising velocity (r=0.74). However, the relationship between particle size and rising velocity is more complex. There are three main categories of rising particles: < 52 m; between 52 and 150 m; and those with an average size > 150 m. The smallest class of particles (< 52 m) are by far the most abundant, comprising on average 95% of the total number of rising particles. The small particles show a weak logarithmic relationship between size and rising velocity (r=0.53). The mid-size particles (52-150 m) comprise approximately 4% of the total number of particles and are the most difficult to categorize as there appears to be no relationship between particle size and rising velocity. The large size particles, although the least abundant (~ 1%), are the most predictable; there is a good correlation between particle size and rising velocity (r=0.77). This is probably because the particles are fairly homogeneous and largely composed of oil and grease.

Natural disasters are a frequent occurrence in the Asia-Pacific region because of the combination of very dense population and very hazard-prone areas. Australia has recently been called upon to play a leadership role in responding to natural disasters, especially in recent years, with earthquakes in Pakistan and Indonesia, landslides in the Philippines, tsunami events in Indonesia and the Solomon Islands, cyclone related flooding in Papua New Guinea, and the regular occurrence of cyclones in the southwest Pacific and southeast Asia. Furthermore, there is an increasing trend in the number and size of disasters as the effects of climate change are felt and as rapid population growth and urbanisation results in increasingly large and vulnerable populations in areas exposed to natural hazards. The number and seriousness of natural disasters has been clearly demonstrated to disproportionately affect developing countries more than 90% of natural disaster deaths and 98% of people affected by natural disasters are from developing countries . This high risk of disasters in developing nations has considerable implications for international aid programs. First, natural disasters significantly compromise development progress and reduce the effectiveness of aid investments. Natural disasters may halt or slow progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and in particular, progress on MDG1 halving poverty and hunger by 2015 may be halted or reversed during a natural disaster. Second, natural disasters, particularly relatively infrequent, high-magnitude natural disasters (e.g., 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami) require a significant disaster relief and humanitarian response from aid agencies, which may shift resources away from other development objectives. For this reason the Australian Agency for International Development's (AusAID) strategic direction affirms that managing and responding to natural disasters should be central to development planning. A recent activity undertaken by Geoscience Australia for AusAID made a preliminary assessment of natural hazard risk across all Asia-Pacific partner countries . The objective was to gain a better understanding of disaster risks across the AusAID portfolio and support AusAID to better target disaster risk reduction and humanitarian response activities. This project sought to broadly identify the characteristics, frequency, location and potential consequences of rapid-onset natural hazards, including: earthquake, tsunami, landslide, flood, cyclone, flood, wildfire and volcanic eruptions.

Peak gust wind speed observations collected over more than 70 years by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) are utilised by Standards Australia (Australia/New Zealand Wind Actions Standard) and the Building Code of Australia (BCA) to minimise natural hazard risk to people and buildings. In the mid-1980's BoM commenced a program to replace the aging pressure tube Dines anemometers with cup anemometers. During the anemometer replacement procedure, many localities had more than one type of anemometer operating, recording extreme events. Systematic differences between instrument measurements during this overlap period raised serious concerns about the utility of the peak gust wind speed database. This study utilises extreme valueanalysis and compares estimates of the 500-year return-period (RP) peak gust wind exceedance level derived from coincident wind gust measurements from Dines and cup anemometers. The data on the extreme gust wind speeds for 7 sites (coincident measurement period of 89 years) were considered, allowing an assessment of bias for gust wind speeds between 45 and 60 m/s.

Introduction The Rapid Inventory Collection System (RICS) was initially conceived as a roving vehicular video damage assessment platform which offered many potential time and cost saving benefits to Geoscience Australia (GA) in the efficient and effective assessment of building and infrastructure damage following natural disasters. In particular, RICS: - provides a quick 'first-look' of the damage impact area when the first-on-scene personnel are assessing worst-hit regions - compliments and augments the detailed field damage assessments (house-to-house, structure-to-structure) currently undertaken using hand-held PDAs - allows for 100% coverage of building damage in a disaster-affected area - collects data focusing on 'population coverage' and undamaged structures allowing key engineering and geographic information systems (GIS) staff to focus on damaged structures - allows the field damage assessment to be undertaken more efficiently and in a shorter period of time - provides the option of analysing data off site when operating in the field in 'poor weather conditions' and - is useful for rapid building inventory assessment, validation & updating To date, RICS has been mainly utilised for building inventory assessment in support of the development of the National Exposure Information System (NEXIS), a buildings database that GA is constructing for national scale infrastructure risk assessment.

Climate change is expected to increase severe wind hazard in many regions of the Australian continent with consequences for exposed infrastructure and human populations. The objective of this paper is to provide an initial nationally consistent assessment of wind risk under current cli-mate (residential buildings only), utilizing the Australian/New Zealand wind loading standard (AS/NZS 1170.2, 2002) as the measure of the hazard. This work is part of the National Wind Risk Assessment (NWRA), a collaboration between the Department of Climate Change and En-ergy Efficiency and Geoscience Australia (both Federal Government Agencies). It is aimed at highlighting regions of the Australian continent where currently there is high wind risk to resi-dential structures (current climate), and where, if hazard increases under climate change, there will be a greater need for adaptation. This assessment was undertaken by separately considering wind hazard, infrastructure ex-posure and the wind vulnerability of residential buildings. The methodology has determined the direct impact of severe wind on Australian communities, which has involved the parallel devel-opment of the understanding of wind hazard, residential building exposure and the wind vulner-ability of residential structures. We provide a map of the current climate wind risk for residential housing, expressed as annualized loss based on the wind loading standard as a proxy for the wind hazard. We also explore issues with the nationally consistent methodology through a validation process that considers a 'buildings level' assessment for four case-study regions utilizing an im-proved understanding of building vulnerability with respect to severe wind hazard.