Natural hazards pose a serious threat to the lives and livelihoods of people living in developing countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region. One of the key mechanisms for reducing the impact of these events is to build capacity in these countries to mitigate for natural hazards. An improved understanding of natural hazards and the implementation of reliable, widely-tested computational models for assessing hazard will ultimately assist in disaster preparedness and response. Geoscience Australia (GA) in collaboration with the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) conducted a six day pre-IGC natural hazard modelling workshop for ASEAN and Pacific country delegates. The aim of the workshop was to improve their understanding of computational modelling techniques for volcanic ash, earthquake, tsunami and tropical cyclone hazards. The outcomes and lessons learnt will be discussed. Forty delegates from ASEAN and Pacific countries were invited to attend and receive training in one of four hazard modelling software programs relevant to the region: python-FALL3D (volcanic ash), ANUGA (tsunami), OpenQuake (earthquake) or TCRM (tropical cyclone). Relevance to their current employment area and the capacity to share the knowledge obtained through the training with colleagues were key criteria in selecting participants. Take home versions of the modelling software on USB stick and access to ongoing technical assistance from GA staff ensure that participants will be able to continue utilising the modelling software after the workshop. The knowledge gained will ultimately build the capacity of participants who have the responsibility of planning for potential natural hazards in their home countries.

Natural hazards such as floods, dam breaks, storm surges and tsunamis impact communities around the world every year. To reduce the impact, accurate modelling is required to predict where water will go, and at what speed, before the event has taken place.

The recently released ISC-GEM catalogue was a joint product of the International Seismological Center (ISC) and the Global Earthquake Model (GEM). In a major undertaking it collated, from a very wide range of sources, the surface and body wave amplitude-period pairs from the pre digital era; digital MS, mb and Mw; collated Mw values for 970 earthquakes not included in the Global CMT catalogue; used these values to determine new non-linear regression relationship between MS and Mw and mb and Mw. They also collated arrival picks, from a very wide range of sources, and used these to recompute the location, initially using the EHB location algorithm then revised using the ISC location algorithm (which primarily refined the depth). The resulting catalogues consists of 18871 events that have been relocated and assigned a direct or indirect estimate of Mw. Its completeness periods are, Ms - 7.5 since 1900, Ms - 6.25 1918 and Ms - 5.5 1960. This catalogue assigns, for the first time, an Mw estimate for several Australian earthquakes. For example the 1968 Meckering earthquake the original ML, mb and MS were 6.9, 6.1 and 6.8, with empirical estimates of Mw being 6.7 or 6.8. The ISC-GEM catalogue assigns an Mw of 6.5. We will present a poster of the Australian events in this ISC_GEM catalogue showing, where available, the original ML, mb, Ms, the recalculated mb and Ms, and the assigned Mw. We will discuss the implications of this work for significant Australian earthquakes.

Climate change has become a real challenge for all nations throughout the world. The Fifth IPCC Assessment Report (2007) indicates that climate change is inevitable and those nations that quickly adapt will mitigate risk from the threats of the increased strength of tropical cyclones, storm surge inundation, floods and the spread of disease vectors. Decision making for adaptation will be more effective when it is based on evidence. Evidence-based disaster management means that decision makers are better informed, and the decision making process delivers more rational, representative and objective climate change outcomes. To achieve this, fundamental data needs to be translated into information and knowledge, before it can be put to use by the decision makers as policy, planning and implementation. The exposure to these increased natural hazards includes the communities, businesses, services, lifeline utilities and infrastructure. The thorough understanding of exposed infrastructure and population under current and future climate projections is fundamental to the process of future capacity building. The development of the National Exposure Information System (NEXIS) is a significant national project being undertaken by Geoscience Australia (GA). NEXIS collects, collates, manages and provides the information required to assess multi-hazard impacts. Exposure information is defined as a suite of elements at risk from climate change which includes human populations, buildings, businesses and infrastructure.

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.

For Indonesian Geophyscis conference (HAGI)

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.

We compare GPS derived geodetic strain rates with estimates from seismic moment release for the Western Australian Seismic Zone. The geodetic strain rates were derived from occupations, in 2002 and 2006, of a 48 site regional network in the SW corner of Australia. The high precision nature of the experiment enabled us to identify 16 sites where antenna errors were the cause of the anomalous displacements. The cause of this is considered to be due to errors in the phase centre of three antennas. The ~1200 km2 study area is one of the most seismically active areas of mid-continental crust worldwide. The geodetic and seismic derived compressional strain-rates are 0.8±0.8 x10-9 yr-1 and 4.9 ±1.9 x10-9 yr-1 (±1) respectively. In effect, the geodetic strain rate would appear to be significantly less than the seismic rate which is amongst the highest of all mid-continental crust rates. With over 95% confidence we can exclude the geodetic and seismic strain rates being the same. This suggests that the contemporary seismic moment release it significantly higher than the long-term moment release. Thus the seismicity of this region is possibly not following the Poissonian behaviour normally observed for inter-plate earthquakes and may be episodic. Thus estimates of the long-term seismic hazard in this area based solely on the earthquake data are likely to be overestimates. Whether the geodetic stain rate reflects the Australian continental average or an intermediate value will require several repeat occupations.

One of the main outputs of the Earthquake Hazard project at Geoscience Australia is the national earthquake hazard map. The map is one of the key components of Australia's earthquake loading standard, AS1170.4. One of the important inputs to the map is the rate at which earthquakes occur in various parts of the continent. This is a function of the strain rate, or the rate of deformation, currently being experienced in different parts of Australia. This paper presents two contrasting methods of estimating the strain rate, and thus the seismicity, using the latest results from the seismology and geodynamic modelling programs within the project. The first method is based on a fairly traditional statistical analysis of an updated catalogue of Australian earthquakes. Strain rates, where measurable, were in the range of 10-16s-1 to around 10-18s-1 and were highly variable across the continent. By contrast, the second method uses a geodynamic numerical model of the Australian plate to determine its rate of deformation. This model predicted a somewhat more uniform strain rate of around 10-17s-1 across the continent. The uniformity of the true distribution of long term strain rate in Australia is likely to be somewhere between these two extremes but is probably of about this magnitude. In addition, this presentation will also give an overview of how this kind of work could be incorporated into future versions of the national earthquake hazard map in both the short and long term.

The inventory of over 200 fault scarps captured in GA's Australian neotectonics database, when grouped according to the spatial divisions prescribed in the recently published neotectonics domain model, allows for estimates of maximum magnitude earthquake (Mmax) to be calculated across the SCR crust of Australia. The 75th percentile value of fault scarp length for all features within a given domain was used in calculations using the average of a range of published relations. Results range between Mw 7.0 - 7.5 ± 0.2 magnitude units (Table 1), demonstrating that potentially catastrophic earthquakes are possible Australia-wide. These data form the basis for future seismic hazard assessments, including those for building design codes, both in Australia and analogous SCRs worldwide.