<p>Bushfires and Natural Hazards are features of the Australian climate and landscape. These hazards continue to pose threat and profound personal, social, economic and environmental impacts. In Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), nationally consistent and comprehensive exposure information is critical to provide situational awareness and a fundamental baseline of what may be impacted for decision makers at all levels of governance. <p>Extensive consultation with stakeholders and a review of international exposure information practices has informed the compilation of information requirements for each phase of DRR. The Natural Hazards Exposure Information Framework is a definition of the data and attributes required for all levels of DRR governance in governments, insurance sector and researchers. The report reviewed current information provision systems in Australia, identified gaps and proposed recommendations to enable the creation of more comprehensive exposure information in the future. The framework is fundamentally based on the location of features in the physical environment and their characteristics including key social and economic attributes, e.g. insurance status, buildings, infrastructure (transport, energy, communications and water), people, businesses, manufacturing industries, hazardous substances, waste management and primary industries. Importantly, the framework also addresses the ‘fit for purpose’ question by describing guidelines for data custodians to establish and maintain data provenance to enable the derivation of meaningful data reliability measures for end users. <p>The Natural Hazards Exposure Information Framework provides guidance to build and advance exposure information systems in Australia. This will enable data custodians to prioritise and invest in data, processing and delivery to improve the efficiencies of both tactical and strategic disaster management. Improved nationally consistent and comprehensive exposure information will enable users to assess risk and provide informed advice, such as cost-benefit analysis of mitigation proposals or disaster recovery arrangements. This framework will be a fundamental reference in developing similar systems internationally such as Global Exposure Database for all hazards. The framework also aids in capacity building for developing nations to improve their DRR practices.

In August 2002 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) reviewed natural disaster relief and mitigation arrangements for Australia (COAG, 2003). In response to the recommendation to “develop and implement a five-year national program of systematic and rigorous disaster risk assessments”, Geoscience Australia (GA) is undertaking a series of national risk assessments for a range of natural hazards. Fundamental to any risk assessment is an understanding of the exposure including the number and type of buildings, businesses, infrastructure and people exposed to the hazard of interest. Presently there is no nationally consistent exposure database in existence for risk assessment purposes. It is important to emphasise that understanding the risks associated with various hazards requires more detailed information than the population and number of structures at a census district level. The understanding of building type, construction (roof and wall) type, building age, number of storeys, business type and replacement value is critical to understanding the potential impact on Australian communities from various hazards. The National Exposure Information System (NEXIS) is aimed at providing nationally consistent and best available exposure information at the building level. It requires detailed spatial analysis and integration of available demographic, structural and statistical data. Fundamentally, this system is developed from several national spatial datasets as a generic approach with several assumptions made to derive meaningful information. NEXIS underpins scenarios and risk assessments for various hazards. Included are earthquakes, cyclones, severe synoptic wind, tsunami, flood and technogenic critical infrastructure failure. It will be integrated with early warning and alert systems to provide real time assessment of damage or forecast the impact for any plausible hazards. This system is intended to provide a relative assessment of exposure from multiple hazards and provide the geographic distribution of exposure for regional planning. This will be at an aggregated census district level now and at a mesh block level in the future. The system is scoped to capture the residential, business (commercial and industrial), and ancillary (educational, government, community, religious, etc.) infrastructure. Currently the NEXIS architecture is finalised and the system provides residential exposure information. The prototype for business exposure is in progress. The system aims to capture ancillary buildings, infrastructure and various critical infrastructure sector exposures in future. More specific building and socio-economic information will be incorporated as new datasets or sources of information become available. The NEXIS will be able to provide the exposure information for the impact analysis for a region. This database will not support a site specific assessment involving one or two buildings and need more specific information about the particular exposure to estimate the risk at micro level. More detailed information suitable for such analysis will be maintained in reference databases.

The term "Smartline" refers to a GIS line map format which can allow rapid capture of diverse coastal data into a single consistently classified map, which in turn can be readily analysed for many purposes. This format has been used to create a detailed nationally-consistent coastal geomorphic map of Australia, which is currently being used for the National Coastal Vulnerability Assessment (NCVA) as part of the underpinning information for understanding the vulnerability to sea level rise and other climate change influenced hazards such as storm surge. The utility of the Smartline format results from application of a number of key principles. A hierarchical form- and fabric-based (rather than morpho-dynamic) geomorphic classification is used to classify coastal landforms in shore-parallel tidal zones relating to but not necessarily co-incident with the GIS line itself. Together with the use of broad but geomorphically-meaningful classes, this allows Smartline to readily import coastal data from a diversity of differently-classified prior sources into one consistent map. The resulting map can be as spatially detailed as the available data sources allow, and can be used in at least two key ways: Firstly, Smartline can work as a source of consistently classified information which has been distilled out of a diversity of data sources and presented in a simple format from which required information can be rapidly extracted using queries. Given the practical difficulty many coastal planners and managers face in accessing and using the vast amount of primary coastal data now available in Australia, Smartline can provide the means to assimilate and synthesise all this data into more usable forms.