In 2011, the Australian Government released the Natural Disaster Insurance Review (NDIR). The NDIR identified that consumers need to be aware of the natural disaster risks that they face. The review also highlighted the lack of a consistent approach to the collection and provision of flood risk information. To facilitate this, the Australian Government directed funding to the development of a shop-front or portal and guidelines. To achieve this, the then Attorney-General’s Department (now Department of Home Affairs) and GA jointly formed the National Flood Risk Information Project (July 2012-June 2016). The project aim was to provide a single authoritative, publically available source of reusable flood related information, and will be complemented by the development of national guidelines for flood modelling.

Acknowledging that the revision of the Australian Rainfall and Runoff (ARR) national guidelines was an important component in providing reliable and robust estimates of risk, EA and GA entered into a contractual arrangement in 2012 to complete the ARR revision. The agreement was renewed in February 2016 and amended to address ownership and use of IP. The contractual arrangement expired 30 June 2016 with the ARR 2016 launched online through GA’s website, http://arr.ga.gov.au/home.

The website http://arr.ga.gov.au/home provides access to the web-based version of the guidelines, links to associated data and software, and other general information. GA also manages the ARR subscription list for the purpose of newsletters.

GA manages the relationship with Engineers Australia through a Facilitation Agreement. Engineers Australia has responsibility to host the servers for the data and software, and also manage any changes to the guideline itself through a github repository. GA updates the website as new changes are pushed through to github. Engineers Australia are also responsible for drafting content for newsletters with GA then sending those newsletters based on the subscription list.