Michael Shepherd

Realistic disaster scenarios help emergency managers better understand disasters. They allow for visualisation of potential impacts before disasters happen, and enable proactive planning for these events. This project developed realistic disaster scenarios using catastrophic loss models so that vulnerable areas, utilities and assets within our major cities can be identified.

This study examined in-depth lessons from historical emergencies and disasters by engaging with state and federal response agencies, as well as those supporting response and recovery, and local government.

Over three years, the project focused on the nature of catastrophic disasters and how they are conceptualised in the Australian context; the historical frequency of compound disasters in Australia; the most appropriate practices to plan and prepare for catastrophic disasters; and how businesses and community organisations can best be incorporated into planning and preparedness arrangements for catastrophic disasters. The key finding from this research is that existing principles for disaster planning and risk reduction are not effectively implemented to develop plans that consistently inform decision making. To improve this, a key utilisation output from the research has been an emergency management capability maturity assessment tool that can be utilised by governments and organisations to better understand potential capability gaps in the context of severe-to-catastrophic disaster scenarios. Outcomes of the research were presented as evidence to the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements.