@book {bnh-8323, title = {Making Sense of Natural Disasters: The Learning Vacuum of Bushfire Public Inquiries}, year = {2022}, pages = {135}, publisher = {Palgrave Macmillan}, organization = {Palgrave Macmillan}, edition = {1}, address = {Cham}, abstract = {

This book examines the ways in which emergency management organizations make sense and learn from natural disasters. Examining recent bushfires in Australia, it demonstrates that whilst public inquiries that follow such disasters can be important for learning and change, they have ultimately created a learning vacuum insofar as their recommendations repeat themselves. This has kept governments and society focused on learning lessons about the past, rather than for the future. Accordingly, this book recommends a new approach to sensemaking and learning focused on prospective planning rather than retrospective recommendations, and where planning for the future is seen as the shared responsibility of the government, society, and the emergency management community in Australia and beyond.

}, keywords = {bushfires public reviews, governance, Natural disasters, organizational learning, public inquiries, risk management}, isbn = {978-3-030-94778-1}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94778-1}, url = {https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-94778-1$\#$about}, author = {Graham Dwyer} } @article {bnh-8236, title = {Implications of climate change for emergency services operations - insights from the literature}, number = {699}, year = {2021}, month = {10/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Greenhouse gas emissions to date and existing pledges for emissions reduction from national governments suggest that the world is tracking a medium emissions future at best, and possibly a high emission one. This report consolidates available knowledge of the potential impacts of climate change on key issues that influence the (emergency management services (EMS) in Australia and New Zealand, through a systematic review of the literature (both peer reviewed and grey literature) combined with an analysis of relevant inquiries. It is an output of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC project entitled Preparing emergency services for a climate-challenged world.

For the EMS, one of the most immediate and visceral impacts of climate change is increasing frequency and severity of disaster-inducing natural hazards. Yet, it would be a mistake to assume that this is the extent of the challenge: interacting climatic, social, demographic and economic trends will result in transformations in our societies and way of life. For the EMS, the climate change adaptation challenge is more than just {\textquoteleft}more of the same{\textquoteright}. The increasingly significant impacts that climate change is having on the natural and human systems that support livelihoods and wellbeing in Australia and New Zealand present a profound challenge for all communities, businesses and services.

In the decades ahead, Australia is expected to experience increased warming across the whole of the continent with rainfall declines over much of the southern parts of the country very likely. These changes are not unfolding linearly. Already it is clear that the climate has altered over recent decades through a serious of step changes or {\textquoteleft}breaks{\textquoteright}. This means that current rates of change are an unreliable indicator of future rates of change.

Similarly, New Zealand is already registering warming and changing rainfall in some regions. These trends are expected to continue and include increasing average temperatures and more hot days for norther areas, significant shifts in rainfall patterns and more extreme rainfall, and profound increases in the time spent in drought by 2040. Sea level rise is also a major concern for the island nation, with sea level rise around New Zealand projected to be up to 10\% higher than the global average.

For Australia and New Zealand, climate change means more heatwaves, more extreme precipitation events, more bushfire weather, more storms, fewer but more intense cyclones, and more landslides. It also means more compound events and cascading impacts, where multiple extreme events occur simultaneously {\textendash} as was seen in Black Summer, where bushfires, heatwaves and floods were experienced during a long-term drought. Climate change is also increasing the risk that second and third order impacts of disasters, such as a disease outbreak following a flood, themselves cascade into another event of equal or greater severity.

Increasing frequency and severity of climatic hazards are intersecting with growing exposure and changing vulnerability patterns to drive disaster risk. Some of the desirable features of contemporary lifestyles {\textendash} such as high levels of consumption and technology-dependent, centralised systems {\textendash} are further increasing disaster risk. A no-regrets approach to climate change adaptation is\ to build {\textquoteleft}adaptive capacity{\textquoteright}, which is made up of five interlinked domains: assets, flexibility, social organisation, learning, and agency. Building adaptive capacity/reducing vulnerability requires looking beyond direct climate change impacts (e.g. managing heat) to address structural and systemic constraints on the ability of people and ecosystems to adapt to ongoing change, such as social inequalities, low environmental sustainability and poor governance.

Climate change adaptation incorporates a range of objectives and areas of effort. While it necessarily involves {\textquotedblleft}coping{\textquotedblright} at any moment in time, it also extends far beyond just coping to also better {\textquotedblleft}fit{\textquotedblright} emerging conditions and to proactively adjust to, and help positively shape, the future. Criteria of success of a climate change adaptation initiative include effectiveness, efficiency, equity, accounting for externalities, and having an extended time horizon. The inverse of good adaptation is maladaptation: actions that may lead to increased risk of adverse climate related outcomes, increased vulnerability to climate change, or diminished welfare, now or in the future.

Adaptation faces limits and barriers. As climate change worsens, it is likely impacts will exceed some systems{\textquoteright} and groups{\textquoteright} capacity to manage them. Uneven structural vulnerabilities and engrained issues such as downplaying climate change risks means some groups are continually or regularly unable to cope or adapt well. One of the risks of the {\textquotedblleft}shared responsibility{\textquotedblright} paradigm of disaster risk management in Australia is that {\textquoteleft}communities often are left to manage residual risks shifted towards individuals, whether or not they have the financial, physical, mental, or social capacity to manage them{\textquoteright}. It is often assumed that a lack of climate change information or adaptation knowledge is the main barrier to effective and timely adaptation action. While knowledge and information are important, analysis of barriers to adaptation suggests that institutional barriers (e.g. lack of clear mandate, roles, responsibilities, willingness to act) are often more significant.

One of the enablers of good climate change adaptation is systems thinking {\textendash} appreciating systemic relationships and how to manage them. When it comes to the EMS, a systems-based approach widens our understanding of the sector and the many implications of climate change for it. This report presents two frameworks that are useful for contextualising the EMS in a wider context, identifying how climate change might influence various elements of this system, and where the EMS can direct different types of adaptation strategies.

The academic literature provides some valuable insights into the drivers at work in the EMS context. However, very little research addresses the {\textquotedblleft}question of the future{\textquotedblright} per se and that which does, does not do so in a comprehensive manner that incorporates climate change or challenges the assumption that existing trends will unfold linearly. We therefore need to bring together different insights in order to piece together what the future may entail for the EMS. One useful way to begin this process is to systematically consider the {\textquoteleft}STEEP drivers{\textquoteright} - that is, insights into Social, Technological, Environmental, Economic and Policy/Political drivers {\textendash} and to then start thinking through how they may interact with climate change. In response to input from the scenarios team (the other part of this project), we have included a sixth category {\textendash} legal {\textendash} into the framework. This report provides examples of the types of changes and uncertainties the EMS may need to consider as it encounters the climate change adaptation undertaking.

We draw on the literature review to present analysis provided to the scenarios process. This includes a summary of biophysical impacts of climate change to 2035, including a plausible (but not predictive) climate hazard event map. We then summarise the likely flow-on effects to 2035 and finally the likely implications of those flow-on effects for water and environment, agriculture and aquaculture, infrastructure, human health and wellbeing, and society in general. Finally, we explore what adaptive capacity might look like under the four plausible futures developed by the scenarios team. In this way, the EMS has a comprehensive picture of what climate change impacts might influence them and what resources they might have to manage them.\ 

}, keywords = {Climate change, Emergency management, governance, Planning, Scenarios}, issn = {699}, author = {Lauren Rickards and Adriana Keating} } @article {bnh-7836, title = {Integrating wildfire risk management and spatial planning {\textendash} A historical review of two Australian planning systems}, journal = {International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction}, volume = {53}, year = {2021}, month = {02/2021}, abstract = {

Recent wildfires burning throughout Australia highlight the vulnerability of settlements located in wildland urban interface (WUI) areas. Spatial planning has a critical role in operationalising wildfire risk reduction considerations in a territorial manner across the WUI. Accordingly, more integrated approaches to wildfire management and spatial planning are necessary. However, there is limited literature examining the historical interactions between wildfire and spatial planning policy sectors and how institutions and policy instruments adapt over time to integrate mutually dependent considerations. To address this gap, this research examines how Australian spatial planning institutions and instruments evolved since European settlement to incorporate wildfire considerations, through a qualitative comparative case study approach of two Australian states. Based on the findings of the case study comparison, this paper presents a conceptual framework of the pathways towards increased policy integration of spatial planning and wildfire risk reduction that consists of six phases. It is argued that the path to greater policy integration is grounded on the development of common knowledge, a cross-disciplinary understanding, and agreed policy goals between different policy sectors, that, with time, translate into new institutional arrangements and instruments that integrate the work and decision-making processes of different sectors.

}, keywords = {Disaster risk management, governance, Integration, Spatial planningm Urban planning, Wildfire}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101984}, url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212420920314862?dgcid=coauthor}, author = {Constanza Gonzalez-Mathiesen and Simone Ruane and Alan March} } @article {bnh-8235, title = {Preparing emergency services for operations in a climate-challenged world - summary report}, number = {689}, year = {2021}, month = {10/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

EMS agencies are learning to adapt and be prepared for futures where the changing climate will influence the services they deliver, and how they deliver those services. This research project was designed to help the sector to better prepare for these futures and take action to more quickly adapt as it unfolds, and importantly take action to shape the future in ways that reduce the risks of the hazards ahead.

In 2020 and 2021 this research project, under the stewardship of Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC and AFAC and led by Reos Partners and RMIT University, collaborated with a select group of leaders and professionals (a scenario team) from across the Australia and New Zealand EMS. The research project was completed in three integrated parts:

  1. A synthesis of the literature conducted by RMIT on the implications of climate change for emergency services operation
  2. A series of participatory workshops with the project scenario team to develop an explorative and adaptable methodology that is then used to create transformative scenarios (2021-2035)
  3. Develop EMS guidance for using transformative scenarios in a climate-challenged world for planning and decision-making in EMS.

By involving key people from across the EMS in the construction and application of the scenarios (the scenario team), this project has helped to build the sector{\textquoteright}s understanding and capabilities in scenario development and in scenario use and application. The project has not only strengthened the scenario thinking capability of the participants across a range of agencies, but secured positive support and endorsement from the scenario team who can continue to share and apply the project methods across the EMS.

A range of documents and resources are available from www.bnhcrc.com.au/research/climatescenarios. These include a workbook, and a research and methodology pack:

Transformative scenarios in a climate-challenged world {\textendash} workbook:

Transformative scenarios in a climate-challenged world {\textendash} research and methodology:\ 

}, keywords = {Climate change, Emergency management, governance, Planning, Scenarios}, issn = {689}, author = {Stephen Atkinson and Geoff Brown and Russell Fisher and Zoe Fitzgerald and Lauren Rickards and Adriana Keating} } @article {bnh-8232, title = {Transformative scenarios in a climate challenged world - a guide for using scenarios in the emergency management sector}, number = {708}, year = {2021}, month = {10/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

During 2020 and 2021, under the stewardship of Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC and AFAC and led by Reos Partners and RMIT University, a select group of leaders and professionals from across the Australia and New Zealand emergency management sector (EMS) and related organisations worked together to better understand the driving forces in the world that interact to shape the future in unpredictable and volatile ways; ways that humans cannot reliably forecast or predict.

Using these driving forces, the team constructed a set of plausible futures that invite the EMS and the organisations within it to examine their current thinking about the future and challenge their existing assumptions. These scenarios explore what might happen over 2021-2035 in a climate-challenged world and how these futures might plausibly come about.

While this Guide references the breadth of ways in which scenarios can be applied in practice, the core purpose of this Guide is to outline one practical way for EMS organisations to start using these scenarios. The Guide outlines a simple, yet powerful way (wind tunnelling) for organisations to test and improve decision making and planning in an uncertain world where the volatility, frequency and magnitude of climate events will challenge the sector like never before. Experimenting with this {\textquotedblleft}wind tunnelling{\textquotedblright} approach and becoming familiar with its use in the context of one{\textquoteright}s own organisation, will provide leaders and decision-makers with the strategic insights required to strengthen and improve their strategy work and support their organisations to more effectively adapt to and influence the future.

This Guide is designed to be used in conjunction with the other documents in the Transformative scenarios in a climate-challenged world: workbook, which includes:

You will also need to access Transformative scenarios in a climate-challenged world: research and methodology, which includes:\ \ 

All of these documents can be found here.

The Guide draws on the global experience of Reos Partners in developing and applying scenarios in many different contexts, the climate change research conducted for the project by RMIT University, the wisdom and hands-on experience of the sector-wide scenario team and a little bit of collective imagination.

}, keywords = {Climate change, Emergency management, governance, Planning, Scenarios}, issn = {708}, author = {Reos Partners} } @article {bnh-8233, title = {Transformative scenarios in a climate challenged world - emergency management sector case studies as worked examples}, number = {710}, year = {2021}, month = {10/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

During 2020 and 2021, under the stewardship of BNHCRC and AFAC and led by Reos Partners and RMIT University, a select group of leaders and professionals from across the Australia and New Zealand emergency management sector (EMS) and related organisations worked together to better understand the driving forces in the world that interact to shape the future in unpredictable and volatile ways; ways that humans cannot reliably forecast or predict.

Using these driving forces, the team constructed a set of plausible futures that invite the EMS and the organisations within it to examine their current thinking about the future and challenge their existing assumptions. These scenarios explore what might happen over 2021-2035 in a climate-challenged world and how these futures might plausibly come about.

The purpose of Emergency management sector case studies as worked examples is to provide a {\textquoteleft}light{\textquoteright} version of a wind-tunneling process using four case examples from the perspective of different Emergency Service agency types:

  1. Urban firefighting services\  \  \  {\textquotedblleft}urban operations{\textquotedblright}
  2. Rural firefighting services\  \  \  \  {\textquotedblleft}rural operation{\textquotedblright}
  3. Land management agencies\  \  \ {\textquotedblleft}land management{\textquotedblright}
  4. State emergency services\  \  \  \  \ {\textquotedblleft}emergency services{\textquotedblright}

Abridged versions of four strategies or plans have been selected as {\textquoteleft}cases{\textquoteright} to illustrate the application of the wind-tunnelling process described in\ Transformative scenarios in a climate-challenged world: a guide for using scenarios in the emergency management sector.

The cases are:

Case 1 {\textendash} Urban Operations: State Emergency Response Plan Extreme Heat Sub-Plan (2017)

Case 2 {\textendash} Rural Operations: Barwon South West Bushfire Management Strategy (2020)

Case 3 {\textendash} Land Management: City of Ipswich Floodplain Management Strategy (2019)

Case 4 {\textendash} Emergency Services: NZ Risk Reduction Strategy (2019-29)

The Case Studies draw on the experience of the sector-wide scenario team in developing the scenarios and have been designed to be used in conjunction with the other documents in the Transformative scenarios in a climate-challenged world: workbook, including:

You will also need to access Transformative scenarios in a climate-challenged world: research and methodology, which includes:\ \ 

All of these documents can be found\ here.

Note that wind-tunnelling is a rigorous process requiring significant time and resources, and that these Case Studies are a {\textquoteleft}light{\textquoteright} version of a wind-tunnelling process developed for illustrative purposes only in order to show ways in which the worked examples may be tested and improved.

Note also that not every step in each worked example of the case studies has been fully completed. Parts have been deliberately left blank with an invitation for the reader to engage and complete the exercise. Again, what{\textquoteright}s provided is by way of example is for illustrative purposes only.

Finally, none of the results of wind-tunnelling provided here should be seen as a recommendation for any improvement to any of the strategies selected as EMS Case Studies.

}, keywords = {Climate change, Emergency management, governance, Planning, Scenarios}, issn = {710}, author = {Reos Partners} } @article {bnh-8234, title = {Transformative scenarios in a climate challenged world - research methodology for scenario development}, number = {709}, year = {2021}, month = {10/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

During 2020 and 2021, under the stewardship of BNHCRC and AFAC and led by Reos Partners and RMIT University, a select group of leaders and professionals from across the Australia and New Zealand emergency management sector (EMS) and related organisations worked together to better understand the driving forces in the world that interact to shape the future in unpredictable and volatile ways; ways that humans cannot reliably forecast or predict.

Using these driving forces, the team constructed a set of plausible futures that invite the EMS and the organisations within it to examine their current thinking about the future and challenge their existing assumptions. These scenarios explore what might happen over 2021-2035 in a climate-challenged world and how these futures might plausibly come about.

This document presents the research methodology behind the development of the scenarios.

It is designed to be read in conjunction with the other documents in the Transformative scenarios in a climate-challenged world: workbook and the Transformative scenarios in a climate-challenged world: research and methodology pack, which includes:

All of these documents can be found\ here.

}, keywords = {Climate change, Emergency management, governance, Planning, Scenarios}, issn = {709}, author = {Reos Partners} } @mastersthesis {bnh-8310, title = {Implementing disaster resilience policy in the Australian Federation}, volume = {Doctor of Philosophy}, year = {2020}, month = {12/2020}, pages = {329}, school = {Australian National University}, address = {Canberra}, abstract = {

Australia adopted the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience in 2011. This officially set it on a path to change the attitudes and behaviours of all sectors of society to share responsibility for disaster risks. This would require a shift away from the traditional emphasis on disaster, response, relief and recovery toward prevention, preparation and planning, and risk mitigation. Eight years later, disaster resilience policy continues to be implemented at all levels of government as well as influencing resilience-based approaches in the Not-for-Profit and business sectors. Much progress has been made in disaster resilience research, especially in the area of measurement, including the development of indicators that can potentially inform evaluation of the effectiveness of disaster resilience policy. However, there is shortage of research and a lack of awareness about the significance of policy implementation and governance for achieving successful policy outcomes. This thesis seeks to address this gap and investigates whether the implementation of disaster resilience policy in Australia reflects good practice and how current practice is shaped by the characteristics of the Australian Federal (multilevel) system of government. The methodology involves three parallel linked avenues of inquiry that includes the development of a Provisional Disaster Resilience Policy Implementation Framework (the Provisional framework) to guide implementation, the application of the Provisional Framework to a number of case studies of implementation to identify principles and practices relevant to multi-level governance systems that will enhance disaster resilience, and the evaluation of the Provisional framework to incorporate these findings.

A key research outcome is the Disaster Resilience Policy Implementation Framework that confirms the inclusion of the Policy Domains of Social Capital, Community Competence, Economic Development, Information and Communication, with the addition of a fifth and complementary Policy Domain, Subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is an organising principle that is closely associated with federalism and states that {\textquoteleft}that any particular task should be decentralized to the lowest level of governance with the capacity to conduct it satisfactorily{\textquoteright} (Marshall, G.R., 2008, {\textquoteleft}Nesting, subsidiarity, and communitybased environmental governance beyond the local scale{\textquoteright}. International Journal of the Commons, 2(1) p.80). This has implications for practice that have fundamental regard to the operation of disaster resilience within a system consisting of component parts that must work together to synergise disaster resilience efforts. For this system to work effectively activities must be coordinated using effective feedback mechanisms and facilitated by open and shared access to information, devolved to the appropriate level with approaches that nurture capacity, and with roles and responsibilities that are negotiated and clearly defined through an authentic process of stakeholder engagement.

}, keywords = {disaster, governance, Policy, resilience}, url = { http://hdl.handle.net/1885/216714}, author = {Susan Hunt} } @article {bnh-4584, title = {Using a worldview lens to examine complex policy issues: a historical review of bushfire management in the South West of Australia}, journal = {The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability }, year = {2018}, month = {01/2018}, abstract = {

The scale and intensity of bushfire activity in Australia is likely to increase as a result of climate change. Effective bushfire management policy measures are therefore essential to minimise the interrelated social, environmental and economic impacts of fire in the landscape. This paper presents a historical review of bushfire management in the South West of Australia (SW): a bushfire prone and biodiverse region. Using a worldview framework to analyse key policy documents and literature, the paper demonstrates that the evolution of complex policy sectors such as bushfire management, is influenced not only by scientific and technical developments but also as a result of changing worldviews. Adapting the Integrative Worldview Framework (IWF), seven worldview categories that dominated particular periods of history in Australia are presented. These worldview categories are then used to examine the evolution of bushfire management practice, policy and institutional arrangements relevant to the SW. The argument presented herein is that a better understanding of worldviews and how they influence complex and contentious policy fields such as bushfire management, is useful for policy analysis, reflexive practice and research. The paper suggests an integrative worldview approach, which enables opportunities for exchanges and constructive conflict between stakeholders and agencies with diverse worldviews, could contribute to creating more sustainable bushfire management. Finally, it is argued that opportunities for Indigenous and Western worldview exchanges in the bushfire management sector, through collaborative knowledge partnerships could assist the sector in both management practice and policy formulation.

}, keywords = {Australia., bushfire management, governance, Policy, sustainability, worldviews.}, doi = {10.1080/13549839}, url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13549839.2018.1467390?scroll=top\&needAccess=true}, author = {Simone Ruane} } @article {bnh-1639, title = {Risk Management from a Legal and Governance Perspective}, journal = {Journal of Integrated Disaster Risk Management}, volume = {4}, year = {2014}, month = {12/09/2014}, pages = {61-72}, chapter = {61}, abstract = {
Risk management is seen as the key to living with potentially catastrophic hazards, but the language of disaster risk management carries with it the implication that all risks can in fact be managed. This implies that if there is an adverse outcome, even accepting an inherent residual risk, there must have been a failure by those responsible. The concept of risk management raises the further risk of being blamed for failing to meet community expectations and that risk, too, needs to be managed. Power says:
{\textellipsis} experts who are being made increasingly accountable for what they do are now becoming more preoccupied with managing their own risks. Specifically, secondary risks to their reputation are becoming as significant as the primary risks for which experts have knowledge and training. (Power, M., The Risk Management of Everything (Demos, London 2004) 14).
The ultimate expression of the secondary risk came with the conviction of six Italian scientists for manslaughter, over their failure to issue appropriate warnings regarding the risk of the 2009 L{\textquoteright}Aquila earthquake.
This paper looks at the question of risk management from a legal and governance perspective. Drawing on developments in law and policy from Australia and around the world, this paper will explore whether disaster risk management is moving from reducing the risk to communities to reducing the risk to governments and emergency managers. Legal and policy reforms that may help to refocus disaster risk management to those vulnerable to hazards, rather than vulnerable to blame, will be identified.

}, keywords = {governance, law, risk management}, issn = {2185-8322}, doi = {10.5595/idrim.2014.0076}, url = {http://idrimjournal.com/index.php/idrim/article/view/76}, author = {Michael Eburn and Dovers, Steve} }