@article {bnh-6964, title = {Community engagement for disaster preparedness: A systematic literature review}, journal = {International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction}, year = {2020}, month = {05/2020}, abstract = {

Disaster management agencies invest differing levels of resources into guiding communities to get ready for a range of hazards, and are increasingly turning to community engagement as a way of increasing preparedness. This paper presents a systematic literature review that reports on the effect of community communication and engagement techniques that have been used in a hazard preparedness context. The review findings suggest that most community engagement techniques are effective in generating some level of increased preparedness. For techniques that were found not to work, lack of benchmarking research, context and skill levels of those implementing the engagement were thought to be at fault rather than structural or conceptual problems with the technique itself. Face to face techniques were more consistently successful than mass media campaigns. However, all of the intervention types reported had some measure of success, even though there were individual failures. The 41 studies included used a wide variety of research methods that also varied greatly in rigor and replicability. Agency efforts to engage communities in preparedness should include a wide range of techniques that work together to change behaviour, including face-to-face community engagement that triggers and supports community-led preparedness activity.

}, keywords = {community engagement, Community engagement tools, hazard, Preparedness, risk reduction}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101655}, url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212420919317893?via\%3Dihub}, author = {Barbara Ryan and Kim Johnston and Maureen Taylor and Ryan McAndrew} } @article {bnh-7390, title = {Mapping bushfire hazard and impacts {\textendash} final project report}, number = {616}, year = {2020}, month = {10/2020}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Fuel condition (e.g. moisture content, horizontal and vertical continuity and the quantity or load) affect flammability and therefore is a key determinant of the ease of ignition and the spread rate of a fire. Many research institutions and management services are investing an important amount of resources on field-based fuel condition monitoring to understand its dynamics and support operational fire management activities. However, field sampling is expensive and time-consuming, sometimes subjective and implies also a delay time until the data are processed and made available. The Bushfire \& Natural Hazards CRC project {\textquoteleft}Mapping Bushfire Hazards and Impacts{\textquoteright} used cutting-edge technology to produce near-real-time spatial information on fuel condition, fire hazard and impact to support a wide range of fire risk management and response activities such as hazard reduction burning and pre-positioning firefighting resources and, in the longer term, the new Australian Fire Danger Rating System (AFDRS) given it considers fuel condition as ne of the key factors required to determine fire danger and support other decision -making.

The first phase of this project (2014-2017) involved the parallel investigation of several promising data sources and methods that can be categorised as either {\textquoteleft}in-field{\textquoteright} (grassland curing on-ground sensors and ground-based LiDAR laser scanning for fuel structure characterisation) or {\textquoteleft}national-scale{\textquoteright} (the Australian Flammability Monitoring System-AFMS, and the High-resolution Fire Risk and Impact (HiFRI) model-data fusion framework) methods. Generally, information derived from the national-scale methods appeared to represent enough accuracy and better return on investment and generated greater interest among end-users.

Consequently, over 2017-2020, this research project focused on ensuring the continuity of the AFMS but further developing the algorithms to estimate fuel moisture content (FMC), and through this, its acceptance and adoption. The AFMS provides information on FMC and flammability across Australia at 500m resolution every four days. It also displays information on soil moisture content near the surface (0-10 cm) and shallow soils (10-35 cm) as research outcomes from the project {\textquotedblleft}Improving land dryness measures and forecast{\textquotedblright}. Our research project also improved estimates of litter FMC by incorporating the effect of soil moisture content in existing physics-based models, developed a methodology to map fuel loads using satellite data and an objective and observation-based approach to assess fire danger that considers spatial data on the occurrence of actual fires as well as on fire factors that are already routinely produced every day for Australia.

The improved litter FMC, fuel load and fire danger retrieval algorithms and products derived from this project are not yet included in the AFMS nor generated at near real-time and across Australia. Further research and development is needed to make that step and providing landscape scale, cost-effective way to comprehensively monitor fuel condition and fire danger at such a broad scale. Consequently, future research should focus on developing a multi-sensor system that will display daily information on fire danger and fuel condition from whatever satellite sensor has collected an image over Australia, including high-resolution satellite imagery. This will improve the temporal and spatial resolution of the information we currently provide at the AFMS that will allow the identification of, for example, local fuel moisture gradients in the landscape that are currently not identifiable using the 500m pixel resolution of the product we currently serve in the AFMS.

The use of high-resolution satellite imagery will provide an unprecedented level of detail and accuracy when estimating fuel condition, bringing the system closer to use in operations. However, the data volumes and large compute resources required to store and generate these high-resolution products becomes a challenge. Consequently, future research should also focus on developing an alternative methodology for computing fuel condition that can provide up to date estimations by reducing the required storage and computing resources using state-of-the-art artificial intelligence algorithms.

}, keywords = {Bushfire, hazard, impacts, mapping}, issn = {616}, author = {Marta Yebra and Albert van Dijk and Geoffrey J. Cary} } @article {bnh-6246, title = {Working outside {\textquoteleft}the rules{\textquoteright}: Opportunities and challenges of community participation in risk reduction}, journal = {International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction}, volume = {44}, year = {2020}, month = {04/2020}, abstract = {

Research has shown that greater community action is needed for effective risk reduction. Community participation in risk reduction ranges from action that is initiated and led by members of the public, independently of government assistance, to those that are initiated and facilitated by government and non-government organisations. Natural hazards research has demonstrated that despite awareness of and a desire to reduce risk, many community members lack the physical, psychological or financial capacity to take action. This is particularly the case for bushfires, where preparations can be costly and physically demanding. In response to this, Fire and Rescue New South Wales (FRNSW) established the Community Fire Unit (CFU) program. CFUs are groups of residents who are provided with education, training and equipment to enable them to reduce risks around their homes through enhanced preparation and some bushfire defence. This paper examines the experiences and views of CFU members after bushfires in the Blue Mountains, NSW in October 2013. The majority of respondents believed that their participation in the CFU program reduced bushfire risk and led to a greater sense of community and social capital in their local area. However, the research revealed challenges associated with participating within the formal, top-down structures of a professional fire brigade. Respondents therefore considered that greater flexibility was needed with simultaneously greater support and autonomy from FRNSW. The paper explores the experiences, challenges and opportunities presented by a top-down community based risk reduction program and considers the implications for community participation in risk reduction more generally.

}, keywords = {Bushfire, Community participation, Disaster risk reduction, hazard, Wildfire}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2019.101396}, url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212420919304832?dgcid=author}, author = {Katharine Haynes and Deanne Bird and J Whittaker} } @article {bnh-5456, title = {Self-evacuation archetypes in Australian bushfire}, journal = {International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction}, volume = {27}, year = {2018}, month = {03/2019}, abstract = {

Australian householders respond to bushfire in diverse and complex ways according to their circumstances and characteristics. They tend not to simply make a binary decision to evacuate from or remain at their property, or simply to {\textquoteright}wait and see{\textquoteright} what happens before they decide. Seven self-evacuation archetypes displaying universally recognisable, fundamentally human characteristics were identified through cluster and discriminant function analysis of data from 457 householders who had recently experienced a bushfire.

These seven archetypes characterise the diverse attitudes and behaviour of typical groupings of householders faced with making a protective decision during a bushfire. The archetypes comprise those who deny a threat exists (Threat Denier), who do not believe that they are responsible for themselves (Responsibility Denier) or are unable to take responsibility for their safe evacuation (Dependent Evacuator). They include those who are determined to safely evacuate (Considered Evacuator), those who look to advice and guidance from their community (Community Guided) and those who make considerable efforts to remain but are concerned they lack the experience to do so successfully (Worried Waverers). Some, who are experienced with bushfire, self-reliant and well prepared are committed to remaining (Experienced Independents) but in unfavourable circumstances may evacuate. Bushfire safety policy and programs should not treat these householders as simply stereotypical {\textquoteright}evacuators{\textquoteright} or {\textquoteright}remainers{\textquoteright} but accommodate the diversity of these archetypes to effectively meet their educational and engagement needs.

}, keywords = {hazard, Personal safety, Public policy, Wildfire}, doi = {10.1016/j.ijdrr.2017.10.016}, url = {https://researchbank.rmit.edu.au/view/rmit:46864}, author = {Ken Strahan and J Whittaker and John Handmer} }