REPORT

All Hazards: Digital Technology & Services for Disaster Management

DIGITAL PRODUCTIVITY AND SERVICES FLAGSHIPwww.csiro.au

Similarly, Australia is encountering an increasing number of natural disasters including floods, bushfires and cyclones. Other natural and human induced hazards are increasing in frequency and severity including storm surges, droughts, heatwaves, and earthquakes. They cost more than $1.4 billion damage each year to homes, business, and the nation’s infrastructure, along with serious disruption to communities.

Because we live on coastlines and in the bush, and we’ve built our houses and necessary infrastructure in these high-risk regions, such damaging natural disasters put many people’s lives and properties at stake. Victoria’s 2009 Black Saturday Bushfires and Queensland’s 2011 Brisbane Floods are recent devastating examples.

In addition to the recognised effects of climate change in Australia, such as increasing frequency and severity of storms, intense rainfall, extended drought and heatwaves, our expanding population is residing in areas progressively more prone to natural disasters and unpredictable weather events.

Priority informationTo save lives and make our communities safer, stronger, more resilient, we need to sustain and strengthen our disaster management efforts and better prepare for emergency situations. Therefore, it is critical that emergency managers have better, more effective information to use. Clear knowledge of specific hazards and emerging disasters related to climate change, as well as methods, tools, standards and systems that will deliver the greatest impact are needed.

Understanding the overarching social, economic and environmental costs, and, for industry; the return on investment, risk-based resource allocation and performance management outcomes of disaster management is necessary - as well as knowing how to effectively harness community and volunteer networks to counteract and overcome disasters.

IntroductionNatural disasters have increased in severity and frequency in recent years. In 2010 alone, 385 natural disasters killed over 297,000 people worldwide, impacted 217 million human lives and cost the global economy US$123.9 billion.1

Victoria’s Black Saturday bushfires in 2009 are a recent example of natural disasters causing loss of life and property in high-risk areas.

2 Disaster Management

Consequently, emergency and disaster management in Australia is undergoing reform. The Council of Australian Governments’ National Strategy for Disaster Resilience aims to enhance Australia’s community and organisational capacity to better withstand and recover from emergencies.2 Disaster resilience will strengthen when government, business, communities and individuals collectively adopt risk-based planning and mitigation strategies.

In short, how we prevent, prepare, respond to, and recover from disasters that impact our social, built, economic and natural environments is important.

Real answers to big questions CSIRO, Australia’s national scientific agency, is well positioned to support governments, planning groups, rescue and recovery agencies, municipal councils, insurance companies, organisations, communities and individuals to better cope with the disaster events continuum; from Prevention, Preparation, Response and Recovery (PPRR) to all hazards and all agencies involved.

We favour a multi-disciplined approach to deliver powerful solutions and tackle Australia’s major challenges. Our team includes specialists in 3D simulation modelling and visualisation, geospatial sciences, environmental, physical, economic and social sciences, social media monitoring and big data mining and analytics.

We’re working to save lives and preserve critical infrastructure by finding powerful ways to, for example:

◆ understand flood behaviour in 3D and how to avoid or minimise damage

◆ predict fire behaviour and mitigate the impact of bushfire

◆ rapidly access information from geographic locations in real-time

◆ predict disaster incidence probabilities

◆ assess infrastructure damage and inform future infrastructure designs

◆ collate and correlate social media information for better decision-making

◆ forecast the likelihood of an event, where it will occur and the associated cost.

Our mission is to deliver great science and innovative solutions for industry, society and the environment. Therefore, our scientific approach to understanding risk and disaster events can be used to improve many aspects of your disaster and emergency management process.

We use our science to make a profound and positive impact for the future of Australia and humanity.

Taking an all hazards approach to disaster management, CSIRO is also working on a Disaster Management Decision Support Platform to bring all hazard capabilities together. The Platform will support the capabilities that CSIRO is currently focusing on, but will not limit the integration of other capabilities that we may consider either working on or collaborating for in the future. The Platform is an effort to bring a common IT framework to assist decision makes in the disaster management.

This report will highlight our current key areas of research and development that, although broad in their potential, can be harnessed to improve the process and service delivery of disaster management in Australia and, importantly, provide high-impact solutions to strengthen our national disaster resilience in the future.

Droughts and flooding rains: Australia is a land of extremes. CSIRO research aims to make our communities safer, stronger and more resilient.

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Accurate knowledge of fluid flows during natural and man-made disasters will help disaster planners predict serious economic, environmental and humanitarian consequences. To assist at-risk populations, CSIRO mathematicians have developed new computational modelling techniques to better understand and prepare for flood disasters. Importantly, emergency services will be able to use this information to make effective decisions based on accurate data from real-life disaster scenarios.

3D flood modelling & visualisationA well-defined understanding of fluid behaviour using computational fluid dynamics, coupled with landscape features via digital terrain imaging, offers emergency managers and planners clear knowledge to address risks from dam breaks, storm surges, heavy rainfall floods, tsunamis and other extreme flow events.

High resolution 3D flood modelling and visualisation is achieved using powerful computers that rapidly process sophisticated CSIRO-developed algorithms. Water is represented as a flow of tiny round particles that can move around objects and

terrain, fill spaces, flow downwards with gravity and interact with and respond to objects around them. This powerful modelling technique, called Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics, delivers realistic water simulations including difficult-to-model behaviours such as wave motion, flow of solids wave fragmentation and splashing.

Compared to traditional ‘bucket-fill’ techniques, our fluid modelling techniques provide a greater understanding of fluid flow impacts at the local level. Broad national and regional assessments are important for identifying coastlines vulnerable to natural disasters, sea-level rises and erosion. However, such assessments do not provide adequate practical information for disaster managers to know what local factors may affect specific sites during an emergency 3.

Armed with a detailed understanding of the site-specific effects of fluid flows, floods and erosion on the local environment, your adaptation planning will be improved by knowing: the current coastal risks and vulnerabilities; the worst coastal hazard or combination of hazards; and which effective actions will best manage your most vulnerable areas. This technology gives you solid evidence to make important decisions and be better prepared.

4 Disaster Management

Understanding floods & extreme flow events Catastrophic events like floods, dam breaks, tsunamis, storm surges, coastal inundation, volcanic eruptions and mudslides involve the large-scale movement of fluids and solids. These extreme flow events are difficult to study because solids and fluids move in large volumes over large areas, involve many physical processes and occur over an expanse of time and space.

CSIRO flood simulation and infrastructure impacts assessment showing hypothetical flooding in a town below China’s Geheyan Dam if the dam were to break. The colour of the water indicates flow speed (red is fast, blue is slow).

IN REAL LIFE: Dam damage A real-life situation, for which CSIRO has performed predictive 3D fluid modelling and visualisation, is the collapse of China’s Geheyan Dam. This dam wall holds back 3.4 billion cubic metres of water and is built on the Qingjiang River in China. With population centres downstream of this structure, a dam break would be catastrophic.

In collaboration with the Satellite Surveying and Mapping Application Centre (SASMAC), part of the Chinese National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geo-informatics (NASG) and funded by the ACEDP program of AusAID with support from the Ministry of Finance and Commerce (MOFCOM), we simulated six dam wall failure scenarios for the Geheyan Dam4. We investigated how the released water would impact 50 buildings, including a preschool, a primary school, a fuel station, a mobile phone tower, a bank and a post office, located within 10 kilometres of the dam wall.

How the dam collapses dictates the area of inundation and was found to be dramatically different for each predicted failure scenario, including analysing the dam wall debris carried along by the water for each scenario. We modelled the water discharge rates and were able to calculate inundation levels at six different

KNOW…

◆ how a storm surge will behave as it floods regions of economic importance

◆ what would happen if a tsunami hit a coastline

◆ the likely nature of an extreme flow disaster and its probable impact

◆ what infrastructure is at risk and when this is likely to occur

◆ how to execute better flood evacuation plans

◆ where to place civil engineered structures to mitigate flood damage

◆ outcomes in terms of timing, area affected and loss of critical infrastructure and evacuation routes

◆ how to plan your flood and storm rescue process and improve your recovery efforts

locations downstream of the collapsed wall. Overlaying geographically linked information, such as populations, villages and housing, roads and transport infrastructure, factories (economic infrastructure) provides an insight into infrastructure vulnerability and can give a clear picture of the damage that would occur.

In Australia, we’ve also modelled what will happen if a similar failure scenario occurred for WA’s Mundaring Dam, upstream of the city of Perth.

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CSIRO 3D flood simulation and infrastructure impacts assessment. A still from a computer simulation showing a dam wall breaking apart.

As Australia’s climate changes and our population grows to reside in peri-urban bushland, we face increasing incidence of bushfire threat to human lives, property and infrastructure.

The extreme weather and bushfire conditions of 2009’s Black Saturday bushfires resulted in the loss of 173 lives, injured 414 people and destroyed over 2000 houses and 3500 structures. This disaster impelled authorities to find ways to better understand the complex, interconnected factors that cause bushfires to provide a safer environment for people to live.

Current bushfire prediction tools use information from fires in modest weather conditions and are then extrapolated to extreme conditions by ad hoc observations of wildfire events. Unfortunately, this empirical approach fails to completely capture the range of behaviours expected from fires burning under more severe conditions. We need to understand how a high-intensity bushfire will behave in extreme weather.

Through powerful digital science and technology advances, we gain a greater knowledge of bushfire behaviour and understanding of the conditions that

influence fire occurrence, spread, mitigation and suppression. This will help rural fire authorities and land management agencies reduce and prevent the devastating and costly impact of bushfires on the community and the environment.

Bushfire behaviour modellingBushfires result from complex interactions between the vegetation (fuel), the weather, the landscape (topography), combustion chemistry and heat transfer physics. Making sense of the variables that influence fire behaviour and their interactions is a highly skilled task. The more we learn about fire, the more information we have to make better decisions about fire management, prevention and suppression.

Our Bushfire Dynamics and Applications scientists are advancing fire spread prediction and bushfire suppression systems using sophisticated data analysis techniques and computer modelling. In conjunction with state land management, rural fire agencies and other research agencies such as the Bureau of Meteorology, our scientists apply knowledge of bushfire dynamics to real events and assist in predicting risk scenarios.

6 Disaster Management

Understanding your bushfire exposure Bushfire is one of the world’s most dangerous natural phenomena and, sadly, has been responsible for killing over 300 Australians in the past 50 years. On average, bushfires in Australia cause over $70 million in damage annually. In addition up to $1.0 billion is spent each year on managing bushfires, not including the time and effort expended by our 300,000 volunteer firefighters engaged across the country.

As Australia’s climate changes and our population grows to reside in peri-urban bushland, we face increasing incidence of bushfire threat to human lives, property and infrastructure.

IN REAL LIFE: Knowledge from the Kilmore East fire Black Saturday’s most significant bushfire was the Kilmore East fire. The fire claimed 119 lives and burnt through 100,140 hectares in the first 12 hours5.

This kind of fire intensity is not unprecedented in south-eastern Australia. The recurrence of large one-day fires is a relatively frequent event in the region which is why it is critical to get a better understanding of large-scale fire phenomena.

Investigating weather conditions, fuels and propagation, a CSIRO collaborative report on the Kilmore East fire provides valuable insights into the physical processes involved in high intensity fire behaviour in eucalypt forests 4. In particular, the combination of dry fuel and gale force winds caused the ignition of spotfires up to 33 km ahead of the main fire front, and a change in wind direction turned a 55 km wide flank into an uncontrollable headfire.

This case study highlights a critical need to improve our quantitative knowledge of large-scale bushfires and for current bushfire behaviour models to be redesigned to account for spotting dynamics and fire-atmosphere interactions. In addition, this study provides real-world data for future simulation studies on the impact of landscape fuel management on fire propagation in extreme conditions.

Current fire behaviour tools fail to incorporate the latest knowledge in fire science, limiting forecast quality and impairing critical decision making regarding community protection and safe and effective fire-fighting. Therefore, CSIRO is proposing a National Fire Behaviour Knowledge Base that will integrate up-to-date fire behaviour, fire weather, fuel dynamics, and suppression capability knowledge and science to help fire managers better predict bushfire behaviour and better plan prescribed burns.

This state-of-the-art decision tool could provide information:

◆ to improve our understanding of the propagation and energy release of fires

◆ for more effective and safer fire fighting

◆ for enhanced protection of rural and bushland urban communities, and

◆ to reduce the detrimental effects of fire on our natural resources.

Such decision support tools for predicting real-time fire danger and behaviour could provide better fuel mitigation planning, public warnings and preparedness to reduce the likelihood of catastrophic bushfires.

To unlock the mysteries of bushfire behaviour, our team performs laboratory and field experiments, physical investigations and statistical analyses. Our experimental equipment includes large vertical and horizontal wind tunnels, plus sensors and measurement devices. Our predictive fire behaviour models - including those relating to initial attack, aerial suppression, fuel moisture and fire spread - draw on extensive results from scientific experiments investigating various vegetation types and weather conditions.

We’re well-positioned to provide valuable information about bushfire dynamics and emergency response operations, to develop improved fire danger rating systems, to provide better public warnings and preparedness, to advise on firefighter safety and training, to simulate fire behaviour and design effective decision support systems, to optimise fire suppression resources and logistics for maximum efficiency and to develop prescribed burning guides for different environments.

In addition, our strength in mathematical modelling and examining how a bushfire event unfolds over time, across a given landscape, under varying weather conditions and through changing vegetation, allows us to model bushfire scenarios based on fuel moisture, fire behaviour and spotfire probability, which are all important aspects that inform land management agencies and rural fire authorities how to safely prepare for and respond to bushfires and enhance public safety.

UNDERSTAND… ◆ the true environmental impacts of fire on the landscape, biodiversity, air quality, carbon and water

◆ how to classify vegetation and bush/rural-urban interface zones for hazard and risk assessments

◆ the most effective deployment of resources in real-time for early suppression and evacuation warnings

◆ where a bushfire may occur in the future: predictive bushfire modelling

◆ the optimum location and design of infrastructure in bushfire-prone regions

◆ how to manage a bushfire with efficient use of available resources

◆ how to find alternative routes for fire trucks after an access route is blocked (i.e. bridge collapse)

◆ the effectiveness of fire mitigation and fire suppression actions (i.e. where and when to perform safe fuel reduction burns)

◆ which critical infrastructure is located in high-risk bushfire zones and how can we better protect it

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To reference and integrate important information for shared situational awareness, governments, agencies and communities use gazetteers – lists of place names linked with their geographic locations.

When different purpose-specific gazetteers are accessed by emergency and community services, confusion about the name of the location under impact may arise and the efficiency of the disaster response may be compromised. For example, if a specific location on the map is known by more than one name, coordinating an emergency response to a disaster affecting the location becomes more challenging.

Conversely, information linked to a specific geographic location can be successfully interrelated to additional information, as long as the geographic location is the same. In theory this means one gazetteer’s contents should be able to crosslink via geographic location to another gazetteer’s contents.

However, in reality, dealing with the disparity between multiple, often overlapping and often inconsistent agency-specific gazetteer systems makes linking them a slow and expensive process. Interoperability challenges arise at every stage of information discovery, access, interpretation, transformation and integration.

A common gazetteer framework for effective disaster responseBecause gazetteers hold valuable information for disaster management agencies, an online system to make this rich geospatial information source completely accessible, interoperable and time-efficient is essential for evidence-based decision making.

To enhance the interoperability of gazetteers, CSIRO informatics experts are developing a global information system to link and correlate multiple sources of information using a gazetteer framework to better manage and share spatial information. Timely information held in different agency systems and referenced using gazetteers will be more easily accessible through an integration mechanism. This will support disaster risk reduction and response by enabling rapid access, query and dissemination and use of information for improved decision-making impacting potentially millions of people.

CSIRO’s gazetteer project provides the foundations for development of event or problem specific applications for responding to environmental disasters, economic crises and emergencies. The common gazetteer framework will also enable the integration of volunteered geographic information with formal government information sources.

8 Disaster Management

Accessing integrated informationRapid access and sharing of accurate, integrated information is critical for governments, rescue agencies and communities to make life-saving decisions and effectively co-ordinate disaster responses.

Australia’s support for Indonesia’s rural growth aims to grow the economy, create employment and alleviate poverty. Credit: Josh Estey/AusAID

More generally, the technology platform will also benefit Australian research initiatives using information that is currently difficult and time consuming to correlate. This will be analysed in a routine fashion creating new opportunities in fields of sustainability, hydrology and health risk.

The goal of this research is to radically improve interoperability and availability of information in disparate systems, through developing a framework to manage and access integrate unambiguous references to places contained within gazetteers.

In essence, a the gazetteer framework will enable the rapid integration of information before and during an emergency response, to improve our understanding of what is happening where and help government agencies deliver critical services where they are needed most.

IN REAL LIFE: Gazetteers for social protection In Indonesia, 240 million people live with natural disasters, such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, as well as global and local economic difficulties. These complex situations, coupled with poverty, burden Indonesia’s government and aid resources.

Disaster and social assistance programs in Indonesia collect and store valuable information. Yet, due to a range of integration challenges, this information is difficult to access and use effectively in responding to the needs of vulnerable people.

CSIRO, in collaboration with the Indonesian Government and the UN, is contributing to social protection work being supported by AusAID in Indonesia by developing a pilot gazetteer framework. Its aim is to improve access to gazetteers and information about places that enable monitoring of vulnerable populations, the rapid analysis and response to shocks that impact them.

The prevalent use of mobile phones and on-line tools in Indonesia provides a stream of up-to-date informal information that could be tapped into and linked to locations using gazetteers. Based on the use of well-managed gazetteers, this informal ‘crowd-sourced’ information can be rapidly referenced, organised and integrated with formal information providing an up-to-date picture of what is happening on the ground.

This will greatly assist agencies involved in social protection by enable better policy decisions and will help aid agencies better identify populations experiencing financial and other stresses and deliver assistance in a timely manner.

IDENTIFY… ◆ valuable information by interpreting and integrating gazetteer information from informal and formal sources

◆ the disaster area quickly and respond efficiently

◆ which populations are located in high-risk regions

◆ when a community in a specific location is under financial stress

◆ how much rain is falling on a flood-vulnerable community

◆ disaster-affected populations using up-to-date information

◆ which natural phenomenon has occurred and what’s happening in real time

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BIG NATIONAL GAZETTEER OF INDONESIA

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT BUS TERMINUS DATASET

Identifier Merak,

Stasiun Bis

Feature Type Transport

Footprint Point

Identifier Merak

Feature Type Terminal

Footprint Polygon

MERAK, STASIUM BIS

Gazetir Indeonesia

MERAKTerminus Dataset

Represented in multiple systems using different

names, and classified and represented in

different ways

GAZETTER FRAMEWORK

Links gazetteers that reference the same real world

feature.Links web

applications and other online resources.

MERAK, STASIUM BIS

(Entry)

MERAK(Gazetteer Entry)

Same as TERMINUS DATASET

(Gazetteer)

GAZETIR INDONESIA(Gazetteer)

Used in Used in

PASSENGER TRAVEL STATSLinked resource

NAVIGATION APPLICATION

Linked Resource

PUBLIC TRANSPORT MAP

Linked resource

ONE REAL WORD FEATURE:

a bus stationOne real world feature:

a bus stationa bus station  

Represented in multiple systems using different names, and classified and represented in different ways

BIG National Gazetteer of Indonesia

Department of Transport Gazetteer of Bus Terminals

Identifier    Feature Type FootprintMerak, Stasiun Bis Transport            Point

Identifier Feature Type    FootprintMerak Terminal           Polygon

MerakTerminus Dataset

Merak, Stasiun BisGazetir Indeonesia

e a , Stas u s a spo t o t yg

Currently systems are disconnected and difficult to integrate

GAZETTER FRAMEWORK

Links gazetteers (based on same feature in different gazetteers)

used in web applications and other online resources.

Merak(Gazetteer Entry)

Terminus Dataset(Gazetteer)

Merak, Stasiun Bis(Gazetteer Entry) 

Gazetir Indonesia(Gazetteer) Same as 

Used inUsed in

Passenger Travel Stats Application Linked Resource

Online Public Transport MapLinked Resource

Navigation applicationLinked Resource

One real world feature:a bus stationa bus station  

Represented in multiple systems using different names, and classified and represented in different ways

BIG National Gazetteer of Indonesia

Department of Transport Gazetteer of Bus Terminals

Identifier    Feature Type FootprintMerak, Stasiun Bis Transport            Point

Identifier Feature Type    FootprintMerak Terminal           Polygon

MerakTerminus Dataset

Merak, Stasiun BisGazetir Indeonesia

e a , Stas u s a spo t o t yg

Currently systems are disconnected and difficult to integrate

GAZETTER FRAMEWORK

Links gazetteers (based on same feature in different gazetteers)

used in web applications and other online resources.

Merak(Gazetteer Entry)

Terminus Dataset(Gazetteer)

Merak, Stasiun Bis(Gazetteer Entry) 

Gazetir Indonesia(Gazetteer) Same as 

Used inUsed in

Passenger Travel Stats Application Linked Resource

Online Public Transport MapLinked Resource

Navigation applicationLinked Resource

Currently systems are disconnected and

difficult to integrate

Gazetteers are directories of lists of place names with geographic locations. CSIRO is working on a pilot project with collaborators like the UN and AusAID to integrate gazetteers in Indonesia.

Furthermore, it is a complicated task for companies with infrastructure and investments in disaster-prone areas to determine the risk of a disaster event occurring and to estimate the maximum foreseeable loss (MFL) they may experience as a result of the disaster. Likewise, setting premiums for insuring infrastructure and property in disaster-prone regions is also a complex task.

Flood and fire events are part of the Australian environment. For these disasters, we investigate: the complexity of the environment over time and space; extensive amounts of data, information and knowledge of differing form and quality necessary for risk determination; mitigation and control processes; and the multiple, often conflicting decision needs or requirements of your company or organisation.

Estimating your maximum foreseeable loss Despite their complexity, if historical information is available, events such as fires, floods, heatwaves and storm tides can be simulated. The resulting losses to infrastructure and natural resources can be estimated using data on land use, topography, vegetation, weather and the value of structures, crops and forests. Experimental and statistical research can also tell us about fluid flow or fire ignition/burn rates and the probability that the flood or fire will escalate and cause further loss.

Understanding the MFL for your service business, or undertaking risk analysis, management or mitigation in relation to a disaster, requires an in-depth understanding of the unfolding disaster phases.

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Estimating disaster odds and dollars Knowing if, when and where a natural or man-made disaster event may occur is essential for emergency planning and prevention, and for ensuring your disaster response and recovery processes are adequate. For example, in order to quantify bushfire risks, the major steps in fire ignition, spread and impact need to be understood and modelled.

CSIRO is helping business and infrastructure owners and insurers better determine the risk of a disaster event occurring and estimate the maximum foreseeable loss (MFL).

IN REAL LIFE: Powerful estimates CSIRO conducted a study for the West Australian electricity distribution company, Western Power, to estimate the potential total claimable damage (MFL) for fires that might be started by the electrical distribution system in the Perth Hills. This work incorporated two approaches. In the first approach we applied Extreme Value Analysis to estimate 1-in-50 and 1-in-100 year claims based on historical claims data. In the second approach we studied the prevailing weather conditions at periods of high fire danger and then used this information to simulate bushfires spreading from selected points on the distribution network. Both approaches provided Western Power with insight into their MFL for the region of interest.

In a second fire risk project, Western Power contracted CSIRO to determine the likelihood and MFL for fires that may ignite from their electrical distribution infrastructure in the economically important wine-making region of Margaret River. To estimate the MFL from fire for this region, we identified several challenges that may arise. Firstly, the negative impact of ‘smoke taint’ on grapes over a wide area, with regard to wind speed and direction, smoke altitude and smoke dispersion was investigated. Secondly, we predicted the nature of fire spread through vineyards, including the effect of trellis pole material, row orientation and whether the vine undergrowth is grassed or mown. Thirdly, protection of critical infrastructure of major winery facilities was taken into account, along with an understanding of the fire conditions that will likely cause damage to these assets. Finally, an estimate was made of the claimable value of vineyards, wineries and wine stocks if these are damaged or destroyed by fire.

ESTIMATE… ◆ the probability a flood will inundate a particular township or location

◆ the likelihood of a bushfire destroying buildings in a given region

◆ what infrastructure is at risk of being affected by a disaster

◆ how much it will cost to repair the disaster damage

◆ how long a service or supply will be unavailable due to a given disaster event

◆ objective insurance levels and negotiate favourable premiums

We employ four broad quantitative approaches to determine your disaster risk:

1. we study major historical events,

2. we undertake a statistical analysis of past, related insurance claims,

3. we simulate several worst-case disaster scenarios (Extreme Value Analysis) in one or more study areas, to approximate the ‘1 in N year’ conditions and impacts, and

4. we perform a full regional probabilistic analysis of the disaster phases.

Our multi-disciplinary research team will address, in a comprehensive way, the question of MFL estimation as well as more general challenges around your disaster risk analysis, management and mitigation.

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Social media channels provide a new, rich source of information from which disaster managers and emergency response agencies can obtain real-time awareness of developing situations.

However, the deluge of information that can be extracted from social media sources is not in an accessible format to inform emergency responses. For example, information about the 2009 Victorian bushfires was reported in real-time on social network sites but was not visible to state or federal disaster response agencies.

The potential applications of social media information for disaster managers include providing: evidence of pre-incident activity; near real-time notice of an incident occurring; first-hand reports of incident impacts; and gauging community response to an emergency warning. Importantly, such information will contribute towards effective decisions for emergency responses.

Yet to do this, we need a robust way to identify and analyse emerging topics in Twitter that indicate a significant disaster, emergency event or unexpected incident is occurring within a given time frame and at a given location.

Monitoring social media for emergency situation awarenessWe are developing services to support automated social media analysis to collect, detect, assess, simplify and report situation information in near real-time from Twitter.

Our Emergency Situational Awareness (ESA) software detects unusual behaviour in the Twitter stream and quickly alerts the user when a disaster event is being broadcast. ESA also stores complete Twitter stream information and allows post-event analyses. Such useful and accessible information will provide timely situation awareness for disaster managers and emergency response agencies.

Another social media engagement software tool, called Vizie, was developed as part of CSIRO’s Human Services Delivery Research Alliance with the Australian Government Department of Human Services. Vizie enables a global overview of social media topics being discussed and allows related social media entries to be grouped into conversations.

ESA and Vizie collect and analyse large volumes of real-time Twitter feeds, and detect and alert on unusual activity in near real-time. These tools cluster and summarise Twitter posts to provide disaster managers with a clear explanation of the situation. Our tools classify and review high-value messages (i.e. damage to roads, bridges, power and telecommunications infrastructure) to enable rescue officers to quickly understand the impact of a real-world event on people and infrastructure. In addition, forensic analysis of incidents can also be carried out.

Social media and human services Social networking websites, such as Twitter, have changed the way people broadcast and receive information. Vast amounts of instantaneous information are communicated via Twitter every minute. Short real-time messages, limited to 140 characters, allow unfiltered, uncensored news and information to be instantly posted online.

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Our Emergency Situational Awareness software detects unusual behaviour on Twitter and alerts the user when a disaster event is being discussed.

ESA exploits the statistical incidence of words used by people on Twitter to describe emergency events, in addition to historical word occurrences on Twitter from past disaster events to reveal topics that are emerging and to flag them for investigation. ESA counts the number of times a word appears in a sliding five-minute window across the Twitter stream. If this is significantly greater than expected, an alert is generated. Repeated every minute, these detected ‘word bursts’ are extracted, stored and are available for access by incident response agencies via the ESA web application.

ESA provides situation awareness by using data mining techniques including burst detection, text classification, online clustering and geo-tagging. These techniques are adapted and optimised for dealing with real-time high-volume text streams, which identify early indicators of unexpected events, explore the impact of identified incidents and monitor the evolution of events.

Importantly, our platforms gather and analyse material from the Twitter social network to provide all-hazard situation awareness information.

IN REAL LIFE: Crisis coordinationTo better understand how to extract emergency situation awareness information from social media, we have worked with the Australian Government’s recently established Crisis Coordination Centre (CCC) to develop our ESA software. The CCC is a dedicated 24/7 facility that supports a whole-of-government response to national security and natural disaster incidents. The goal of the CCC is “to deliver the right information to the right people, in the right format, to the right place, at the right time”. By managing the flow, processing and transformation of verified information from various sources, the CCC is responsible for hazard monitoring and situation awareness, and for the timely and accurate dissemination of information on emerging risks and threats to police, emergency services and other agencies.

A watch officer - the person at the front line of information processing during an emergency event – logs all communications and verifiable facts relating to ‘who knew what when’. Watch officers could use the ESA tool for real-time social media monitoring of emergency events. Watch officers seek to understand the scope and impact of all hazards during the prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery phases of crisis management.

ALERT & MONITOR… ◆ the unfolding impact of an incident to better plan your emergency response

◆ unexpected or unusual incidents ahead of official communications

◆ the severity of an incident on people and infrastructure

◆ high-value messages such as cries for help and indications of physical damage to infrastructure from eye-witnesses

◆ the status of damaged or at-risk infrastructure (i.e. energy and transport)

◆ aggregated information about emergency events without having to read individual messages

◆ situation awareness for emergency managers to successfully restore safety and essential services

◆ time-critical issues within an incident as they arise, develop and conclude

◆ the response to ongoing issues that may last for hours, days or weeks

◆ forensic analyses of past events to better plan for future emergencies

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All disasters and emergencies transit through a recognised sequence as they occur. An event, such as a bushfire, cyclone, earthquake, flood, landslide, storm or tsunami, comprises a number of event characteristics, such as producing physical features during the event, like radiant heat and thick smoke in the case of a bushfire.

These event characteristics have an effect on an ‘object’ such as a person or property, possibly causing harm, where ‘harm’ is the immediate direct consequence that each event characteristic has on the object. Harm can lead to a range of observed and, in many cases, measurable ‘impacts’ (direct and indirect) which can be categorised as economic, social or environmental. The extent of the final impact of the disaster is mediated by the object’s exposure and vulnerability, which is directly proportional to measures taken towards prevention, preparedness, as well as fire and emergency management practices in response and recovery.

To better understand the economic, social and environmental impacts that natural disasters have on Australian communities and to help inform decision making at the policy level, a more unified and comprehensive approach to emergency management and reducing risks is being developed by CSIRO.

Understanding disaster impacts and bringing it all together… It is critical for emergency planners to know where to allocate investment across the PPRR spectrum to increase community safety and reduce the costs and social effects of emergencies and disasters.

Disaster Management Decision Support PlatformA key focus of CSIRO’s contribution to the Disaster Management area is the development of a technology platform to bring all capabilities together, enable the opportunity to better understand hazards. The Disaster Management Decision Support Platform will create an environment where data, information and modelling can be more easily integrated across the hazard domains. It will better equip emergency planners, response coordinators etc with information to aid their decision making process.

The platform will include facilitate interoperable data exchange, cloud computing technologies and workflow engines to enable better, more effective information for disaster managers. The platform will assist in the four key elements of disaster management, namely Prevention, Preparedness, Response, Recovery (PPRR) by providing:

◆ services to make data web accessible and interoperable

◆ ability to integrate models

◆ ability to integrate data and models from differing domains to aid decisions.

A system to support decisions in disaster situations – the Disaster Management Decision Support Platform

DISASTER MANAGEMENT DECISION SUPPORT PLATFORM

CLIENTS Discovery Interface

Desktop Application (GIS)

Statistical Package

Impacts Portal

RESOURCES

Data Data Data Data Data

Data ApplicationsSocial Media

EXCHANGE LAYER

Processing Codes

Models

14 Disaster Management

THE PLATFORM WILL... ◆ make data from various providers interoperable and easier to integrate

◆ allow users to access disaster event data by geographic region and time

◆ provide mechanisms to run models on data

◆ ability to integrate data and models to aid decisions

The platform will provide a system to enable effective decision making processes and timely access to information and modelling capacity.

IN REAL LIFE: The portal experienceA demonstration of the ‘all hazards’ approach is a web-interface called the Impacts Portal, developed by CSIRO and the NSW Fire and Rescue Service.

Before an event, the Impacts Portal can be used to plan ‘what if’ scenarios, such as disaster modelling and disaster risk mapping, to develop policy, to conduct land use analysis and risk assessments and inform disaster mitigation through preparedness and mitigation. During an event, the portal will assist with planning and resource prioritisation of frontline staff, inform the development of safety programs and identify vulnerable and ‘at-risk’ communities and

infrastructure. After an event, the portal will yield information about the impacts that resulted.

To provide context for the disaster event and impact, the Portal includes data items, such as bridges, road signage, fencing, national park facilities (BBQs, shelters, toilets), telephone poles, the electricity network, fire towers, field crops and so on. Where available, data items relating to demographics, the built environment, local government boundaries, residential zoning and land use will also be accessible.

The pilot Impacts Portal is under evaluation. Try it out and provide feedback at www.fend.org.au.

The Impacts Portal user will be able to:

◆ Explore the Impacts Framework data within the Portal - navigating by disaster category (bushfire, cyclone, flood, and so on), the event characteristics, the type of objects impacted by an event, the harm that results, and the economic, social and environmental impacts themselves, or a combination of these.

◆ Find data items geographically by navigating a map of Australia using pan and zoom functions or by specifying a starting state or ABS statistical region, as well as enable or disable category layers of data that have a location component.

◆ Find data items by disaster category and discover details (impacts) of specific events.

◆ Find instances of natural disaster and fire emergency events that have previously occurred in the region of interest.

Vision for all hazards approach to disaster management using the Disaster Management Decision Support Platform for informed decisions

OUR VISION – INTERGRATED DISASTER MANAGEMENT DECISION SUPPORT PLATFORM

Prepared by Ryan Fraser, adapted from work by Lesley Wyborn (Geoscience Australia), 2012

POLICY

BUSINESS NEED

APPLICATIONS

SYSTEMS

Emergency Response/Decision Support

Fuels Climate/Weather Finance Urban Data(pop. density etc)

Landscape Characteristics

Need: Disaster Management

Response

Integrated Science

Domain/Systems

Applications: Speci�c Science

Domains

Models and analytical tools

Virtual Libraries/Inputs: Knowledge Bases

(Services)

DataMid

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DataMid

dlewar

eProcessingservices

DataMid

dlewar

eProcessingservices

DataMid

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DataMid

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Landscape Modelling

Fuel Climate/Weather Modelling

Financial Scenarios

Urban Models

Bush �re Analysis Social Impact Analysis

15

If your organisation needs to understand an associated disaster risk, potential damage, cost outcomes or any other quantifiable uncertainty, then, as your scientific advisor, CSIRO can work with you. The multi-faceted nature of disaster and emergency management in Australia means we need you to tell us what we can do to help. We’re not disaster planners or emergency managers, but we do have the expertise to expand and enhance your response efforts.

Under the newly established Digital Productivity and Services Flagship, we aim to develop and apply frontier services science and technology to add $5 billion in value to the Australian economy by 2025 through improved risk management, infrastructure effectiveness, new business opportunities and transforming public service delivery.

As advances in digital productivity continue to be made, real-time situation awareness will direct more and more disaster management decisions. Knowing how to access, interpret and respond appropriately to the abundance of rich information is key. Furthermore, communicating information to raise community awareness about the risk of a disaster, an unfolding disaster or what to do after a disaster is also important.

Safe solutionsThis report is about you, not us. We’re experts in applying scientific principles to solve difficult problems, but we’re not working directly in, or on the fringes of, the disaster zone.

Yet like you, we want Australian citizens and emergency workers to be safe from harm. And we want to support our neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region.

We’re poised to help local councils and community networks understand and develop awareness of risks during storms, floods and heatwaves. This includes preparing and planning for natural disasters, being alert and knowing what to do when a disaster event warning is issued, how to be safe during an emergency and what to do after an emergency event to stay safe.

We want rescue funds and resources to be used efficiently and effectively. We want Australians to pay fair premiums for insurance. And, above all, we want to give you the best tools and strategies to meet your disaster management challenges.

Think broadly (imagine, even) how you want to improve your organisation’s disaster management productivity. Then contact us, because we’re here to figure it out with you and help you take a step closer to achieving a great solution.

A final wordAs Australia’s national science agency, we offer a multi-pronged ‘all-under-one-roof’ approach to support and enhance disaster management in Australia and internationally. Being one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world, we’re reaching out to emergency managers, planners and decision makers to connect you with the right scientific experts and tools for your problem and help you develop your emergency management solution.

Beach erosion on the Queensland Gold Coast.

16 Disaster Management

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1. Guha-Sapir D, Vos F, Below R, with Ponserre S (2012) Annual Disaster Statistical Review 2011: The Numbers and Trends. Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), Brussels.

2. National Strategy for Disaster Resilience. Council of Australian Governments (February 2011) http://www.dpc.vic.gov.au/index.php/featured/reforming-victorias-crisis-and-emergency-management-framework/disaster-resilience

3. Sharples C, Attwater C and Carley J (2008) Conference Papers: IPWEA National Conference on Climate Change ‘Responding to Sea Level Rise’, August, Coffs Harbour.

4. Cleary PW, Prakash M, Mead S, Tang X, Wang H and Ouyang S. Dynamic simulation of dam break scenarios for risk analysis and disaster management. Accepted for publication in International Journal of Image and Data Fusion.

5. Cruz MG, Sullivan AL, Gould JS, Sims NC, Bannister AJ, Hollis JJ and Hurley R (2012) Anatomy of a catastrophic wildfire: The Black Saturday Kilmore East fire. Forest Ecology and Management 284: 269-285. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2012.02.035

References

CONTACT USt 1300 363 400 +61 3 9545 2176 e enquiries@csiro.au w www.csiro.au

YOUR CSIROAustralia is founding its future on science and innovation. Its national science agency, CSIRO, is a powerhouse of ideas, technologies and skills for building prosperity, growth, health and sustainability. It serves governments, industries, business and communities across the nation.

Front cover image: Queensland Police at flooded suburban street during Brisbane River floods, January 2011. Credit: Glenn Walker

FOR FURTHER INFORMATIONCSIRO Mathematics, Informatics and Statistics

Charlie Hawkinst +61 3 9545 8079m +61 438 429 280e charlie.hawkins@csiro.au

CONTACT USt 1300 363 400 +61 3 9545 2176 e enquiries@csiro.au w www.csiro.au

YOUR CSIROAustralia is founding its future on science and innovation. Its national science agency, CSIRO, is a powerhouse of ideas, technologies and skills for building prosperity, growth, health and sustainability. It serves governments, industries, business and communities across the nation.

COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER

© 2012 CSIRO. To the extent permitted by law, all rights are reserved and no part of this publication covered by copyright may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means except with the written permission of CSIRO.

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