Past natural disasters a valuable lesson for future adaptation
Community resilience in the face of climate change will require forward planning to ensure
buildings and infrastructure are designed to withstand the increasing environmental hazards,
according to research by the National Climate Change Research Facility presented at their
research portfolio launch at Parliament House in Canberra on 30 May 2013.
Studies into the aftermath of natural disasters such as Cyclone Tracy, which devastated Darwin in
1974, and the 2010-2011 Brisbane floods, have examined the ability of the built environment to
withstand these events and how this knowledge might be applied to prepare for future events.
Dr Matthew Mason, researcher at Macquarie University’s Natural Hazards Research Centre, says
the challenge is how to rebuild in the aftermath of these sorts of events, and to do so in a way that
incorporates what has been learned in that event.
“When Cyclone Tracy came through, it destroyed pretty much all of Darwin’s housing and following
it, the people who were charged with rebuilding these structures very quickly realised that they had
little understanding of why homes failed in the way they did,” says Dr Mason.
This led to a frenzied burst of research and a moratorium on rebuilding in the cyclone-stricken
areas until the research was completed and results disseminated to builders and engineers.
“From a societal point of view, it meant everyone was evacuated out of Darwin and couldn’t go
back for an extended period of time. In the long term however, what it’s meant is that the city’s
buildings and infrastructure will be able to withstand similar events in the future,” Dr Mason says.
In contrast, following the Brisbane floods, rebuilding has happened in a less controlled fashion.
“Brisbane was quite a different example, because there’s absolutely no way you could put a
moratorium on rebuilding within Brisbane and try to stop people fixing their homes,” he says.
Instead, people have been rebuilding their houses and businesses in the same way as before.
“So the next time floods come through, as they did again this year, people will be damaged in
exactly the same way, so people will have these repeated sets of impacts from the natural events.”
Dr Mason says this cycle must be broken if communities are to reduce the impacts of extreme
weather events. “It’s something that needs to be done outside times of natural disasters, which is
quite difficult because there’s no real societal or political will to make any big, difficult changes,” he
says.
The building industry is better equipped now to deal with wind damage, thanks in part to the
lessons of Cyclone Tracy, but is less prepared for other natural hazards such as flooding and
storm surges.
“People will build in hazardous areas and the information needs to be out there on the hazard itself
but also the building practices required to ensure that something built in that location will be able to
maintain its integrity.”
Changes to building codes are one solution, but there is a 30-50 year time lag before such
changes start to affect the majority of houses, Dr Mason says. It may also require initiatives such
as government subsidies for retrofitting houses in vulnerable areas to make them more resilient.
Matthew Mason is a research engineer at Risk Frontiers at the Natural Hazards Research Centre at the Macquarie University.
For an interview with Matthew Mason or NCCARF director Dr Jean Palutikof contact: Liese Coulter +61 (0)402084661
l.coulter@griffith.edu.au
Leading the national research community to generate the information needed by government,
business and the community to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
www.nccarf.edu.au