Forward-thinking local natural hazards research and its national value was at the forefront of the recent Victorian Research Showcase last month, where a broad range of speakers highlighted the impact of Centre-funded projects.
Hosted at the start of February, Natural Hazards Research Australia (the Centre) Director Kate Vinot opened the showcase, introducing Victoria’s Emergency Management Commissioner Tim Wiebusch ESM, who spoke about the crucial role of natural hazards research in addressing future challenges and the value of Centre-funded research to Participant organisation Emergency Management Victoria.
“I think we don’t need to look too far into our history, to understand why research plays a key role – our Victorian communities are certainly continuing to face a worsening natural disaster risk,” Commissioner Wiebusch said.
“If you look at the month of January alone, we had widespread major fires, we’ve had extreme flash flooding. We also had a prolonged heatwave and all of that coinciding at the same time,” he said.
“It not only continues to reinforce that we have to continue to keep working together to strengthen our communities and their resilience; to plan for, withstand, respond to and now recover from those emergencies. And, probably preaching to the converted in this room, that evolution also needs to be informed by strong and trusted research.”
Commissioner Wiebusch said that experience alone is not enough on its own, and research helps the emergency management sector to ask the right questions, challenge assumptions and ways of working, test innovative approaches and understand the complex and interconnected risks of the future.
“That’s where our agency research teams, often working in partnership with Natural Hazards Research Australia play a really vital role,” he said.
“We know that in Victoria, in partnership with Natural Hazards Research Australia, we’re investing in research that is helping our emergency management agencies deploy resources more effectively, and also is now helping our government and other decision makers to be planning further ahead, and ultimately, enabling hazard resilience and disaster risk reduction for our communities.”
Following Commissioner Wiebusch’s speech, Centre CEO Andrew Gissing provided a strategic centre update and researchers from three Centre-funded projects discussed the findings and impacts of their projects – along with Participant end-users who highlighted for the importance of this research in practice.
The first to discuss their project was Dr Raphaele Blanchi from CSIRO, who provided an update of research findings from the Integrated solutions for bushfire-adaptive homes project.
Dr Blanchi explained that the objective of the project is to understand the barriers and enablers that residents face when trying to adapt their homes to be bushfire resilient and the challenges that practitioners face in this area – including builders, architects, regulators, and those working for building authorities.
She said that to begin understanding the barriers and enablers in this regard, the research team performed a review of regulation policy, with a particular interest in co-benefits and whether these would interest residents and practitioners.
She provided an overview of a study led by the University of Melbourne that involved engaging with almost 400 participants in the Castlemaine region – which was recently affected by fires – using follow-up interviews to see how engagement could impact behaviour around making homes bushfire adapted.
Dr Blanchi explained another part of the study involving surveys and workshops with practitioners in collaboration with RMIT across Victorian and New South Wales, that is currently being translated into evidence and practical advice.
Listen to Dr Blanchi’s presentation to hear about the findings of these studies.
Talking to the impacts of this research from an end-user perspective, regulation specialist Mark Holland from Country Fire Victoria (CFA) said that despite not being officially complete, the project has already delivered the intangible and unexpected.
“A key package of work within the project was led by Dr Peter Kamstra of Melbourne University, and it was to better understand resident knowledge and attitudes, beliefs and barriers to bushfire mitigation on private property. Residents were interviewed before and after CFA Brigade-led community engagement activities, with 92% of participants contributing to follow up interviews. So, to have a 90% return rate is pretty incredible,” Mr Holland said.
“The project’s resident Interviews not only provides insight into how impactful our interactions with the community are, but it has also exposed us to alternative ways of evaluating programs and measuring effectiveness,” he said.
Mr Holland said that in his time with the organisation as a researcher, Natural Hazards Research Australia and its former iteration – the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre – has been fundamental to what they do.
“The research reports prepared by the Bushfire CRC and CSIRO for the 2009 Royal Commission helped shape the commission’s recommendations and are therefore now key for Victoria’s bushfire planning and building requirements,” Mr Holland said.
“In my experience, the application of research is often obvious right from the concept,” he said.
Dr Erica Kuligowski from RMIT University discussed the Community experiences of the 2022 Australian floods - South Australia, Victoria and south-western New South Wales project
Dr Kuligowski explained that the project consisted of three work packages: online surveys led by Macquarie University and disseminated to all flood-affected areas in the three locations; in-depth interviews with First Nations communities in Victoria, South Australia, and New South Wales, led by Monash University; and RMIT-led interviews with culturally and linguistically diverse communities as well as those exposed to slow-onset and rapid-onset flooding.
In her presentation, Dr Kuligowski focused on just one of the themes from the project report – responding to the question ‘with so much warning, why was there delayed flood response of households in Victoria?’
Listen to Dr Kuligowski’s presentation to learn more about the findings in relation to this theme.
Melanie Gill, Assistant Chief Officer of Emergency Management Planning with Victoria State Emergency Service (VIC SES) explained how this research is applied within her organisation across a range of projects and initiatives.
“Before this research had begun, we already had anecdotal insights from the 2022 floods. We knew that our warnings weren’t fully hitting the mark. They needed to be more timely, more tailored, more relevant and more accessible,” Ms Gill said.
She explained that VIC SES received a Disaster Ready Fund grant to deliver the ‘Consequence-based Intelligence Driven Warnings’ project, which will be directly informed by the findings of the Centre-funded research.
“The project aims to ensure flood warnings are provided for defined areas based on impact and potential consequences, and to be more tailored and relevant to communities,’ she said.
“I was asked by our consultants, when looking at a problem statement, ‘do we actually have evidence to support this?’ It was perfect timing because I’d just read through the draft report, and sure enough, we did, and we could confidently say that.”
The last presentation was Dr Julian Marx from the University of Melbourne with an overview of his research around social media usage during natural hazards through the Centre-funded Community experiences of flood warnings and evacuation responses during the 2025 NSW mid-North Coast floods and Social media in community experiences of Tropical Cyclone Alfred projects.
Dr Marx discussed the impact of social media algorithms in shaping how communities received emergency warnings and other information during these natural hazards and subsequent emergencies and which kinds of posts performed well and in which contexts.
Listen to Dr Marx discussing the findings, as well as Andrew McCullough, Deputy Chief of Staff at New South Wales State Emergency Service, explaining organisational uses of this research to guide social media communication.
The event closed with a Q&A session and a chance for attendees to network with each other.
Watch selected highlights below.