Community experiences of the January – July 2022 floods in NSW and Qld - Summary Report

The high-level findings presented in this Summary Report include an overview of the research and methodological approach (including interviews and survey), with brief descriptions of:

• five overarching cross-cutting themes: these are interlinked, highlighting a set of issues that contributed to the complexity of the 2022 floods and post-flood recovery. These themes recur in the content of resident interviews and also provide context for interpretation of many of the survey findings.  
• 13 themes emerging from interviews: these are common issues reported from the perspective of many residents, identifying problems and challenges that were faced directly by the interviewed resident, their household, or local community members, friends and neighbours. Selected themes have been included in this Summary Report based on their salience to residents and immediate policy relevance to stakeholders, so they still only represent a subset of themes identified during the coding.  
• five content areas derived from survey: these are determined by the structure of the questionnaire that was co-designed by researchers and research end users from their perspectives and provide a deductive ‘top-down’ contribution to the study and analysis.
• four main challenge areas: broad areas that require ongoing consideration and coordinated approaches by a range of stakeholders.  
• policy-relevant implications: relating to preparedness and mitigation, response and recovery, including possible approaches to addressing these implications. For a more detailed breakdown of findings and stakeholder implications, read the in-depth reports of findings.