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at the community level. Information on disaster risk
should be communicated in a manner appropriate to
the audience, and should consider the different needs,
interests and technologies used within communities.
Knowledge, innovation and education can enhance a
culture of resilience at all levels of the community and
should contribute to a continual cycle of learning.
Knowledge is fundamental to enabling everyone in
the community to determine their hazards and risks,
and to inform preparation and mitigation measures. It
is also crucial to communicate all relevant and avail-
able information during the response and recovery
phases of a disaster. Sharing knowledge, including
lessons learned from previous events, is also important
in promoting innovation and best practice.
Australia’s vast and diverse regions, landscapes and
climatic variations mean the country will continue to
be at risk from the damaging impacts of disasters.
Strengthening Australia’s disaster resilience is not a
stand-alone activity that can be achieved in a set time-
frame, nor can it be achieved without a joint commitment
and concerted effort by all sectors of society. But it is
an effort that is worth making, because building a more
disaster resilient nation is an investment in the future.
society. Understanding the nature and extent of risks, is necessary
to inform disaster preparations and mitigate their impact on society.
Significant progress has been made through the introduction of new
technologies to communicate risk information, and a broad willing-
ness to understand and use available information to inform appropriate
action. Existing collaborative relationships between governments and
other organisations are improving the tools and methodologies needed
to support enhanced understanding of hazards and risks.
The challenge is to communicate meaningful information about
risks to the community. Further work is needed to improve infor-
mation and data sharing, and more will be done to determine what
hazard and risk information could most usefully be communicated
to communities. When providing information on hazards and
risks, it is important to consider how people might react. Disasters
can be inherently unpredictable, as can the responses to them.
Similarly, more consistent information on the costs and benefits
associated with risk management and disaster impacts is required
to build the evidence base for prioritising and targeting interven-
tions, as well as risk reduction and risk mitigation measures. Such
information must go beyond examination of life and property and
simple economic assessments to cover the full scope of the social,
built, economic and natural environments.
For Australia to become more resilient to disasters, a clearer under-
standing of its risks and what to do about them is needed, particularly
Sun and smoke – a rural Fire Service volunteer
Image: AEMI
One of the most significant collaborative projects between the Australian
Government and States and Territories in recent years has been the
development of a national telephone-based emergency warning capability.
The Australian Government has committed in excess of $26 million for the
development of this capability.
In April 2009, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreed to
take immediate steps to enhance Australia’s natural disaster arrangements
through the development of a telephone-based emergency warning
system. This system, Emergency Alert, enables participating States and
Territories to deliver warnings to landline and mobile telephones based
on the subscriber’s address. The COAG further resolved that research
be undertaken into the feasibility of developing the capability to issue
warnings to mobile telephones based on the location of the handset at the
time of an emergency.
COAG’s decision to prioritize the development of a telephone-based
warning capability recognised that most Australians use and have access to
landline and mobile telephones and that the percentage of the population
who use a mobile telephone continues to increase. The telephone-based
emergency warning capability is a useful addition to the existing suite of
warning mechanisms because it can deliver intrusive warnings, 24/7.
Emergency Alert can deliver messages quickly, accurately and to mass
numbers; and to more people than existing mechanisms. It can also
provide warnings to the vast majority of individuals in a specifically targeted
location (removing over-warning to those not at risk - which results in
complacency).
Central to this capability is the Location Based Number Store (LBNS),
a central data source that provides the geo-coded telephone number
and address information that the alert systems rely upon. The Australian
Government manages the contract for this system.
In September 2010, the Australian Government announced that it would
fund the establishment costs associated with enhancing the system to
enable it to deliver warnings to mobile telephone handsets based on
the location of the handset at the time of an emergency, across each of
Australia’s three mobile carriers.
Emergency Alert was used widely in the catastrophic disaster events of
the summer of 2010 11. During cyclone Yasi and the related storm surge,
it was used to send over 2.5 million messages to the residents of the
affected areas of Queensland.
Emergency Alert