REC324-4314 |
8 - Communications and warnings
8 - Communications and warnings
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PIFAC function: That, to ensure the community can better understand the threat of flood, storm and tsunami activity, the Department of Customer Service (DCS) be made accountable for PIFAC in all emergencies. This will improve access to clear, reliable and consistent messaging prior to and during emergencies. This transfers the PIFAC role from NSW Police Force to Service NSW. Under this PIFAC function, DCS would be responsible for:
• proactively assessing community sentiment and working with agencies to effectively disseminate key disaster information to all communities including vulnerable, culturally, linguistically, and religiously diverse communities
• coordinating clear, consistent, reliable messaging from all government agencies, especially during a disaster
• working with the SEMC, the Bureau of Meteorology, the new NSWRA and SEOCON to provide public statements evaluating the likely risk of flooding and the effectiveness of planning and preparation for the upcoming season. This should be based on sophisticated monitoring of key risk factors and signals for extreme flood events. It should form the basis for clear public communication about these risks on a regional basis and the actions that the Government proposes in preparation.
• working with the NSWRA and SEOCON to deliver a single communication tool for riverine floods, flash floods and dam warnings which uses all available inputs (such as information from the Bureau, real-time river and rain observations data and citizen science data) and provides an assessment of antecedent conditions (such as saturated catchments, soil moisture and water storage capacity). This information should be available to communities and individuals in real-time, on live warning signs in town centres (using satellite connections so they are not reliant on local telecommunications infrastructure)
• recognising that community will revert to social media platforms to self organise when government is unable to respond, the NSW Government should also consider how to work with social media companies and online communities to ensure consistent messaging during an emergency. This may include directing individual users to Government platforms for updated information.
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REC324-4294 |
34 - Local knowledge
34 - Local knowledge
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Environment: That, to maximise protection for the environment in and around floodplains, Government, working with local communities especially Indigenous communities, the NSWRA, other agencies and local councils ensure Indigenous voices are well heard in land use planning and natural resource management by:
• developing an Indigenous led cultural landscape restoration strategy for the Northern Rivers for nature-based flood mitigation and adaptation which would see large-scale native revegetation and wetland restoration across the Richmond River catchment, including the Tuckean swamp • supporting Indigenous people to engage in cultural stewardship practices to build the resilience of people and Country, including the Jagun Alliance “Healing our River Country for Community and Landscape Resilience” proposal
• establishing a NSW Indigenous Natural Hazards Trust for research into and development of Aboriginal caring for Country and ‘green’ infrastructure to build back resilience in nature and community
• embedding Indigenous voices and representation in governance structures for the NSW Reconstruction Authority.
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REC324-4319 |
26 - Research
26 - Research
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Climate and weather research: That, to enable effective mitigation and adaptation measures in response to changing climate risks, Government establish NSW as a world centre of disaster research and technology development. This should include:
• maintaining and enhancing climate and weather research capability in NSW through establishing a long-term research funding network/partnership (the NSW Climate Extremes Network – NCEN –modelled on other successful research networks such as NSSN) with the state’s universities, coordinated and led through the ARC Centre of Excellence in Climate Extremes (with funding renewed based on performance every 5 years) to ensure leading-edge climate change research and modelling capabilities are available to government agencies and NSW businesses and communities. The funding will enable NCEN to hire researchers and build training programs for students and researchers to enrich the research environment, and the impact of the research in decision making within NSW
• commissioning further research and technology development (through NCEN working as appropriate with the Bureau of Meteorology, Natural Hazards Research Australia, CSIRO and research organisations worldwide, as well as the ARC Centre of Excellence in Climate Extremes) to understand the weather patterns conducive to extreme rainfall (including more detailed rainfall event attribution studies) with a view to increasing rainfall forecasting accuracy in time and location.
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REC324-4303 |
39 - Disaster Risk Management
39 - Disaster Risk Management
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Risk-based approach to calculating flood planning: That, to take account of greater knowledge of climate change, Government reinforce its adoption of a risk-based approach to calculating the flood planning level for planning purposes and, through the NSWRA, immediately start a process of revising all flood planning level calculations in the state’s high-risk catchments. Flood planning level re-determinations for all high-risk catchments should be completed within 3 years. These revised flood planning levels will need to be factored into all development applications (in-progress and new) in those high-risk catchments. The risk profile of high-risk catchments should be revisited at appropriate time intervals to check that levels are current. A review should take place if there has been a significant trigger event (i.e. changed rainfall, development) or at least every 5 years. As well as reviewing the flood planning level, this 5-yearly review should include reviewing any floodplain lease conditions and adjusting them as necessary in the light of better knowledge of climate change impacts. In working out a tolerable, risk-based flood planning level, consideration should be given to the PMF, 1% AEP, 0.02% AEP, existing development, approved but not yet constructed developments, and existing and approved but not yet constructed evacuation routes.
In coordinating this flood planning level re-determination process, NSWRA should work closely with local councils, DPE, communities, state water authorities and state and national engineering and research organisations. In doing so, the NSWRA should also:
• extend and then maintain the DPE state-wide flood database and associated visualisation interface. This database, which should link to LandiQ, would support:
— monitoring of the flood warning and sensing environment
— monitoring of trends in rainfall activity and impacts, including timing, cause, extent and intensity
— tracking trends and identifying patterns in associated weather and climate signals that contribute to severe floods
— evaluation of the cost and effectiveness of risk mitigation efforts, including land preparation, planning use and management, to enable a better understanding of what works
— simulation of extreme rainfall events and resultant flooding
— identification of ‘at risk’ river and catchment systems for flash flooding
— rapid and effective deployment of resources during a flash flood event
• act as the main coordination point for all NSW hydrological modelling, working with local government, other state agencies, universities, professional bodies (e.g. Engineers Australia) and the Australian Government (especially the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO) to improve future NSW flood risk assessment (and hence accuracy and timeliness of flood prediction) by building more formal connections between the extensive existing physical hydrological modelling (done by various NSW agencies) with the Bureau’s meteorological and climatological research and riverine flood models
• support local councils to improve modelling of and ensure adequate and appropriate alarm systems for flash flooding.
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REC324-4305 |
39 - Disaster Risk Management
39 - Disaster Risk Management
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Cost benefit framework:That, to enable a more systematic prioritisation of investment options in risk mitigation before, during and immediately following a natural disaster event, Government adopt and utilise a Disaster Cost Benefit Framework. This Framework will enable Government to estimate the investment required for any given disaster, starting with flood events, and will enable the fast allocation of funding based on detailed and rapid analysis of flood and property modification, mitigation, preparation, response and finance related options including:
• flood modification measures/flood defence (including dams/ water management; levees; waterway or floodplain modifications; etc)
• property modification measures/flood risk mitigation (including land filling; flood proofing; house raising; optimum zoning; removal of development (buy back schemes/relocation))
• response modification measures/flood preparation (including flood warnings; upgrading evacuation routes; evacuation planning; emergency response and education programs; flood data collection and sharing; etc)
• finance related options (including building standard reforms; restructure and reduction of stamp duty; direct subsidies; government reinsurance pools; etc)
The Framework should build on the preliminary version developed by NSW Treasury and provided to this Inquiry. To support this Framework, Government should also use the NSW Adaptation Fund that can be drawn on during or immediately following a flood event.
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REC324-4308 |
26 - Research
26 - Research
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Compound mental helath studies: That, to inform Government policies and programs for mental health and disasters, Government commission a longitudinal study on the effect of consecutive disasters on community mental health.
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REC324-4313 |
8 - Communications and warnings
8 - Communications and warnings
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NSW disaster app: That, to improve community confidence in government messaging and warnings, the SEOCON and DCS develop a single ‘NSW disaster app’. This:
• will consolidate individual agencies warning apps
• have a simple interface that is accessible via mobile devices
• provide real time flood warnings and information, both raw information from gauges and processed information from publicly available models
• allow citizens to provide information during a flood to help authorities and community, including flood imagery and local knowledge observations in the lead into, during and immediately after flood events. Further, the SEOCON and DCS develop a single impact assessment tool accessible by DCS/Service NSW to expediate grants for and insurance claims on homes and businesses.
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