REC116-2113

The Working Group recommends support for ongoing research into natural hazard risks and an improved understanding of emergency management capability.
The research program should include:
• The development of an improved national picture of local risks to more clearly identify communities and regions at severe risk. Where possible, this activity should draw on existing complementary programs such as the Disaster Mitigation Australia Package being facilitated by DOTARS.
• The development of scenarios for a wider range of hazards and probabilities in which casualty and infrastructure damage consequences are predicted, and the development of standardised capability measures for emergency response and recovery, to allow assessments of adequacy.
• The development of cost/benefit methodologies for evaluation of projected capability enhancement, alsoallowing comparison with alternative strategies, e.g., mitigation.
• The longer term development of consequence prediction tools for tactical use by emergency managers to obtain assessments of impact to guide initial resource deployment.