Droughts, floods and freshwater ecosystems : evaluating climate change impacts and developing adaptation strategies

Climate change is expected to have significant impacts on hydrologic regimes and freshwater ecosystems, and yet few basins have adequate numerical models to guide the development of freshwater climate adaptation strategies. Such strategies can build on existing freshwater conservation activities, and incorporate predicted climate change impacts. We illustrate this concept with three case studies. In the Upper Klamath Basin of the western USA, a shift in land management practices would buffer this landscape from a declining snowpack. In the Murray–Darling Basin of south-eastern Australia, identifying the requirements of flood-dependent natural values would better inform the delivery of environmental water in response to reduced runoff and less water. In the Savannah Basin of the south-eastern USA, dam managers are considering technological and engineering upgrades in response to more severe floods and droughts, which would also improve the implementation of recommended environmental flows. Even though the three case studies are in different landscapes, they all contain significant freshwater biodiversity values. These values are threatened by water allocation problems that will be exacerbated by climate change, and yet all provide opportunities for the development of effective climate adaptation strategies.

Australian Unity wellbeing index survey 25.1 part A : report "The wellbeing of Australians - bushfires and floods : following up the effects of fires in Victoria and floods in Queensland"

The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index monitors the subjective wellbeing of the Australian population. Our first survey was conducted in April 2001 and this report concerns a special Survey 25.1, undertaken in October 2011. The survey was commissioned to detect whether the disastrous floods in North Queensland in the period December 2010 through February 2011, and fires in Victoria in the period January through February 2009, continued to affect the subjective wellbeing of people continuing to live in the disaster areas.

This survey involved 1,215 respondents, with 600 drawn from Victoria and 615 from Queensland. The questionnaire comprised only the Personal Wellbeing Index and a small set of demographic questions. In all other respects the methodology of the survey followed our normal procedures.1

Social media in disaster response : Queensland Police Service - public engagement during the 2011 floods

Social Media, particularly Microblogging services, are now being adopted as an additional tool for emergency service agencies to be able to interact with the community at all stages of a disaster. Unfortunately, no standard framework for Social Media adoption for disaster management exists and emergency service agencies are adopting Social Media in an ad-hoc fashion. This paper seeks to provide a general understanding of how Social Media is being used by emergency service agencies during disasters, to better understand how we might develop a standardised framework of adoption. In this study of the 2010/11 Queensland Flood event, Facebook broadcast messages from the Queensland Police Service to the general public, were analysed by genre. Findings show that these Microblogging activities were mostly about information distribution and warning broadcasts and that the strength of Social Media for two-way communication and collaboration with the general public, was under-utilised during this event.

Catastrophic loss and the law : a comparison between 2009 Victorian Black Saturday fires and 2011 Queensland floods and Cyclone Yasi

This article explores insurability relating to loss occasioned by catastrophic events in Australia in the context of the current legal regulatory regime. The analysis includes two case studies, in which we juxtapose the Victorian Black Saturday fires in February 2--9 with the Queensland flooding and Cyclone Yasi (December 2010 - February 2011). We argue that the different responses to, and economic losses stemming from, these events illustrate the urgent need for a national regulatory and insurance regime for the prevention and alleviation of disasters and the management of their consequences.

Flash-floods : genre subversion and the abject erotic in Dorothy Porter’s The monkey’s mask and El Dorado

When discussing her verse novels, Dorothy Porter explicitly stated that she loved to ‘write bad’. This paper will argue that it was Porter’s engagement with the verse novel form and genre subversion, most notably seen with her detective and crime thriller verse novels The monkey’s mask and El Dorado, that allows for a destabilisation of traditionally established genre conventions, which in turn provide a narrative foundation for Porter’s use of abject erotic imagery.

In both The monkey’s mask and El Dorado there are several types of ‘bodies’ to be examined: the body of the verse narrative, the bodies of the characters subjected to crime, the body of poetry that is referred to as evidence, and the abject eroticised body. Extending upon the studies of Rose Lucas (1997) and Fleur Diamond (1999), this paper contends that it is Porter’s engagement with the abject erotic, as informed by Julia Kristeva’s (1982) theory of the abject and Johanna Blakley’s (1995) discussion of the abject in relation to eroticism, that allows Porter to subvert the phallocentric limitations upheld through the crime fiction genre and offer an alternative representation for lesbian sexuality and desire.

Deluges that have gone before: floods in Australian history

As flash floods, tidal surges, cyclones, burst riverbanks and downpours have impacted on much of Eastern Australia, we've heard many references to the floods that have gone before. These floods stand as markers and reference points, in both practical and symbolic ways. But what do we really know of these past floods? And what happens as we move beyond lived memory? Using the Brisbane floods of 1974 and 1893 as reference points, Rear Vision traces some of the stories of flood, and asks what is remembered, whose stories remain, and whether the murky state of collective memory obscures other stories, and other floods.

Owner-driven reconstruction in India: a case-study of Kosi River floods in Bihar

An Owner-Driven Reconstruction (ODR) approach was adopted in the Indian state of Bihar, post 2008 Kosi River floods. This ODR was unique as it was piloted prior to policy formation. The paper discusses preliminary observations from empirical investigations conducted in two settlements of Bihar - Orlaha and Puraini, during 2012 and 2014. The aim was to identify ‘key processes’ or effectiveness of ODR approaches that enhance long-term disaster-resilience of housing and community autonomy. From the case-study investigations, one of the themes – community facilitation is discussed, with its positives and negatives for future replication.

Floods and famine: climate-induced collapse of a tropical predator-prey community

Will climate change threaten wildlife populations by gradual shifts in mean conditions, or by increased frequency of extreme weather events? Based on long-term data (from 1991 to 2014), the aim of the present study was to analyse and compare the sensitivity of predator-prey demography to extreme climatic events versus normal, albeit highly variable, annual deviations in climatic conditions in the Australian wet-dry tropics. From 1991 to 2005, predators (water pythons, Liasis fuscus) and their main prey (dusky rats, Rattus colletti) showed significant climate-driven fluctuations in numbers. These fluctuations were, however, trivial compared to the impact of two massive but brief deluges in 2007 and 2011, which virtually eliminated the dusky rats. The two floods resulted in the pythons experiencing an unprecedented famine in seven out of the last 8 years causing a massive shift in python demography, that is a significant reduction in feeding rates, reproductive output, growth rates, relative body mass, survival, mean body length and numbers (from 3173 in 1992 to 96 in 2013). Our results demonstrate that attempts to predict faunal responses to climate change, even if based on long-term studies, may be doomed to failure. Consequently, biologists may need to confront the uncomfortable truth that increased frequency of brief unpredictable bouts of extreme weather can influence populations far more than gradual deviations in mean climatic conditions.

GIS-based dynamic modelling and analysis of flash floods considering land-use planning

Flood inundation is a common natural disaster and a growing development challenge for many cities and thousands of small towns around the world. Soil features have frequently altered with the rapid development of urbanised regions, which has led to more frequent and longer duration of flooding in urban flood-prone regions. Thus, this paper presents a geographic information system (GIS)-based methodology for measuring and visualising the effects on urban flash floods generated by land-use changes over time. The measurement is formulated with a time series in order to perform a dynamic analysis. A catchment mesh is introduced into a hydrological model for reflecting the spatial layouts of infrastructure and structures over different construction periods. The Geelong Waurn Ponds campus of Deakin University is then selected as a case study. Based on GIS simulation and mapping technologies, this research illustrates the evolutionary process of flash floods. The paper then describes flood inundation for different built environments and presents a comparison by quantifying the flooding extents for infrastructure and structures. The results reveal that the GIS-based estimation model can examine urban flash floods in different development phases and identify the change of flooding extents in terms of land-use planning. This study will bring benefits to urban planners in raising awareness of flood impact and the approach proposed here could be used for flood mitigation through future urban planning.

Measuring eco-roof mitigation on flash floods via GIS simulation

Purpose: The rapid and ongoing expansion of urbanised impervious areas could lead to more frequent flood inundation in urban flood-prone regions. Nowadays, urban flood inundation induced by rainstorm is an expensive natural disaster in many countries. In order to reduce the flooding risk, eco-roof systems (or green roof systems) could be considered as an effective mechanism of mitigating flooding disasters through their rainwater retention capability. However, there is still a lack of examining the stormwater management tool. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effects on flooding disaster from extensive green roofs. Design/methodology/approach: Based on geographical information system (GIS) simulation, this research presents a frame of assessing eco-roof impacts on urban flash floods. The approach addresses both urban rainfall-runoff and underground hydrologic models for traditional impervious and green roofs. Deakin University’s Geelong Waurn Ponds campus is chosen as a study case. GIS technologies are then utilised to visualise and analyse the effects on flood inundation from surface properties of building roofs. Findings: The results reveal that the eco-roof systems generate varying degrees of mitigation of urban flood inundation with different return period storms. Originality/value: Although the eco-roof technology is considered as an effective stormwater management tool, it is not commonly adopted and examined in urban floods. This study will bring benefits to urban planners for raising awareness of hazard impacts and to construction technicians for considering disaster mitigation via roof technologies. The approach proposed here could be used for the disaster mitigation in future urban planning.

Experiences of regional and rural people with cancer being treated with radiotherapy in a metropolitan centre

This paper explores the issues related to rural people with cancer whose choice of radiotherapy treatment necessitated travel and accommodation in a metropolitan centre. Semi-structured interviews with 46 participants, from the Toowoomba and Darling Downs region of Queensland, Australia, were conducted and the data thematically analysed. The specific themes identified were: being away from loved ones, maintaining responsibilities whilst undergoing treatment, emotional stress, burden on significant others, choice about radiotherapy as a treatment, travel and accommodation, and financial burden. This study supports the need for a radiotherapy centre in the location of Toowoomba as a way of providing some equity and access to such treatment for the rural people of Queensland.