Tag Archive for: Disaster Risk Reduction

Snapshot in a turbulent time: Australian HADR capabilities, challenges and opportunities

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Australia has demonstrated the capacity and capabilities for fast, scalable responses to disasters and humanitarian crises in recent history. Australian governments, agencies, NGOs and the public have proven determined and flexible in both domestic and regional disasters and humanitarian crises. 

Looking forward, Australia’s established capabilities are facing new and growing challenges in disaster preparedness and response. The Indo-Pacific is facing a complex network of established, evolving and intersecting climate, conflict and human-security risks.

Without innovation in strategy and capabilities, the financial cost of regional disasters will continue to vastly outpace the capacity of Australia to fund preparedness and response efforts comprehensively enough to mitigate the human and strategic security risks those disasters pose.

This report presents a snapshot view of the current Indo-Pacific threatscape looking forward for Australia; takes a retrospective look at how key Australian HADR capabilities have been developed through lessons from domestic and regional disasters; considers the possible value in a strategy for what value-add northern Australia can bring to national HADR capabilities; and presents three areas of ‘low-hanging fruit’ for HADR capability uplift.

The rapidly emerging crisis on our doorstep

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This Strategic Insight report warns that within a decade, as the climate continues to warm, the relatively benign strategic environment in Maritime Southeast Asia – a region of crucial importance to Australia – will begin unravelling. Dr Robert Glasser, Head of ASPI’s new Climate and Security Policy Centre, documents the region’s globally unique exposure to climate hazards, and the increasingly significant cascading societal impacts they will trigger.

Dr Glasser notes that hundreds of millions of people living in low-lying coastal areas will not only experience more severe extremes, but also more frequent swings from extreme heat and drought to severe floods. The diminishing time for recovery in between these events will have major consequences for food security, population displacements and resilience.

According to Dr Glasser, ‘Any one of the numerous increasing risks identified in the report would be serious cause for concern for Australian policymakers, but the combination of them, emerging effectively simultaneously, suggests that we’re on the cusp of an overlooked, unprecedented and rapidly advancing regional crisis.’

The report presents several policy recommendations for Australia, including the need to greatly expand the Government’s capacity to understand and identify the most likely paths through which disruptive climate events (individually, concurrently, or consecutively) can cause cascading, security-relevant impacts, such as disruptions of critical supply chains, galvanized separatist movements, climate refugees, opportunistic intervention by outside powers, political instability, and conflict.

Dr Glasser also proposes that Australia should identify priority investments to scale-up the capability within Defence, Foreign Affairs, the intelligence agencies, Home Affairs and other key agencies to recognise and respond to emerging regional climate impacts, including by supporting our regional neighbours to build their climate resilience.

A Pacific disaster prevention review

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Disaster risk reduction is a global policy issue. Reducing the likelihood and severity of damage and related cascading and cumulative impacts from natural hazards has become central to all nations and   has triggered the  evolution of international cooperation, multilateral responses and humanitarian aid efforts over many years.

The nexus between natural hazards and vulnerability is central to appreciating the scale of the damage caused by large disasters and resultant sociotechnical impacts. Multilateral efforts to mitigate the impacts of weather and climate hazards have progressed over time.  The Yokohama Strategy for a Safer World: Guidelines for Natural Disaster Prevention, Preparedness and Mitigation was a harbinger for the Hyogo Framework for Action, which emphasised building the resilience of communities and nations to the effects of disasters, and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction as the current flagship of unified effort.

Pacific island countries (PICs) have long been affected by weather-related disasters. Many PICs have been listed among the top 10 most disaster-prone countries in the World Risk Index over several years. In addition to damaging winds a convergence of flash flooding, king tides and high intensity rainfall contributed to damage to essential services, food supply and displacement of people across island economies. 

This year marks the fifth year of applying the Sendai Framework to Disaster risk reduction efforts globally – completing one-third of the Framework’s operational life cycle.  It seems an opportune time to take stock of the challenges faced by selected PICs in incorporating guidance from the Sendai Framework into policy, legislation and practice.  

This report details independent views on challenges to implementing the Sendai Framework in eight Pacific economies.  It does not pursue an in-depth analysis of constraints or impediments to implementation of the framework but seeks to present independent views on the ‘fit’ of the Sendai Framework to local needs in a general context of the Four priorities central to the Framework.

It hoped that it can contribute to ongoing discussion and thought about important issues in a vibrant yet vulnerable region.

Preparing for the Era of Disasters

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Preparing for the Era of Disasters, a new ASPI Special Report by Dr Robert Glasser, warns that we are entering a new era in the security of Australia, not because of terrorism, the rise of China or even the cybersecurity threat, but because of climate change.

As the world warms beyond 2°C, as now seems increasingly likely, an era of disasters will be upon us with profound implications for how we organise ourselves to protect Australian lives, property and economic interests and our way of life.

The Report surveys the features of this emerging era of disasters including an increase in concurrent extreme weather events and in events that follow in closer succession. Communities may manage the first few but, in their weakened state, be overwhelmed by those following. Large parts of the country that are currently marginally viable for agriculture are increasingly likely to be in chronic crisis from the compounding impacts of the steady rise of temperature, floods, drought and bushfires. Dr Glasser contends that the scale of those impacts will be unprecedented, and the patterns that the hazards take will change in ways that will be difficult to anticipate.

He notes that this emerging Era of Disasters will not only increasingly stretch emergency services, undermine community resilience and escalate economic costs and losses of life, but also have profound implications for food security in our immediate region, with cascading impacts that will undermine Australia’s national security.

Dr Glasser outlines a number of steps the Australian Government and the state and local governments should begin taking now to prepare for the unprecedented scale of these emerging challenges, including:

  1. scale-up Australia’s efforts to prevent the effects from natural hazards, such as from extreme weather, from becoming disasters through greater investment in disaster risk reduction.
  2. increased planning for financial support to States for economic recovery following disasters and “fodder banks” and “land banks” to address the needs of communities in chronic crisis and the permanently displaced.
  3. strengthening disaster response capacity and planning at all levels, including in the military which will play an increasingly important role in transporting firefighters and equipment, fodder drops from helicopters and the provision of shelters, etc.  Joint task forces to coordinate the defence contribution, like the one established during the Black Saturday Victorian bushfires, will become increasingly necessary.
  4. ensure that flood and bushfire risk maps, building codes, planning schemes, infrastructure delivery and the supporting legislation fully embed consideration of climate change effects.

Weapons of mass economic disruption

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While Australia no longer rides upon the sheep’s back, strong economic and cultural links with agriculture remain and our economy is still intrinsically linked to agricultural production.

As the so-called ‘strawberry sabotage’ clearly demonstrates, accidental or deliberate biosecurity breaches present very real existential and economic threats to Australia that can harm agricultural exports as well as impact food security and trigger concerns about its safety.

ASPI’s latest research report ‘Weapons of Mass (economic) Disruption: Rethinking Biosecurity in Australia’ highlights the importance Australia’s effective and successful plant and animal biosecurity systems and border protection services to our wellbeing and economy and adds a further perspective on new and emerging threats that need to be addressed.

Coordination of federal, state and local disaster management arrangements in Australia: lessons from the UK and the US

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This document discusses the gaps in Australia’s emergency management legislation and the coordination of federal, state and local disaster management arrangements in Australia.

It analyses key legislation from the UK and US jurisdictions and reveals important lessons that could be adopted in Australia.

Agenda for Change 2016: Strategic choices for the next government

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The defence of Australia’s interests is a core business of federal governments. Regardless of who wins the election on July 2, the incoming government will have to grapple with a wide range of security issues. This report provides a range of perspectives on selected defence and national security issues, as well as a number of policy recommendations.

Contributors include Kim Beazley, Peter Jennings, Graeme Dobell, Shiro Armstrong, Andrew Davies, Tobias Feakin, Malcolm Davis, Rod Lyon, Mark Thomson, Jacinta Carroll, Paul Barnes, John Coyne, David Connery, Anthony Bergin, Lisa Sharland, Christopher Cowan, James Mugg, Simon Norton, Cesar Alvarez, Jessica Woodall, Zoe Hawkins, Liam Nevill, Dione Hodgson, David Lang, Amelia Long and Lachlan Wilson.

ASPI produced a similar brief before the 2013 election. There are some enduring challenges, such as cybersecurity, terrorism and an uncertain global economic outlook. Natural disasters are a constant feature of life on the Pacific and Indian Ocean rim.

But there are also challenges that didn’t seem so acute only three years ago such as recent events in the South China Sea, North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, and ISIS as a military threat and an exporter of global terrorism.

The incumbent for the next term of government will have to deal with these issues.

Launch Video

Special Report Issue 4 – Are we ready? Healthcare preparedness for catastrophic terrorism

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In this report the authors suggest that while positive steps have been taken in recent years, there are deficiencies in our healthcare system for mass casualty care. It suggests that further steps need to be taken to meet our healthcare preparedness, response and recovery goals for mass casualty incidents.

While recognising that some hospital resource issues would need a response by the States, there are significant steps that can and should be taken by the Australian Government.