On an annual basis floods impact many Australian communities. Some communities have been inundated repeatedly over a period of a few years due to inappropriate urban development in flood plain areas. This results in significant effort for emergency management and disruption to communities. It further results in considerable cost to all levels of government to repair damage and enable community recovery.
The main objective of this research is to develop cost-effective strategies to mitigate damage to residential buildings from riverine floods. The key tasks include classification of Australian residential building stock into a schema of a limited number of typical building types, review of flood mitigation strategies, develop Australian specific retrofit options, vulnerability assessment of current and retrofitted building types, benefit versus cost analysis and identification of cost-effective mitigation strategies
The vulnerability assessment will provide crucial information to assess potential monetary loss for existing and retrofitted buildings. It will also deliver input to benefit versus cost analyses of various mitigation options for different catchment types. The benefit versus cost analysis process will offer an important tool to evaluate the merits of mitigation strategies in the light of competing demands for limited public and private resources.
The outcome of the research in this project will be an evidence base for decisions concerning buildings having the greatest flood vulnerability in Australian communities and the optimum strategies to mitigate the financial risk posed by these buildings. The information will be targeted to all levels of government, insurers and private property owners.
