A Pathway to Infrastructure Resilience

Summary

The events of recent years have brought Australia’s vulnerability to threats such as bushfires, droughts, floods, pandemic and cyber-attack into sharp relief.

A Pathway to Infrastructure Resilience recommends a whole-of system, all-hazards approach to resilience planning that focuses on strengthening an infrastructure asset, network and sector, as well as the place, precinct, city and region that the infrastructure operates in.

The two papers provide directions and actions to support resilient communities that can resist, absorb, accommodate, recover, transform and thrive in response to the effects of shocks and stresses in a timely, efficient manner to enable economic, social, environmental and governance outcomes.

There is enormous value in driving systemic change in Australia’s resilience planning. By 2050, the annual cost of natural disasters is expected to more than double – from $18 billion per year to more than $39 billion.

Ten opportunities for a systemic approach to managing risk

1. Improve strategic alignment of resilience governance: Governance that adopts a systemic view of risk and establishes the accountability and resourcing.

2. Manage uncertainty through scenario planning: A common set of future scenarios to streamline planning and support cross-sector coordination and shared responsibility.

3. Improve data collection and sharing for informed planning, action and decision-making: Coordinating, sharing and standardising critical disaster and climate data.

4. Adopt place-based approaches for resilience: Planning tools and data to consider multiple place-based issues and address resilience and community needs.

5. Embed resilience into land use planning and development decisions: Planning systems that value and set resilience as policy objectives, incorporate new and emerging data, capture local opportunities.

6. Improve infrastructure investment decision-making: Agreed mechanisms and guidance for quantifying the projected economic, social, environmental and governance implications of the impacts associated with managing uncertainty or resilience.

7. Collect and share information on asset and network vulnerability: A shared understanding of the impacts to interconnected systems.

8. Value blue and green infrastructure: Improving the understanding, valuation and governance of the green and blue infrastructure.

9. Build trust through more inclusive decision-making: Including communities and informing them about the risk, uncertainty and trade-offs related to infrastructure services and their livelihoods.

10. Embed traditional ecological knowledge in decision-making: Draw on traditional ecological knowledge to manage land and natural resources and mitigate-risk.

Collaborative thinking

These opportunities to improve resilience in response to all hazards and across sectors are informed by the latest thinking from over 600 experts from across government, industry, peak bodies and academia.

The papers are also informed by The Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangement, The National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework, the independent NSW Bushfire Inquiry and a series of 16 stakeholder workshops.