This flooding has exposed something we already knew, but had chosen to ignore. That Australia, one of the most prone countries to secondary disasters from climate change like floods and bushfires, is also one of the most under-insured of comparable economies.

Many Australians are uninsured or underinsured for flood because each time it floods, their premiums go up. At a certain level that becomes unaffordable so they take the risk of going without insurance. That’s not a risk that they as individuals can afford. How do you continue to pay the mortgage on a property you cannot rebuild because you have no insurance?

Neither is it a risk we as a society can afford to keep pushing back onto individual homeowners. Floods are not rare. They are becoming all too commonplace. Each time an uninsured property floods, society has to pay to help those people make good. At the same time, the wealth and viability of those owners to contribute economically to society is reduced.

There are very sound reasons to start pooling these risks across society - and using the data developed in the pool, to inform better disaster resilience of properties. There are other models worldwide we can learn from about successful risk pooling and resilience. We need to act now.

The tourism industry has been badly affected by the COVID pandemic over the past two years. The international borders have only just reopened and now tourism is facing another major crisis. The widespread flooding in south-east Queensland and Northern NSW has damaged tourist accommodation and infrastructure, and closed visitor attractions and beaches – all the things that tourists visit these regions to enjoy. 

Before COVID, tourism was a $28 billion industry for Queensland, and was worth $34.2 billion to NSW. Recovery is vital. 

My research examines post-disaster recovery for tourism destinations hit by crises and disasters. The key to recovery lies in carefully managed media communications and tailored marketing messages to help destinations reopen and return to normal, but only when the community is ready. 

An ‘open for business as usual’ marketing message is not effective when the media is still showing pictures of flooded landscapes and damaged roads. Instead, destinations need to work on crafting messages that target specific visitor segments, such as those with existing ties to the destination through family or previous holidays there, and those with more tolerance of uncertainty such as the Gen Z/Millennials.

Flooding occurs as a sudden, short-term event, but the health effects are often lasting, and these require attention and resourcing.

Immediate and direct human health impacts include drowning, serious cuts and lacerations, and orthopedic injuries like broken bones or sprains. A variety of infections can occur from exposure to or ingestion of contaminated or spoiled food or water. This can be caused by direct contact with flood waters or pollutants resulting in skin infections, or as a result of improper refrigeration of food caused by electrical supply interruption leading to gastroenteritis. Respiratory infections may also occur due to inhalation of water-borne pathogens, or related to exposure in overcrowded evacuation hubs.

Loss of health services and infrastructure, including essential drugs and supplies, may also have significant health impacts and may exacerbate chronic diseases.

Flood waters can facilitate breeding of disease-carrying pests such as mosquitos, driving a rise in transmission of certain infections. Death and disease among animals exposed to flooding may also raise the risk of animal-to-human disease transmission.

Importantly, there are significant short- and long-term mental health consequences as people cope with the loss of life, livelihoods and homes. Some of the affected communities have recovered from previous severe flooding events, and their resilience in particular will now be further tested.  

Most people are resilient to natural disaster and whilst there is often stress, this mostly doesn’t develop into a psychological disorder. However there are some factors that may affect this outcome that are relevant to the current situation.

1. Those who are at greater risk for developing short and long term problems are those who do not have the necessary supports and resources to help with recovery. These at greater risk often, but not always, are in lower socio-economic status areas and groups, those with existing disabilities and health problems, those who experience displacement and significant loss and those who are more isolated from community and other health support. Those who are already experiencing significant stress and/or have experienced a prior  trauma or loss such as following a disaster will be at particular risk for later psychological disorder.
    
2. The current disaster is likely to be happening for the same individuals exposed to the previous flood events. This means that by its nature this disaster will place more burden on this community than it might have previously. Adding to this is the general burden of stress associated with the pandemic.
    
3. One group who deserve special attention is children. Previous research has indicated that children, especially those who have experienced evacuation, displacement and loss are likely to be at particular risk in comparison to adults. These effects on children seem to be more likely with younger age and can continue to have an impact for some time including in school performance.

Floodwaters contain toxic chemical (such as heavy metals, oil and grease, pesticides, and many more), biological (bacteria, noroviruses and enteroviruses from raw sewage) and physical hazards (branches, trees, vehicles, downed powerlines).

When the floodwaters recede, many of these contaminants remain in the mud that can cover the ground, and in some cases our homes. It is very important, as we clean up and try to recover what we can from the wreckage, that we remember the hazards hidden in the mud.

Disinfectants, gloves, goggles, masks and other protective equipment are essential during that process to make sure we don't become sick while putting our lives back together.

The flooding in SE Queensland and Northern NSW is tragic for our society because of the losses of life and livelihoods and the sheer effort required to restore communities. These and all emergencies also put lives at risk of volunteer emergency services personnel. Climate change will make flood events more common but also fire events.

It is time for Australia as a nation to require more of land development proponents. They need to consider explicitly these risks and be required to design premises to suit .

The Australian legal system has responded to other national issues such as custody issues and Corporations law and the Murray Darling Basin by the States referring power to the Commonwealth.  A new law would bind the States and create uniform regulations to ensure risk is included in development proposals. This would lift it out of the realm of  judges who have declared land unsuitable for development on some occasions. We need a law that requires the precautionary principle to be applied to this domain of putting unwitting buyers in the way of increased harm from more severe flood and fire events.

Despite decades of warnings from scientists about climate change, Australia is unprepared for the supercharged weather that it is now driving, such as the current floods in Queensland and NSW.

Australia is at the forefront of severe climate change. Temperatures are rising faster in Australia than the global average, and higher temperatures mean the atmosphere holds more moisture, meaning rainfall events are becoming more extreme.

Climate change means that Australia’s extreme weather - heat, drought, bushfires and floods - will continue to get much, much worse if we don’t act now.
 
The two main areas for action are: 

• Meaningful emissions reduction this decade – that is a 75 per cent reduction by 2030 on 2005 levels. This means phasing out fossil fuel and no expansion of coal and gas in Australia.
• A national adaptation strategy is required to better prepare and respond to increasingly catastrophic events. We need to manage the impacts of what is happening now and make sure those impacts are much less destructive in future.

It is important to observe the very significant role that Wivenhoe Dam played in mitigating the degree of flooding from the Brisbane River. 

The water storage volume in Wivenhoe Dam increased by 1.5 trillion litres over three days (25-27 Feb). That is equivalent to capturing all the water from Sydney Harbour, every day for three days. Without the dam to hold this water back, it would have combined with other large flows from the Lockyer Creek and Bremer River to produce a truly devastating flood for Brisbane.

This water is now being released at a much slower and more controlled rate. Wivenhoe Dam water storage is dropping by about 120 billion litres per day, which is about 20 per cent of the rate at which it grew over last weekend (Sat 26 & Sun 27 Feb 2022). These releases coincide with much smaller flows from the Lockyer Creek and Bremer River. The objective will be to bring the water level down to the normal maximum drinking water storage level within a week, without allowing the Brisbane River to rise any higher than it already has during this event.

Managing an extreme weather event like this is takes an enormous amount of skill, effort and coordination. SEQWater have achieved a very impressive outcome in the protection of lives and property around Brisbane.

Floodwaters reaching the coast have ripped open lagoon entrances up and down south-east Australia, scouring out beaches and threatening adjacent properties and infrastructure.
 
As the East Coast Low strengthens today, there is concern for further erosion of beaches, with waves forecast to peak at 7am tomorrow (Thursday) morning coinciding with the spring high tide.

Many people, particularly those blindsided by flood damage, will be somewhat in a state of shock, and might not be in a great place to make decisions or co-ordinate their response. Providing practical and logistical assistance in the immediate term is most useful e.g., clean up, offering alternative accommodation or help with transport, housing pets, dealing with insurance companies etc.

Try to orient your focus to the 'problems' that need to be solved, and what you can feasibly do/help with (remove a tree, clean the kids toys, get tarp on the roof). If you are struggling with the sheer number of tasks, ask family and friends to help you brainstorm a priority list. Having said that, even chipping away at things that will need to be done is still valuable.  

If you are feeling completely overwhelmed: stop; breathe. And remind yourself that every mountain-climb begins with the first small step. Maintaining a problem-focused goal setting approach tends to lead to better outcomes psychologically.

Early and reliable warnings need to be issued so people have sufficient time to act. The Bureau issued weather warnings to the best of their ability, but what was missed was the translation of these warnings into information for the general public to act upon. People needed to be able to go online and look at a visualisation of the flood map for their postcode that showed how the probability of their house flooding would change over the next 24 hours.

With this information they could have made more informed decisions when would be best to evacuate. Instead, residents only had a pdf of the flood extent map to make decisions. This map only showed one possible flood scenario, even though the weather forecast was not certain and there were multiple possible outcomes. This flood map also did not show the depth of water, just whether there was water.

A house going under floor to ceiling is very different from having some water on your front lawn. Lastly this map did not include low-lying locations away from the river where the rainfall was so heavy that the drainage was likely to fail. People needed probabilistic forecasts of flood extent so they could better make decisions. 

With the increasing frequency and severity of storms and flooding, we need to treat flood prevention and mitigation as part of our ‘business as usual’ and not as a one-off disaster.

Any new development must be regulated to mitigate flooding and we have to think very much more seriously about retrofitting our existing urban and suburban areas.

My research focuses on people’s behaviour in floodwater. In 2021 I led a project to co-develop a set of national public safety messaging with the SES, BoM, and the ABC - for use in emergency broadcasting on radio.

Driving through floodwater and playing/recreating in floodwater are the two behaviours most associated with deaths in floods in Australia. In our national survey (2019/20), 55 per cent of the public reported that they had driven through floodwater in the last five years. This behaviour is often normalised, with those who do it being likely to do it more than once/repeatedly.

Most people claim to have driven through floodwater after ‘careful consideration’ rather than it being a spur of the moment thing, also social pressure to keep going and not turn around comes into play.

Based on research, it is likely that the majority of people will comply with requests to not drive through floodwater whilst water levels are rising and flooding is in progress. However, once the rain stops and/or water starts to recede, this is when people are likely to take risks. They are keen to ‘get on with things’ and ‘press on’– whether that’s clearing up or checking on things, or just getting back to normal. This is often when accidents happen.

Unborn babies can be affected by flood stress but it’s not inevitable. Our research team studied the development of children who were in utero in the 2011 Queensland Floods. We found that pregnant mothers who experienced higher flood-related stress had more depression, anxiety and post-traumatic distress.

Stress-related hormones cross the placenta, which can change the baby's stress regulation system and disrupt development. Children of mothers who experienced flood stress during pregnancy were at higher risk of: poorer temperament, cognitive development, motor development and neurodevelopment issues; problems with behaviour and sleep; and anxiety.

Negative effects are not inevitable. Here are four things we can do:

• Continuity of care matters. Try to keep your antenatal appointments and where possible see the same health care professional all the way through your pregnancy. Tell them you have been affected by the flood.
• Continuity in diet matters. Keep taking your vitamins and eating enough dairy, resist the temptation to eat more sweets and try not to skip meals. Friends and family can help out here.
• It’s natural to feel angry, shocked, upset or worried right now. If you’re still experiencing strong feelings about the flood in a month, talk to your GP and seek further support.
• Stress from natural disasters can be long-term. Perinatal screening for psychosocial symptoms needs to be an integrated part of the public health response.

Some people with disability will need extra support during this escalating flood emergency. The “linking work” of community and disability service providers is paramount to coordinated response efforts to protect the safety of people with disability, now, to ensure they are connected to needed supports for their health and well-being.

Local Disaster Coordination Centres in the flood affected areas will be activated to monitor and respond to impacts. Yesterday, the City of Gold Coast Council sent emails to their community interagency networks to encourage community services, disability providers, and advocates to conduct a welfare check and to encourage individuals to enact their personal emergency preparedness plans.

Gold Coast Council is working with The University of Sydney and Queenslanders with Disability Network to make sure that nobody is left behind in a disaster. This is one example of how they are using their community interagency linkages to protect the safety of people with disability during the current floods.

We all need to stay up-to-date with the latest news and information including road closures, power outages, and emergency alerts. People with disability need all emergency and broadcasting organisations to get these warnings out early and in accessible formats that everybody can understand and use. 

Drowning is the leading cause of death during times of flood, and these predominately occur due to driving into floodwaters. We have already seen tragic loss of life associated with the current floods, with many losing their lives due to driving into or being swept into floodwaters while in their vehicle.

Research indicates there are many pressures which lead people to drive into floodwaters. These include pressure from other motorists (and/or having nowhere to turn around), pressure to get home to family or pets, or to work or school.

Drivers may have seen other cars successfully go through or have passed through the location successfully themselves previously. We have seen several instances of drivers entering floodwaters at night, highlighting the dangers of arriving upon flooded roadways at night with no opportunity to avoid entering the water or being swept away.

Despite warnings, this behaviour continues to cause loss of life among motorists and their rescuers. Entering floodwaters should be avoided at all costs, and this includes playing in floodwaters or taking selfies for social media.

*New comment*

The floods in Queensland and NSW have been devastating and tragic. Most rivers in northern NSW have now peaked, but water will take some days to drain away to allow recovery efforts to commence. The disaster is being compounded as an east coast low threatens major flooding in Sydney. The cost of the event will run into the billions of dollars. The insurance losses from the 2011 floods were over two billion dollars.

There are many immediate challenges to support those impacted with the basic essentials such as food, water and accommodation. These issues are becoming more complex due to disruptions in supply chains and the flooding of businesses.

The recovery will be long. Many through no fault of their own will not be insured or underinsured. Emergency services are already preparing to assist residents to wash out their homes and dispose of their damaged belongings. Investments in mental health support will be critical.

In the long-term the conversation needs to be about mitigation. Australia spends 97 per cent on recovery and only 3 per cent on mitigation. Mitigation is our best chance to reduce damages and to improve the affordability of insurance. We must also limit the extent of future risk through risk based land use planning.

*Previously issued comment*

The flood situation in NSW and Queensland continues to evolve.

Major flooding has been experienced throughout South East Queensland and North East NSW causing significant damages to homes, businesses, infrastructure and agriculture. Based on predictions flooding at Lismore will exceed record flood heights set in 1974 and 1954 by a significant margin resulting in severe flooding. The predicted height would have an annual chance of around 0.2 per cent of occurring on average. This is a very dangerous situation.

Lismore has a long history of flooding. South and Central Lismore has levee protection to floods. These levees were overtopped in the 2017 flood causing significant damage and have again been overtopped. There is no levee protection in North Lismore.

Gympie has recorded its second-highest flood on record and though lower than 2011 significant flooding has also occurred around Brisbane. Floodwaters will continue to move downstream over coming days posing threats to further communities towards the coast.

Flooding in the Lockyer Valley on Friday demonstrated the value of mitigation investments.

After the devastating 2011 floods, a land swap program was instigated to encourage flood-affected residents to move to higher ground. This resulted in a much smaller number of properties being exposed to flooding during this event.

These floods have tragically taken lives and continue to pose a risk, particularly to those who enter floodwater. The majority of flood deaths in Australia occur when people drive or walk in floodwater. 

Climate change means that our atmosphere can hold more water, likely increasing the intensity of rain events in the future. Rising sea levels will exacerbate future flooding in coastal areas over the coming decades.

Residents should monitor for warnings and evacuate when requested by emergency services.

*New comment*

The recent terminology describing the flooding in SE QLD and Northern NSW as a 'once in a 1000 year event' event is misleading as – even if it was correct – it suggests we would be waiting another 1000 years for an event of this magnitude to occur again.

There may have been rainfall in some locations in the state that exceeded the '1000-year' return level but this does not mean the chance of a flood of this magnitude occurring anywhere in the state of NSW had only a 0.1 per cent chance of occurring this year.

It is in fact much higher than this, and even more so because La Niña has rolled the dice in favour of flooding over the past two years. It is likely we will not be waiting another 1000 years for this to happen again, and we certainly should not be planning as if this were the case.

*Previously issued comment*

We should be in no doubt – this is a major flood event for the Brisbane River. The Brisbane River City gauge has now reached major flood levels (approaching 4 metres), and is still rising. By comparison, the catastrophic 2011 floods in Brisbane reached 4.46 metres at this same gauge – so we’re not far off.

As things stand, this is the third-largest flood event on record at Brisbane (only the 1974 and 2011 floods are higher). All ingredients are there for major flooding – a saturated catchment with the wettest summer in 30 years thanks to a double-dip La Niña, and a very slow-moving low-pressure system that is resulting in large accumulated rain volumes.

Water is still making its way down the Brisbane River and the rain continues – so we won’t appreciate the full scale of this flood event for several days to come.

*New comment*

No, don’t rebuild. It needs to be said. There are too many Australians living in harm’s way, in places where their lives are repeatedly at risk, in homes that can’t be insured, and with the constant risk that the next flood will mire them in poverty. As climate change increases the risk of severe floods the idea that more flood control dams or levee banks offer sufficient safety is a mirage. This has been demonstrated by the repeat flooding of low lying parts of Brisbane despite the immense flood control capacity of Wivenhoe Dam.

The impacts on people’s lives from these floods is tragic but we need to decide to relocate the most vulnerable Australians now, before overly enthusiastic local and state governments enable rebuilding.

It is hard to relocate homes and towns but Australians have done this throughout our history. Numerous examples range from the relocation of Gundagai after the 1852 flood to the courageous decision of the Lockyer Valley Regional Council to move Grantham after the 2011 Brisbane floods. We know how this can be done: ban rebuilding, enable land swaps, provide financial incentives, and provide governments with the first right to purchase flood prone properties. Flood prone land should be repurposed for agriculture, forestry, recreation and nature conservation.

Residents of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River valley in western Sydney are once again at risk from flooding, after being flooded in only March 2021. The NSW Government should now promise to permanently reduce flood risk by beginning to relocate the most flood prone homes and businesses, starting with the most vulnerable 5,000 homes below the 1:100 flood return interval.

*Previously issued comment*

The flooding seen in Brisbane despite the large flood control capacity upstream in Wivenhoe Dam, and the flood impact in shutting drinking water treatment plants, has important lessons for the NSW Government’s multi-billion dollar proposal to raise Warragamba Dam in western Sydney for flood control. Raising Warragamba Dam would flood hundreds of cultural sites of the Gundungarra nation, parts of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, and critical habitat of threatened species like the critically endangered Regent Honeyeater (bird). There are three lessons for Sydney:

1.    Flood control dams are not a ‘magic bullet’ solution. The capacity of dams to control floods is always limited in capacity and because downstream tributary rivers are not controlled. Reducing flood risk requires multiple measures. The value of flood control dams is only maintained if governments prevent new development on the floodplain. More development was permitted in low lying areas of Brisbane after Wivenhoe Dam was built in the 1970s. Consequently, 1,500 homes are at risk of flooding in Brisbane today. Given past close ties between property developers and NSW politicians, questions need to be asked as to how any benefits from a flood control dam would be sustained.

2.    Relocating homes out of harms’ way works. After the 2011 Brisbane floods destroyed most of the town of Grantham, the Lockyer Valley Regional Council made the courageous decision for the voluntary relocation and rebuilding of the town on high ground nearby. The Lockyer Valley Regional Council should be thanked today for their prescient leadership. The homes of relocated residents are unaffected by the current floods whereas a number of those who did not relocate have suffered from flood damage. The NSW Government should have shown similar leadership after the March 2021 Hawkesbury-Nepean River flood. The NSW Government should now reduce flood risk by beginning to relocate the most flood-prone homes and businesses in western Sydney, starting with the 5,000 homes below the 1:100 flood return interval.

3.    Over-reliance on a small number of reservoirs for drinking water is risky. As in the 2011 floods, high sediment loads in floodwaters have shut down the key Mt Cosby Water Treatment Plant that supplies much of Brisbane’s drinking water. This treatment plant shut down, and recent droughts, highlight how over-reliance on a small number of surface reservoirs for drinking water is risky for cities as climate change exacerbates extreme events. Fortunately for Brisbane, it is able to call on the Gold Coast desalination plant and other sources to supply some water. Greater Sydney relies on Warragamba Dam for about 80 per cent of its water supply. Sydney’s drinking water supply would be more resilient if sources of drinking water were diversified. This would also allow some of Warragamba Dam’s current capacity to be kept empty to contribute to flood control.

The coastal areas of Queensland are being regularly impacted by hydrometeorological hazards including floods and cyclones, and in successive iterations the previous records are broken, captured in the State Premier’s comment regarding the current 2022 massive floods, “… it is levels that we never expected or could have forecast.”

Scientists have been consistently pointing out the increasing magnitude and frequency of hydrometeorological disaster events linked to climate change in the series of IPCC reports, strongly highlighted in the most recent 6th Assessment Report (2021). Thus, policymakers and communities in Queensland have to be prepared for and undertake more intensive planning for the growing future risk.

Coastal areas have historically been suitable for human settlement and that has led to the growth of cities such as Brisbane, and this settlement pattern generally did not have anticipatory risk avoidance considerations, given the past low-intensity hazards. While strategic land-use planning and application of revised building codes might be possible in new developments, for the existing built-up areas an expanded emergency service regime including early warning and evacuation would need to be invested in. Currently, the State Emergency Service is unable to cope with the high volume of assistance required.

The rainfall event over the past four days in SEQ is quite unusual in that the rainfall amount was huge (>700 mm) and widespread but the rainfall intensity was moderate (< 50 mm/hr typically).  

This is distinct from the 2011 event when rainfall was concentrated in the western part of the Brisbane River Basin with a much higher peak rainfall intensity. As a result, flooding this time has been much more extensive from small creeks and large rivers. The peak discharge may not be as high compared to the 2011 flood, but high flows will persist over a much longer period of time.

With each degree increase in the atmospheric temperatures, air can hold roughly 7 per cent more water vapour that is eventually available to fall as rain to the surface. This means that under future conditions which are likely to be higher than what we have seen in the past, La Niña events are likely to bring more extreme rainfall to Australia. Over the past decades we have already seen an increase in the number and intensity of extreme rainfall events and we are expecting this trend to continue into the future.

Australia is affected by a La Niña event, which is associated with increased likelihood of heavy rainfall in the Queensland wet season, such as in 2010/11. The Bureau seasonal forecast from late 2021 was for increased chances of heavy rainfall in the northern wet season across northern and eastern Australia. (See BoM Climate Outlook for December to March, 25 Nov 2021) 

The recent IPCC AR6 WG1 Regional Fact Sheet – Australasia on climate change influences on Australia concludes:   

• Heavy rainfall and river floods are projected to increase (medium confidence).  
• In Eastern Australia: Projected ... but more extreme rainfall events (medium confidence).  
• In Northern Australia: Observed increase in annual mean and heavy rainfall ... (medium confidence).  

Hence, both climate change and the occurrence of La Niña are likely to have contributed to the increased risk of heavy rainfall in SE Queensland in the current event. 
 
The difficult part is to precisely quantify the increase in risk or the contribution to the amount of rainfall, both of which are uncertain.