UNHaRMED: Improved Decision Support for Natural Hazard Risk Reduction
Researchers at the University of Adelaide’s Environmental Institute, funded by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre have designed a system to help avert future catastrophic disasters.
Image from Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC
UNHaRMED, which stands for Unified Natural Hazard Risk Mitigation Exploratory Decision support system, is an interactive modelling platform designed to support policy makers in considering the long term impacts of disaster risk, mitigation and land use planning.
These include hazards such as coastal inundation, riverine floods, bushfires, earthquakes and heatwaves, land use change, building stock vulnerability, social vulnerability, climate change, demographic and population change and economic change.
It also allows for the implementation of risk reduction options, including structural measures, land use planning changes, building hardening, changes to building codes and community education, thereby changing social vulnerability.
UNHaRMED is led by Professor Holger Maier, in collaboration with Dr Aaron Zecchin, Adjunct Associate and Professor Hedwig van Delden.
Holger Maier is Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of Adelaide. He is a recognised expert in natural hazard risk mitigation, risk and uncertainty analysis, strategic planning under uncertainty, decision support, and climate change impact assessment and adaptation. Holger has been the Research Leader of the Economics and Strategic Decisions research cluster of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre since its inception, which received the CRC’s Outstanding Achievement in Research Award in 2017.