People feel more secure knowing there’s a levee nearby - but this can backfire, leading to more development on floodplains. Australia needs to tackle the incentives behind these risky developments.
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Articles on Lismore
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Again, thousands of residents in Western Sydney face a life-threatening flood disaster. Obviously, nature is a major culprit – but other drivers are also at play.
Flood clusters are not unknown - but what’s new about the floods hitting Lismore is the unprecented height.
Residents and businesses are considering leaving Lismore for good. The town is now on the brink.
Barnaby Joyce, in his usual blunt fashion, told a TV interviewer on Wednesday morning Scott Morrison would get a bad reception when he visited Lismore.
The urge to create, or donate to, crowdfunding campaigns in a crisis is understandable. But it’s worth asking: who can succeed in crowdfunding, and who gets left behind?
How does this compare to Australia’s previous floods? And can we expect more frequent floods at this scale under climate change? The answers aren’t straightforward.
As someone who lost pretty much everything in the 2011 Brisbane floods and then led a study on community responses to those floods, I have some insights on what helps – and what doesn’t.
Several factors converge in this region to produce significant risk. The tentacles of this particular outbreak might be more far-reaching, so it’s crucial we get testing numbers up.
Top contributors
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Honorary Professor of Hazards and Disaster Risk Sciences, University of Sydney
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Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
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ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century, Australian National University
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Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Southern Cross University
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ARC DECRA Fellow, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne
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Adjunct Professor in Geography, Southern Cross University
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Lecturer in Social Inquiry, La Trobe University
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Chair in Epidemiology, Deakin University
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Associate Professor in Peace and Conflict Studies, The University of Queensland
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Research Fellow, Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University
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Associate Professor of Geography, The University of Melbourne
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Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, The University of Melbourne
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Lecturer in climate science and science communication, The University of Melbourne
