Flood risk management in Australia: Building flood resilience in a changing climate

This report provides a review of flood risk management in Australia and highlights successes, lessons learned and continuing challenges. It is part of a series on Building Flood Resilience in a Changing Climate, with a focus on mature economies (the U.S., England, Germany, Australia and Canada). It points to the need for a paradigm shift from reacting to crises towards a risk-based, anticipatory, holistic and all-of-society approach to managing the potential impacts of catastrophes.

The Geneva Association has undertaken this study to take a deeper look at the evolution of flood risk management (FRM), offering a holistic, multi-stakeholder, forward-looking review of FRM. Special attention is given to mapping the evolution of governance, institutional frameworks and the interplay of different components of FRM, including risk assessment, risk communication and awareness, risk reduction, risk prevention, risk financing, risk transfer (e.g. insurance and alternative risk transfer) and reconstruction measures. Trends and patterns are identified, although the study did not set out to draw comparisons among the five countries.