Issues in risk science: natural hazards risk assessment, an Australian perspective

Nearly twenty years ago, researchers at Macquarie University began compiling databases on natural hazards and their impacts in Australia. Tropical cyclones and floods together account for more than 70% of known natural hazard deaths since the European colonisation of Australia in 1788. Thunderstorms, particularly lightning, and bushfires each account for 11 to 13% of deaths, indicating that the other hazards considered have produced very few human deaths, at least in the last 200 years. Despite the wealth of data, deciding which part of Australia is the most hazardous is not as simple as it sounds. Similarly, determining which hazard will be the most important in the next few decades is equally difficult.