Transcript Geographical names and disaster management,

Recent experiences in Australia and New Zealand
Scope Of Events
 2009 Victorian Bushfires – 9th worst in the world – 183
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deaths
2010 – 2011 – Queensland Floods & Cyclone – over 45
deaths, 200 000 people affected – 75% of State affected –
extensive damage to infrastructure, homes and businesses
2011 – Victorian Floods – 2 deaths – 3000 people evacuated
– 33% of State flooded – extensive damage to homes and
farms
2011 – Western Australian bushfires and floods
2011 – Tasmanian Floods
2011 – New South Wales Floods
2011 – Christchurch earthquake – over 130 deaths extensive damage to buildings and infrastructure
Use of Place Names
Used in the following context
 Disaster management
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Location identification
Forecasting impacts
Resource deployment
Initial relief grants
Recovery
 Community support
Use of Place Names
 Positive Outcomes
 Data availability and contents
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The New Zealand gazetteer and each jurisdictional data in Australia
is available to and widely used by emergency services.
For major toponyms, this data was more than suitable
 Community Geographic Domain Names
 Established for many communities immediately after the disaster, or
were in existence.
 19 sites used in the Queensland floods
 4 established specifically for the Victorian floods, other previously
established after 2009 Victorian bushfires
 Rural Addresses
 Distance based addressing system provided accurate coordinates of
properties as well as an address for other purposes
Marysville, Victoria
Marysville.vic.au
–
set
up
immediately after
the
2009
bushfires
to
provide
a
community focus
to assist in the
recovery efforts
Use of Place Names
 Improvements needed
 Database Integrity and Integration
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Official Gazetteers vs. mapping datasets
Western Australia – fully integrated into spatial data systems compared
with other States where this has not occurred to the same level
 Micro toponyms not well represented
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Not enough of the locally used names were in the databases.
A recent study for a linguistic thesis in very small portion of South
Australia found of the 230 place names studies, only 12 were listed in the
State Gazetteer
 Address creation / education
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Christchurch does not have defined suburb boundaries – address
confusion
Lack of use of the official addresses by residents in Victorian and
Queensland delayed the grants program – need to establish education
processes