Hazard Man-Made

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Geoscience Australia’s Community Safety team supports Australia’s ability to manage the impact of Man-Made hazards and helps inform decisions about risk.

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Our role

We develop, refine and utilise a capability for the estimation of the financial losses associated with terrorist blasts and chemical or biological plume releases in Australian business districts.

We operate nuclear monitoring capability which provides around the clock monitoring, analysis and alerting of significant underground, underwater or atmospheric activity to fulfill our contribution towards the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

To help understand what could be at threat, we provide exposure information about buildings, demographics, community infrastructure and agricultural commodities.

We also provide around the clock access to data about people, property and infrastructure potentially exposed during an event. Our information aids in providing an understanding of the situation to targeted preparedness, response and recovery efforts.

Our products, tools and data provide a better understanding of hazard vulnerabilities for all sectors to plan, prepare and reduce exposure to natural and man-made hazards improving community safety now and into the future.

Emerging capabilities

We engage with different sectors to provide assessments and address new challenges as they emerge.

  • We provide information that will help assess the environmental impacts of resource extraction

  • Our Researchers are committed to growing our knowledge base to prepare for challenges of the future.

  • We have a strong attendance at conferences and events to maintain awareness of the challenges faced by the community safety sector and keep up to date with latest science.

  • Our open-source data is accessed by developers interested in solving operational challenges of reducing vulnerability and exposure to hazards.

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Case study Estimating terrorism loss in Australian cities

How Geoscience Australia used computational modelling to estimate the financial losses associated with terrorist blasts and chemical or biological plume releases.

Dr Christopher Wallace, ARPC CEO

Our world-class terrorism modelling capabilities are vital to understanding the physical damage and financial losses from a terrorist attack in Australia.

Dr Christopher Wallace

ARPC CEO