Category: Built Environment & Infrastructure

Infrastructure assets and networks provide the platform for much of our human interaction, whether it be physical connectivity via roads, air, sea or rail, or telecommunications and digital connectivity or the operation of essential services like water supply and sewerage, the reliability and resilience of infrastructure assets and networks is pivotal.

The This is reflected by the State Infrastructure Strategy and the need to embed reliability and resilience as one of 9 key objectives. This extends to whole-of-lifecycle considerations including asset management and continuity planning.

The resilience of places where we live and work and their ability to stand up to different weather events and impacts is critical. How we deal with extreme heat now and into the future is a challenge, but one with many opportunities which also enhance liveability. Equipping public buildings, facilities and places to adapt to diverse conditions will enable their function across a broad set of circumstances.

Likewise, equipping our homes and properties to adapt to different circumstances and needs is also important. This may involve retrofitting and maintaining existing homes, how we design new homes to be sustainable and resilient, and how we maintain them and the surrounding property, can greatly aid their ability to withstand.

The 2015 Productivity Commission into Natural Disaster Funding Arrangements states that ‘land use planning is perhaps the most potent policy lever for influencing the level of future disaster risk’. The Planning Institute of Australia notes the benefits of a focus on disaster resilience in land use planning, including anticipating risks before they happen and developing the built form to address those risks, minimising risks to people and social and economic functions, and translating learnings from recovery to improve settlement durability (AIDR, 2020).

Adopting risk-based approaches across the spectrum of land use planning practices and processes will help arrest existing risk exposure and work to avoid unacceptable risk outcomes. Factoring in climate projections and how we adapt into the future lies at the core and approaches span the policy, strategic and development assessment spectrums.