Episode 314: Reducing Risk Before It Becomes Disaster with Emma Whale & Amanda Leck

Episode notes

What does risk really mean when the stakes are rising for entire communities?

Hello Smart Firefighting Community!

Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy.

Recorded live at the Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE) 2025 Conference alongside the AFAC, WAFA, and Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience Conference in Perth, Australia.

In this episode, Emma Whale & Amanda Leck from the New South Wales Reconstruction Authority share how they are rethinking disaster preparedness through data, community insight, and practical action. As floods, fires, and storms grow in scale and impact, the focus is shifting from reacting after the fact to making smarter decisions before disaster strikes.

From home buyback programs in high risk flood zones to long term planning that considers future population growth and climate impact, this conversation highlights what it looks like to turn data into real world outcomes. It also reinforces a hard truth, recovery is costly, and without stronger investment in mitigation, those costs will continue to climb.

At its core, this episode is about shared responsibility, leadership at every level, and ensuring that no community is left out of the conversation.

So take a listen to hear what they have to share.

Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources.

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Chapters

1. 0:00 Intro, live from Perth
2. 2:14 What risk means
3. 4:17 Turning data into decisions
4. 7:33 A tangible example: Northern Rivers buybacks
5. 9:33 Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley findings
6. 11:40 The rising cost of disasters
7. 15:34 Words to live by

Questions answered in this episode

What is the New South Wales Reconstruction Authority focused on?

Amanda Leck says the New South Wales Reconstruction Authority is focused on adaptation and mitigation to disasters, and they want to ensure their work in New South Wales is informed by good practice from around Australia.

Hear it at 1:19

How does the Reconstruction Authority define and prioritize risk?

Amanda Leck explains they focus on catastrophic risk where floods and fires are now much greater in scale. They aim to reduce these impacts to more tolerable levels through mitigation. Emma Whale adds that they look at who is exposed to natural hazards and how vulnerable they are, then work to reduce exposure or make people more resilient.

Hear it at 2:26

What is the disaster risk data and insights platform?

Emma Whale says they are pulling together hazard layers for nine hazards, an exposure database showing where people live, and vulnerability data based on socioeconomic challenges. This helps identify hotspots where multi-hazard risk is highest for the largest or most vulnerable populations and guides where to direct effort now and into the future.

Hear it at 5:03

What practical programs are in place in the Northern Rivers?

Amanda Leck describes the largest adaptation program ever conducted in Australia, with a home relocation and buyback program for close to a thousand properties in the highest risk areas of the floodplain. For homes at lower but still higher risk, they are investing in a retrofit program to make homes resilient or raising them above the possible maximum flood level.

Hear it at 8:17

How much has disaster spending been in New South Wales and what does the future look like?

Amanda Leck says that since 2019 there have been more than 110 disasters in New South Wales costing government more than $9 billion, with 20,000 homes damaged in 2022 alone. Without investment in mitigation and adaptation, disaster costs could be as high as $9 billion per year by 2060.

Hear it at 12:11

Transcript

Machine transcript of the published audio. Names may be misspelled and some sections are missing.

Ep 314 transcript

Reducing Risk Before It Becomes Disaster with Emma Whale & Amanda Leck

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Emma Whale, Amanda Leck

Source: Whisper medium.en machine transcription of the published Podbean audio (no original transcript found in Drive), lightly cleaned. Speakers were separated by voice clustering and then checked and assigned by hand at every speaker change. Gaps where the model returned no usable text are marked [inaudible m:ss].

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Welcome to our podcast mini-series, recorded live at the Institution of Fire Engineers 2025 Conference in Perth, Australia, alongside the AFAC, WAFA, and the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience Conferences. With over 28 conversations with fire chiefs, engineers, researchers and innovators, we explored how the fire and emergency community is adapting into a rapidly changing world. From climate resilience and community-led adaption, to the rise of new technologies like satellites, AI, and simple tools designed for the field, to the importance of mental health, diversity, and global collaboration, these episodes highlight the shared challenges and inspiring solutions shaping the future of safety. Enjoy. Hello, Emma Whale and Amanda Leck. Welcome to the Tim Tam arena. I know you've had to use a few times before, a novelty to me, but if you want to be Tim Tims, please, as you wish.

[0:59] Emma Whale: Thank you, it's lovely to be here.

[1:01] Amanda Leck: Yeah, good morning, great to be here.

[1:02] Kevin Sofen: Yes, and Amanda, great to have you back in the pod, and Emma, welcome. So what brings you here to the IFE conference, so in partnership with AFAC? I know you've been leading a lot of different initiatives around all things disaster preparedness, response, but tell me about some of the work that you're talking about here while at the IFE show.

[1:19] Amanda Leck: Yeah, so the New South Wales Reconstruction Authority is really focused on adaptation and mitigation to disasters and so we're here to learn from others that are working in this area. There's some really good practice going on around Australia and we want to make sure that what we're doing in New South Wales is informed by that good practice. I've only just arrived but Emma had the benefit yesterday of being here and hearing from some really great speakers.

[1:44] Emma Whale: Yeah I might just add to that I think one of the things that is a real takeaway is a renewed focus on data informed understanding of what our risk is and I think it's been really interesting to hear NEMA and other state governments talking about the importance of using data to really understand where our risk is and that's something that we're really focused on in the Reconstruction Authority for New South Wales as well.

[2:07] Kevin Sofen: So I've asked this to one or two other people in the conversations here obviously the term risk comes up a lot within the context of both engineering and response. It's kind of a simple question but again having a child that makes me continue to think about just sometimes you just ask why or what, but in your words, what is risk?

[2:26] Amanda Leck: Well, you know, the official definition is around likelihood and consequence. And, you know, there's an international standard for risk management, ISO 31000, if people want to look that up. But really what we're focused on is more catastrophic risk. So, you know, we live with risk all the time in our lives. Every time you make a decision to cross a road, you know, you're taking a risk-based decision. What we're seeing in Australia is increasing disasters off much greater scale. So floods that were, you know, maybe lapping at people's boundary fence and the like are now floods that are putting water over the floorboards in their homes, you know, severe storms. We're seeing catastrophic bushfires. And so the risk is increasing for communities. And what we're trying to do is work on mitigation that will reduce those catastrophic risk impacts to more tolerable levels of risk. And to do that, we're looking at what mitigation measures can we put in at scale across all communities to bring that risk profile down so that people can live with the impacts that we're seeing, you know, of the climate.

[3:33] Emma Whale: Yeah, I might just add to that too, to say that, you know, we know that we live with natural hazards in our communities. We have rivers, you know, we have the potential for bushfire, we have earthquake, you know, all of those things will occur. But what we're interested in is, when those things do occur, who is exposed and how vulnerable are they to that exposure? So then that leads into, well, what can we do about it? Can we, you know, reduce exposure? Can we move people away from the natural hazard disaster? Can we make them more resilient when those things occur? And so I think for us, really looking at risk in that terms of, you know, who was exposed, how are they vulnerable? And then what can we do in that intersection to really reduce what that risk looks like?

[4:17] Kevin Sofen: And then it seems like you mentioned, we live with risk every day. We decide to cross the street, we decide to get into a car, I'm getting on a plane later, all these things that's this living with risk, but then using data and data to inform our understanding of risk to then help us make better decisions before, during and after these of potential events happen, this concept of living with risk and using data to help kind of populate and tell a story, I'm curious as to both of your takes on how data helps us turn ones and zeros into a colored story that allows us to just make better decisions whether you're a individual homeowner or whether you are a fire department trying to figure out how to best deliver services.

[5:03] Emma Whale: So what we're working on at the RA is a disaster risk data and insights platform. And what we're doing is we're pulling together all the different kind of hazard layers that we've got across the nine hazards that we're looking at, as well as an exposure database that tells us where do people live, how many cars have they got, et cetera. And then we're overlaying that with vulnerability in terms of using Adri, who is more vulnerable because of pre-existing socioeconomic challenges, et cetera. And what that's allowing us to do is to identify where are these hotspots? Where are the areas where we know that the multi-hazard risk is highest for the largest amount of people or the most vulnerable people? And that's gonna help us understand where we need to direct our effort. And I think it's really important to understand what that looks like in a multi-hazard world, but also when you start overlaying climate change, population growth, what does it look like 20 years, 30 years, you know, 50, 60 years time, because what we wanna do is not, first of all, make decisions now that help people who are already at existing risk, but also not make any decisions that are gonna be worse down the track. So if we know we've gotta have population growth, we know that people need places to live, but we don't wanna put them in places where, in 20 years time, there's going to be a really increased risk in that location either. So that's how we're really looking at using that data to inform what we do now and also what we do into the future?

[6:32] Amanda Leck: Yeah, look, I think as Emma said, we know that we have to prioritise our efforts as fire departments, as emergency services agencies, and for the New South Wales Reconstruction Authority, we can't take this approach of everyone's at risk and we need to put in place strategies and mitigations for everyone. We know that for the general population, if they receive a warning, most people will choose to take action. But where we want to focus our efforts, as Emma said, for those people that are the most vulnerable to the hazard, and that might be because they're aged or because they're caring for young children or they have a disability. So where are the people that are most vulnerable to the hazard and where is the hazard risk the greatest for those people? And therefore we can prioritise our preparedness efforts to those locations. We can prioritise our risk mitigation efforts to those people so that we're making sure that the most vulnerable in our community stay safe. And that's really where our focus has to be.

[7:33] Kevin Sofen: And now I'd like to hear sort of maybe what that means in a granular, tangible level. I mean, you just talked about, again, the most vulnerable populations and ways that we can support their needs. But again, taking this data and using it to enable the disaster adoption planning for the before, during, and after. Is there any sort of like example or case study that you can give me in terms of, again, like whether it's where the buildings are located or again, where are we placing the fire department or where, how do we improve response time? I'm just kind of throwing out random examples but I'd love to know any sort of tangible example of data now leading to a tangible new way of doing something to better support most vulnerable populations or various at-risk populations.

[8:17] Amanda Leck: Yeah, I'll talk about our experience in the Northern Rivers where we have a disaster adaptation plan underway that's a multi-hazard disaster adaptation plan, so it's looking at things like fires and floods and storms and cyclone and coastal erosion and the like. But we know there are areas in the northern rivers that have the highest flood risk. And so what we are doing in a practical way there is we are investing in the largest adaptation program ever conducted in Australia with a home relocation program and a home buyback program. So we've brought back close to a thousand properties that are in the highest risk part of the floodplain and those properties that may not have as greater risk but still have a higher risk, we're investing in a retrofit program where we're retrofitting those homes with resilient measures or we're raising those homes above the possible maximum flood level. So we see that as a really practical example of trying to assist homeowners to reduce their risk in place. So that's just one example of program we're running. In the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley, Emma and colleagues have been working on a disaster adaptation plan now for a few years and that foundation DAP has just been delivered to government and I'll let Emma tell you a bit more about what they found through that process.

[9:36] Emma Whale: Yeah, so what we're looking at through the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley DAP is really ways to reduce flood risk, both to reduce damages and reduce risk to life. So through that process, we've done a whole lot of analysis on interventions, everything from improved evacuation infrastructure to, you know, levies to hold the water back to different ways of operating Warragamba. dam, which is a dam that is currently for water security. If we were to use it for flood mitigation, what would that look like? And what would the implications be? And I think another really important part of that is that we've done deep community engagement through that process. So we're actually able to understand the values that people hold. And one example is, if we were to put a levy to protect one community, you know, is there any appetite to then live with the fact that it may cause additional flooding to a community further downstream. We found that through this process that no, absolutely not, there was no appetite to cause any disbenefit to another community through a benefit to one community, which was a really interesting insight that we were then able to build in our decision making process. And another really interesting thing that we found through what we're calling it's the regional risk based planning approach, which is essentially a valley wide framework for how we're going to develop in the future. And you know, we have pockets of places where people already live, as Amanda said, you know, with incredibly high risk, but they've adapted to that. And so one of the things that is a really interesting case study is that there's a person and we've interviewed him and got his insights, which has been really interesting. He has magnetic skirting boards. So when he knows a floods coming, his whole bottom story of his house is concrete, he lifts everything up, takes the skirting boards off, lets it flood. Soon as the floods over, he washes it all out, puts the skirting boards back on and puts all his furniture back. And so they're just some ways that people are adapting to that risk and home modification is one of the, you know, an element that we're also going to be looking at with pockets of the community to, if we can't reduce the risk, how do we help them adapt?

[11:40] Kevin Sofen: So one other final question before our final comments is kind of like this, you mentioned the building levy, and then you mentioned these different tools, again, of the home adaptations, which is great. But just like this general cost of disasters, I mean, I think it's, as time goes on, whether it's inflation or just the magnitude of stuff, you can hear these record numbers of stuff. Has the cost of disasters gone up? And I don't know, it just seems like it's sometimes hard to fathom the true numbers and everything, but anything you could touch on in terms of like the cost of disasters, where we're at, and where are we really at now?

[12:11] Amanda Leck: Yeah, so in Australia, historically, 97% of all disaster funding been spent on recovery and only 3% on mitigation. And while that is changing a little bit, it needs to change at greater scale. So we need to invest more in mitigation and adaptation so that disasters don't have the impacts that we've seen, particularly in recent years, and those costs of recovery over time will reduce. So just to give you an idea of scale, since 2019 in New South Wales there's been more than 110 disasters costing government more than $9 billion with 20,000 homes damaged alone in 2022. And we know through the work we've done for the State Disaster Mitigation Plan that those hazard costs or those disasters costs out to 2060 could be as high as $9 billion per year if we don't really invest in mitigation and adaptation measures. And so what we're trying to do in New South Wales through the disaster adaptation planning process is work with regions across New South Wales to develop their own disaster adaptation plan, which, as Emma said, involves really deep and strong community engagement to really understand what communities value in place, what risks they're prepared to tolerate and what practical actions we can take to reduce the risks that we've described. So it could be as simple things as, you know, retrofitting your home with the magnetic floor of magnetic skirting boards and having it that you can wash out after a flood. It could be raising your home up above the flood level. It could be in a bushfire zone making sure that you're clearing the fuels around your property so that the impacts of that bushfire are not as great on your home or retrofitting it with mesh window guards and the like so that the bushfire is not as likely to burn your home down. So there are many things that households can do, that individuals can do, that councils can do, that state and federal governments can do. And we talk about disaster resilience being a shared responsibility in Australia. And it's about everyone knowing which particular actions they can take and they are responsible to take, and then all working collaboratively to deliver the outcome that we're looking for.

[14:34] Emma Whale: Yeah, I think the real key with the disaster adaptation planning process is that we are looking to reduce the risk where we can mitigate and help communities adapt where we can't. And ultimately it's about reducing the burden on response and recovery. And the only way that we can do that is by really investing in mitigation and adaptation and the plans that we're putting in place are a real guide for investment, for land use planning recommendations to make sure that we are actually helping our communities be as safe as they can be.

[15:07] Kevin Sofen: Well, major kudos and thank you for all the work that you both continue to lead. And as I know, we all have to be somewhere here in a little bit, but the final thing I'd like to ask both of you is just within the work that you do, whether it's within everything in the disaster preparedness response side and the research side and applying into the daily life, is there any quote or mentor, words of wisdom that comes to mind that continues to keep you going as you're doing this work or any sort of thought or words of wisdom quote that you could share with us today?

[15:39] Emma Whale: I think for me, it's probably a value around everybody needs to be at the table to have these conversations. And something that I often tell my team is that if we're having a conversation to look around and ask who isn't part of the conversation and who needs to be. And I think it's really important when we're trying to hear from Aboriginal or First Nations people, culturally and linguistically diverse people with disabilities, if they're not at the table having these discussions around what is going to work for the whole community, then we're lesser for it. So I think for me, it's probably that value and principle that I take forward into the work and really try to embed that in what we're doing.

[16:21] Amanda Leck: I think this is a tough question. Look, for me, it's about leadership. And I think it's about leadership at every level, just because you hold a title in an organization, it doesn't make you a leader. So it's about how we show up for people. So from the Reconstruction Authority perspective, we are leading on this disaster adaptation planning, but to Emma's point, we need everyone to show up at that table. So whether you are a leader within council, a leader within your community, a leader within your school, everyone needs to come to the table and everyone needs to show up and everyone needs to understand the risks we are facing as a community, particularly as I said, Australia is seeing these impacts of climate change. I know it's happening across the world, but we are really starting to see these impacts accelerate and governments, no matter of any level, can't solve this problem on their own. We all need to show up at the table. We all need to show leadership in our communities, with our families, whatever role we have in life, in business, we need the business community on board with us, we need the academic research community on board with us. You know, this is a problem we can solve if we all work together.

[17:39] Kevin Sofen: Amanda and Emma, thank you both for what you're doing. I look forward to stay in touch and have a great rest of your IFE AFAC show.

[17:45] Amanda Leck: Thanks so much.

[17:46] Emma Whale: Thank you.

[17:49] Kevin Sofen: And that's a wrap for this episode of the Smart Firefighting podcast. If you found value in this conversation, hit like, leave a comment, share it to someone and tell us what you enjoyed most. Take care and thanks for listening.