Making up more than 90% of Australasia’s land area, Australia is the driest continent permanently inhabited by humans – and it’s getting hotter by the year.
This session focused on how to manage the threats posed to infrastructure by a climate that’s extremely hot and dry.
The 14th Brunel International Lecture Series was produced by the ICE and the International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure (ICSI).
This nine-leg programme highlighted infrastructure challenges around the world and discussed how the engineering community could help to tackle them.
The eighth session of the series focused on Australasia.
The Lord Mayor of Hobart, Anna Reynolds, gave the keynote address. This was followed by a panel discussion chaired by Professor Anusha Shah, the ICE’s President for 2023-24.
The panellists were:
- Thomas Lee, director at MCE and a former director of project engineering and design at Sydney Metro
- Michelle Meaclem, civil engineer at Tonkin & Taylor and co-lead of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations’ global young engineers’ working group on climate action
- Harry Stonehill, head of engineering and design at AtkinsRéalis Australia and New Zealand
Australasia in numbers
30%
Rise in the risk of intense fire weather in Australia caused by human-derived climate change since 1900
30,000
Number of people told to leave their homes in the state of Victoria in late February 2024 to flee what the Bureau of Meteorology called “extreme to catastrophic fire dangers”
65%
Proportion of electricity generated from fossil fuels in Australia during 2023
Sources: World Weather Attribution; CNN; Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
What are the challenges?
The seemingly simple task of splitting the world into regions can be a risky affair. Australasia is a controversial geopolitical term that’s considered obsolete and imprecise in certain quarters.
This region is broadly understood to include Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and their nearby islands.
And yet there has never been a universally agreed definition of the territories it covers.
But it will, by any interpretation, always include Tasmania. This island state of Australia is itself surrounded by hundreds of smaller islands over which it has authority.
The keynote speaker for the Australasia leg of the 14th Brunel International Lecture Series, Anna Reynolds, is Lord Mayor of Tasmania’s capital, Hobart.
She highlighted some of the specific climate-related risks affecting the state and its people in recent years.
The most serious of these is the growing frequency and intensity of extremely hot days and bushfire conditions. It’s estimated that these will be 40% more common in 2050 than they are at present.
Tasmania’s bushfire season, which already runs from October through to March, will get longer.
The average number of days presenting the highest level of danger each year is also set to increase.
A ‘green volcano’
The climate, ecology and landscape of Hobart combine to make the city particularly vulnerable to bushfires.
The capital sits on the lower Derwent River in a valley surrounded by mountainous terrain.
Much of this is covered in dry forest dominated by hard-leafed vegetation known as sclerophyll. This includes eucalyptus trees, which contain highly flammable oil.
North-westerly winds are common here during the Tasmanian summer. Blowing down through the valley, they’re especially effective at fanning the flames of bushfires, making them incredibly intense and hard to control.
“This area is like a playground for our city,” Reynolds said. “But I’ve heard some people describe it as a green volcano.”
Other climate-related problems facing Hobart include urban heat islands, where built-up areas become significantly warmer than the surrounding land. These pose a significant health risk during long periods of hot, dry weather.
Research published in The Journal of Climate Change and Health's May-June 2024 issue found an 8% increase in human mortality attributable to heatwaves in Tasmania between 2010 and 2018.
When the rain eventually returns to cool things down, it often comes in storms so intense that it causes flash flooding.
The local vegetation and strong summer winds combine to make Tasmania particularly vulnerable to bushfires (credit: iStock/slovegrove)
Sustainable Development Goals:
Linking our work back to the UN SDGs is a core part of the ICE’s plan and mission. This article ties in with the following SDGs:
What is happening now?
Engaging the public
Reynolds outlined a range of measures that Hobart City Council has been taking to manage the risk posed by bushfires in and around the capital.
It employs a fire and biodiversity team of about a dozen people who specialise in limiting the spread of blazes.
Its job isn’t to fight fires, she stressed. Instead, it works to “prepare our bushland by creating firebreaks, maintaining trails so that the Tasmania Fire Service can get in and out quickly”.
The team manages so-called fuel-reduction burns. These are controlled low-intensity fires, set during cooler periods, designed to remove ground vegetation that could help bushfires to spread if it were allowed to remain in the summer.
Another key measure has been to ensure that everyone knows the dangers and what they can do to protect themselves.
This has included knocking on doors in particularly fire-prone areas, alerting residents to issues such as the risk to their properties posed by wind-blown embers.
Reynolds noted that a bushfire entering a densely housed area of Hobart could have “devastating impacts, not only on people’s livelihoods but also on the city’s economy”.
Influencing early-stage decision-making
Michelle Meaclem described some of the important work that Tonkin & Taylor has been doing to ensure the resilience and sustainability of infrastructure throughout New Zealand.
She highlighted a framework that her firm has developed called “purposeful decisions principles”.
It aims to help decision-makers, not only at Tonkin & Taylor but also at its partners and suppliers, to plan projects in the most integrated and ethical ways.
Meaclem explained that “this guidance allows us to make decisions based on a holistic and long-term view of likely sustainability impacts”.
The framework has helped project planners to consider the interests of “indigenous communities, including supporting reconciliation with Aboriginal Torres Strait Islanders, while aligning to the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi” – the historic 1840 treaty in which the Crown acknowledged Māori land rights in New Zealand.
Thomas Lee outlined some of the potential gains that civil engineers can achieve by working closely with indigenous communities from the start of infrastructure projects.
“We need to listen to our younger engineers and incorporate the contributions of traditional owners of the land,” he said.
“Collaborations such as these can provide significant benefits for both communities and infrastructure projects.”
What changes are needed?
Financing resilient and sustainable infrastructure
Harry Stonehill described some of the obstacles facing renewable energy projects in Australia.
He noted that coal remains by far the biggest source of electricity generated for the national grid.
The transition to green energy will require significant investments in storage systems, transmission infrastructure and training programmes, as Australia has a skills shortage in this area. But this will require a shift of mindset from potential funders, he added.
“There is a clear plan to withdraw from coal. However, investors do not have great confidence in the return on investment from renewables,” Stonehill said.
He added that the public sector could be more supportive in unlocking such funding.
Reynolds noted that Hobart City Council has been working under considerable financial constraints.
Less than 4% of the total tax revenue generated in Australia goes directly to local government – a situation that needs to change, she argued.
System-level change
All of the participants suggested ways to overcome the barriers holding back the development of resilient and sustainable infrastructure in Australasia.
Lee argued that designing for resilience doesn’t require a radical change of approach – a system-level shift in thinking is all that’s required.
Resilient thinking is already rooted in engineering practice. It’s an everyday activity – carried out as part of a climate-change risk assessment, for instance.
“The key is not to leave the findings of that assessment sitting on the shelf,” he said. “It’s imperative to turn these into requirements and design them into your infrastructure.”
Meaclem recommended working more proactively with policymakers and forming ethical infrastructure plans in partnership with local communities – including marginalised peoples.
This approach helps to integrate their interests into the decision-making process.
Reynolds argued that the authorities must lead by example with inclusive, equitable policymaking and so send a strong message about its value.
“As a government, we believe that incentives and programmes are very important,” she said. “But it’s critical to think about how we can regulate to ensure that the rules are really clear for everybody and ensure there’s a level playing field when tackling the issue of climate change.”
- Amanda Rice, ICE climate programme specialist
Related links
- ICE infrastructure blog: Australia makes the most of renewables, and New Zealand invests in transport
- ICE community blog: ICE president talks skills shortage and climate change in Australasia
- ICE infrastructure blog: 4 ways New Zealand strengthened its strategy for delivering infrastructure goals
- ICE infrastructure blog: New resilience guidelines from Australia