Work funded under a MSE (Melbourne School of Engineering) Iconic project, 2011-2013, helped in developing new capabilities for improving expert decision-making in the domains of flooding and bushfires, through the smart of new technologies and new data sources. The project involved a large number of collaborators around the University of Melbourne and more broadly, including: Andrew Western, Matt Duckham, Bill Moran, Doreen Thomas, Allison Kealy,  Michael Stewardson,  Dongryeol Ryu,  Peter Farrell,  Stephan Winter, Marcus Brazil,  Charl Ras,  Joseph Leach, Justin Costelloe, Kevin Tolhurst,  Patrick Lane,  Kim Lowell,  Peter Taylor,  Glenn Wightwick,  Larry Smarr,  Jessica Block,  Sarah Harris,  Liam Fogarty,  Craig Lapsley, Chris Pettit,  and Geoff Earl.

NDRGS, the National Disaster Resilience Grants Scheme, funded a project “Robust Environmental Sensing for Enhanced Bushfire Risk Modelling and Prediction” 2011-2013, with chief investigators Allison Kealy, Bill Moran, Matt Duckham, Patrick Lane, and Kevin Tolhust. The NDRGS project developed sensors, networking, and data processing schemes to provide relevant, accurate, timely and trustworthy environmental information to improve the reliability of fire prediction models, laying some of the foundations for the RISER project.

NDMRI, the Natural Disaster Management Research Institute, is an initiative to support collaborative research and connect researchers in the domain of disaster management at the University of Melbourne. In particular, NDMRI supported the RISER project in developing a successful funding proposal, for which we are most grateful.

RISER works closely with ADMP, the Australia Disaster Management Platform, a collaboration between the University of Melbourne and IBM Research Australia. ADMP is building an open-standards based multi-hazard disaster management platform for helping communities to make swift, effective decisions, based on comprehensive, accurate, real-time information.