Dr Aaron Opdyke has received an Early Career Researcher Development Grant (AUD 50,000) from the Faculty of Engineering. The funding will support new research that will examine how local knowledge can enhance engineering flood models to transform disaster risk assessments. The one-year project will compare individual household perceptions, community-based assessments, and engineering models in the Municipality of Carigara, located in the Philippines.
The project, Transforming Disaster Risk Assessments at the Nexus of Local Knowledge and Engineering Tools, builds on an existing dataset in Carigara, where a household survey of flood hazards covering 2,162 households – around 20 per cent of the municipality’s population – has already been collected and more than 400 residents have taken part in community workshops mapping flood hazards. These hand-drawn community assessments will be digitised and compared against flood inundation models built from drone photogrammetry, census records, and historical weather and river gauge data – producing three flood hazard assessments for each household that can be weighed against one another: individual, community, and engineering.