Traditional emergency risk management methodologies assess risk based on the assumption that hazards and their consequences occur discretely, for example, an earthquake or a severe storm. Such events may have cascading consequences that occur as a chain reaction following their occurrence, similar to the toppling of dominos. These types of disasters, referred to as ‘cascading events’, arise sequentially and their consequences are dependent on each other.

Events that are independent of each other but occur sequentially or simultaneously further amplify complexity and demand for emergency response and recovery resources. These events are referred to as ‘compound events’. An example of this type occurred during the 2010/11 Australian spring and summer and was comprised of a series of flood, tropical cyclone, bushfire and heatwave events that stretched the capacity of emergency services nationwide.

Utilising Risk Frontiers’ PerilAUS database which records the impacts of disaster events in Australia comprehensively since 1900, Risk Frontiers undertook an analysis to identify the frequency of compound events in Australia. This presentation will provide an overview of the analysis and provide recommendations to enhance emergency risk management methodologies to account for compound events.