@article {bnh-3355, title = {Futures Greater Adelaide 2050: An exploration of disaster risk and the future}, number = {243}, year = {2017}, month = {01/2017}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Natural disaster risk is a combination of the natural hazard, exposure\ and vulnerability. As a result when considering future disaster risk and planning to minimise it, the uncertainty and complexity of each factor must be considered. Influencing factors on the three components of risk include political decisions, economic development, technological advancement, demographic changes and changing climate, many of which are mutually influential as well. The uncertainty and complexity that arise from these factors are critical to understand when considering long term disaster risk reduction planning, especially when planning decisions can have long lasting influence and large expense.

In an attempt to characterise, understand and subsequently make better decisions under these conditions the BNHCRC funded project {\textquotedblleft}Decision Support System (DSS) for Assessment of Policy \& Planning Investment Options for Optimal Natural Hazard Mitigation{\textquotedblright}, was initiated. For Greater Adelaide the project looks to develop an integrated spatial DSS to model long term changes in risk and subsequently assist decision makers plan and implement disaster risk reduction policies and investments.\  Incorporated with the development of the prototype software package is a facilitated stakeholder engagement process informing the development and then subsequent use of the system.

In September 2014 the first stage of this process was completed with results documented in Van Delden et al. (2015). The second phase, of which this report documents, incorporated the development of exploratory scenarios\ to better understand relevant uncertainties, develop strategic capacity in decision makers to consider uncertainties impacting on policies and provide a better understanding of the value and use of the developed DSS.

The process looked to discover critical elements relevant to disaster risk reduction\ and consider how they change into the future. As a method for exploring the future, scenarios were developed considering the changes from 2013 to 2050. Five alternate futures for Greater Adelaide were developed by members of SA{\textquoteright}s State Mitigation Advisory Group (SMAG), assisted by the scenarios team at the University of Adelaide and Research Institute for Knowledge Systems. These were subsequently modelled and results of the qualitative and quantitative scenarios will be presented in this report.

}, issn = {243}, author = {Graeme Riddell and Hedwig van Delden and Graeme Dandy and Holger Maier and Aaron Zecchin and Jeffrey Newman and Charles Newland} }