Climate Change and Heatwave Project: Identification of high-risk areas across the City of Greater Geelong

This research aims to build the Capacity and Capability of the Barwon Regional Partnership Councils to prepare for, respond to and minimise the consequences of Emergency Events on their communities. Climate scientists advise that extreme weather events are likely to increase in frequency and intensity under future climate change scenarios. Under a business as usual approach, emergency response and recovery costs will increase dramatically and communities will experience significant disruptions to their services and economies. An important role for the Victorian Government is to assist councils and communities to adapt to climate change impacts by building knowledge and systems of preparedness. It is critical that local governments prepare for the increases in extreme weather that are already occurring. Councils’ emergency management responsibilities and activities are a key component of Victoria’s emergency management system, and councils are often a conduit between state government agencies, local communities, not-for-profit organisations and service providers. The southeast of Australia stands out as being at increased risk from many extreme weather events, including heatwaves. Therefore this research project is intended to provide a better understanding of the impacts that Climate Change and Heatwaves will have on the urban communities across the City of Greater Geelong. To be able to provide critical information for decision making, a new 2D and 3D GIS based digital scenario model, previously developed by the Live+Smart Research Lab, was applied to undertake heatwave vulnerability scenario modelling and analysis across 57 suburbs of the City of Greater Geelong.