Quantifying storm tide risk in Cairns

The United Nations International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) gave rise to an increasing level of attention to the risks posed by a range of natural hazards and the development of strategies by which to reduce those risks. It was widely recognised that in order to evaluate risk treatment strategies it was necessary to 'measure' the level of risk that already existed and the level of risk that would be encountered with the treatment strategy(s) in place. This paper outlines the methodology developed under the AGSO (now Geoscience Australia) Cities Project to quantify the risk associated with storm tide inundation. It includes the methodology for 'measuring' the level of community exposure to storm tide hazards and the methodology for 'measuring' community vulnerability. The Far North Queensland city of Cairns is used as the case study to demonstrate the application of these methods.