Global change, population growth and economic development are placing significant pressure on communities. Research in this theme seeks to assist communities to prepare for, and respond to, shocks and stresses, such as extreme weather events, health crises, and environmental degradation.
Learn more about the active projects under this theme.
Community Resilience
Building community resilience to coastal climate hazards
By working with community members, NGOs and state and local government agencies across three states (Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales), this research seeks to generate new knowledge to guide the delivery of targeted support to communities: empowering at-risk neighbourhoods to prepare and respond to natural disasters and other social-ecological changes.
Year: 2024—2027
Funding body: Australian Research Council DECRA
Researchers: Carmen Elrick-Barr
Contact: Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr
Building an effective forest health and biosecurity network in SE Asia
The research initiative involves scientists across Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam creating a coordinated network to share biosecurity knowledge, technologies and management strategies. Increased trade, travel and a changing climate are increasing pest threats to South-East Asian forest, and coordinated response can increase biosecurity capacity and protect the future of the region’s forests. The SRC brings expertise in Gender and Community engagement to this project, led by the Forestry Research Institute, UniSC.
Year: 2024—2027
Funding body: ACIAR
Researchers: Simon Lawson, Medline Healey, Harriot Beazley and Russel Warman
Contact: Associate Professor Harriot Beazley
MISTRA Environmental Communication Research Programme
This a four-year research project, in its second phase, is based in Sweden and implemented by an international consortium. The overarching aim is to mainstream an advanced and inclusive understanding of environmental communication in research, policy and practice such that it can effectively underpin and foster sustainability transformations.
Year: 2024—2027
Researchers: Marcus Bussey
Contact: Dr Marcus Bussey
Policy impact on community perceptions of resilience, adaptation intentions and wellbeing
This project aims to examine the impact of a novel and emerging policy response to climate change and disasters on community resilience and wellbeing. Through an interpretive paradigm and qualitative research methods, the multidisciplinary team will engage with householders participating in a pilot program aimed at building household level resilience to the impacts of climate change through property investment (such as home retrofit and raising) and committing to a partnership with local government to build their communities resilience. It involves close collaboration with researchers from the Queensland University of Technology, and the City of Moreton Bay and the Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ).
Year: 2025—2026
Funding body: UniSC Launch Partnership
Researchers: Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr, Dr Dan Wadsworth, Dr Annah Piggott-McKellar (QUT)
Contact: Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr
Co-designed Futures
A New Vision for Coastal Resilience: Engaging Communities through Art to Design a Transformative Future
The project explores new methods to engage with coastal communities to envision innovative solutions for a more resilient coastal future. Coastal communities are encouraged to express their desired future using arts-based approaches. The artworks will be coupled with the team’s knowledge of coastal processes, policy and economics to create a design brief, that Landscape Architecture students will use to generate designs. The team will explore the viability of using this novel, interdisciplinary approach to generate community visions as decision support for coastal adaptation.
Year: 2023—2025
Researchers: Associate Professor Natasha Pauli (UWA) (Lead), Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr, Associate Professor Abbie Rogers (UWA), Dan Jan Martin (UWA), Rosie Halsmith (UWA), Dr Michael Cutler (UWA) and Dr Arnold van Rooijan (UWA)
Contact: Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr