A new online one-stop-shop for flood risk information was made available this week to assist the community, planners and insurers to access important flood information about their local area.
In launching the National Flood Risk Information Portal with Geoscience Australia, Attorney-General and Minister for Emergency Management Nicola Roxon and Minister for Resources and Energy Martin Ferguson said the Portal will be a critical tool in our disaster preparedness kit.
“The National Flood Risk Information Portal will be a valuable resource for helping communities better prepare for flood disasters,” Ms Roxon said.
“Easy access to flood risk information will give communities and planners a better understanding of their exposure to floods, as well as assist insurers in developing fair and reasonable policies.
The proof-of-concept web service currently displays trial study areas of historical flood mapping derived from satellite imagery. The web service currently contains one low-resolution national layer as well as several high-resolution study areas.
The national layer displays a 500x500m grid showing how often water was observed in a specific location by the MODIS sensor between 2000 and 2012.
The high-resolution information, derived from Landsat-5 and mapped into a 25x25m grid is available for: Condamine River system between Condamine and Chinchilla, Queensland; Northwest Victorian rivers between Shepparton and Kerang; and North Queensland rivers, near Normanton.
Over the next two years this service will be developed into a nationwide portal to provide data on flooding which has been observed by satellite across Australia since 1987.
Minister Ferguson said the Portal is part of the $12 million, four-year National Flood Risk Information Project initiated by the Australian Government in response to the Natural Disaster Insurance Review.
Geoscience Australia will host the Portal, which will be fully developed over four years, with updates in November each year prior to the summer season.
“We are working towards a Portal that will provide a single access point through which users can see all available flood maps and studies to assess whether they are in an area at risk of flooding,” Minister Ferguson said.
“This Portal is an important step towards building a more resilient Australia, by making us better informed about disaster risk,” Ms Roxon said.
The Project directly supports implementation of the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience, which emphasises the importance of building community resilience to reducing the impact of natural disasters.
Minister Shorten welcomed the Portal as another step to providing more information to help consumers make informed decisions about insurance.
The National Flood Risk Information Portal is at www.ga.gov.au/flood-study-search/.
