Water Challenge winners creating a climate-resilient Australia

The third annual Australia-Netherlands Water Challenge was held earlier this year — the result of a knowledge exchange partnership initiated between Australia and the Netherlands following the Queensland floods in 2011.

The competition challenged ambitious students and young professionals from across Australia to contribute their own ideas for a more climate-resilient Australia. The four best teams were invited to present their ideas at the Floodplain Management Association National Conference in front of 400 flood management experts and a jury chaired by Dutch Consul-General Willem Cosijn.

There were two winning teams: UNSW students Tom Perfrement and Tracey Lloyd, the creators of a ‘Resilience Index’ to make resilience more measurable; and University of Wollongong graduates Raymond Laine and Ashlee Clarke, who presented the online tool ‘CoastalEngage’, which is aimed at involving local communities with important trade-offs and decisions relating to coastal development.

Speaking on behalf of the UNSW team, Perfrement said, “To define and pinpoint what resilience is and how it can be measured was a good topic for exploration. A number of standards and indicators exist for gauging resilience but there is currently no consensus for a quantitative measurement.”

The Resilience Index takes into account community factors such as the social, economic and natural environment and combines them to create a ‘resilience’ score out of 100. Communities can then use this score to evaluate their risk and target strategies to improve preparedness.

The winning teams will be undergoing a special traineeship over the coming six months, including a three-week program in Amsterdam to develop their projects and participation in Amsterdam International Water Week 2015 (2-6 November).