Words: Varun Godinho 

Remote Northern Territory communities, which often struggle with disaster waste and restoration management plans, may finally find some reprieve thanks to a new project by researchers at Charles Darwin University (CDU). 

In the aftermath of natural disasters, communities are faced with issues including hazardous waste management, slow pace of recovery operations and displacement of those whose homes are impacted. 

A three-year project pioneered by the CDU has received a federal grant to the tune of $365,876 through the Australian Government’s Disaster Ready Fund to develop Disaster Waste Management (DWM). 

The funding will help the university devise plans for three remote NT communities to develop their DWM plans. The project is expected to commence this month and will produce a framework to manage waste from disasters such as cyclones, fire, flooding, earthquakes, storms and tsunamis.

The need for robust DWM frameworks 

A lack of DWM plans results in slow and costly recovery for the government, as well as adverse health and social impacts on the community’s residents.

The university says its project will increase risk understanding by developing predictive models for calculating waste volumes and waste streams generated from different natural hazards. 

By delivering insights on the scale of assistance required for managing disaster waste, the project will help build capacity and preparedness in stakeholders responsible for managing those situations.

The project is being led by Northern Institute’s senior research fellow Dr Deepika Mathur and CDU’s information technology professor Sami Azam, as well as Dr Robin Gregory from Regional Development Australia NT and independent researcher Dr Stephen Sutton.  

The team is consulting with NT regional councils, ranger groups and other stakeholders involved in managing disaster waste. 

“As demonstrated by the recent flooding in Lismore and Cyclone Marcus in Darwin, recovery from natural disasters is increasingly becoming longer, costly and at times challenging for ecologically fragile regions,” Mathur said. 

A lack of understanding of the volumes and types of waste streams generated from disasters makes planning for temporary storage, sorting and removing disaster waste from communities challenging.

“A DWM plan provides an effective and connected knowledge system that will provide a solid foundation with knowledge of waste volumes, waste streams and processes,” Mathur added. “The framework will allow various stakeholders to collaborate and populate it with data, and tailor it to suit their community.”

This article first appeared in FM Media