Severe weather and migration project to take place in Darwin

There is ‘no better base’ than the Territory’s Top End to assess the effects of severe weather and migration.

Disaster management, infrastructure planning and service provision are some of the issues a new Charles Darwin University project will explore in trying to understand the relationship between population dynamics and extreme weather events.

The three-year project, commencing in 2024, will be led from the Top End.

The Australian Research Council awarded $351,000 to associate professors Kerstin Zander and Andrew Taylor from CDU’s Northern Institute and Professor Mamoun Alazab from CDU’s Faculty of Science and Technology.

Professor Zander said the research would examine how society can prepare for future disasters.

“We aim to assess whether, and to what extent, different extreme weather events have affected where people choose to live and how it affects the make-up of the communities affected,” she said.

“By looking at historical data collected by the census and climate data, we intend to build a model that can (show) where people will move to as the climatic changes.

“Forecasting human mobility under different climate risk scenarios in Australia will then allow planners to prepare for the changes – where to build new school, health facilities, or where to provide extra support so people might be able to stay where they are.”

Professor Zander said researchers were “beginning to grasp” how “extreme consequences” affect communities.

“For a long time, the extreme consequences of climate change, and radical responses such as migration from uninhabitable regions, have been dismissed as too far in the future to worry about,” she said.

“We are just at the beginning to grasp how adaptation to unbearable heat and other natural hazards change our society and what we can do to help people to cope.

“We want our research (to) help in that process … and there is no better to base the research than hot, humid Darwin.”