What's New in Knowledge | October 2026
The 2026 Intergenerational Report was released by the Australian Treasury in September. First published in 2002, this 5-yearly report looks ahead forty years to project the outlook for the Australian economy and the Government’s budget.
Looking ahead to 2065-66, the report highlights investment in disaster risk reduction and resilience as essential to reducing the growing costs of more frequent and severe disasters, including rising government spending through the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA) and declining insurance affordability.
Commentary has critiqued the report for paying ‘scant’ attention to climate change and its current and future economic and social impacts. See here and here for examples.
In understanding consequences and recovery, this RMIT University study explores how communities experienced and recovered from the 2022-2023 Australian floods. It found that, when compared to rapid-onset flooding, slow-onset flooding creates additional challenges for response and recovery, highlighting the need for policies that better support communities during prolonged disaster events.
Focusing on systemic risk, The Climate Change Authority has a paper explaining how misinformation affects climate policy and what it means for their work. The paper draws on evidence from the findings of the Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy. It shows that misinformation is affecting the delivery of climate policy and contributing to delays, higher costs and community division.
In disaster risk reduction, RMIT University and Natural Hazards Research Australia (NHRA) have released a practical guidance tool for those involved in disaster risk reduction and climate resilience in urban settings. The tool provides practical advice for understanding and addressing the complexities of urban systems to support prioritisation of resilience investment. It includes modules on base concepts, systemic risk, risk-informed decision making, the landscape of current practices, and self-reflection on current practices in use.
A study by UNSW and University of Melbourne has developed and validated practical self-assessment scales for flood and bushfire preparedness, providing a consistent way for communities, practitioners and policymakers to assess preparedness levels and identify areas of vulnerability. It finds that people who live in high-risk areas or who have emergency services experience are generally better prepared, while the gap between positive attitudes and actual preparedness actions remains a key challenge.
Meanwhile, reliability of communications in disasters has featured in public media this month. This ABC long read article explores people’s experiences of communications outages in the Victorian fires earlier this year, and responses. One partial solution is temporary disaster roaming (TDR), activated by Australian mobile network operators on 1 October. TDR helps people stay connected to any surviving mobile network during natural hazard events if other networks are no longer operating. Roaming would be activated in specific, localised areas for short durations. Find out more here and here.
Looking at First Nations knowledge, Monash University and NHRA have published a report on Aboriginal community experiences of the 2022-23 Australian floods. The report has 'reiterated the many ways that Indigenous peoples experienced those floods differently to non-Indigenous peoples, highlighting the significant impacts of flooding on cultural heritage, the critical role of Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations in supporting Aboriginal communities during the flood, and the view of caring for Country as a form of disaster resilience'.
In Canada, a new national poll finds most Canadians (93%) view Indigenous fire stewardship as important to addressing wildfire risk and improving community safety. As a result, Canadians resoundingly support (82%) federal funding for Indigenous fire stewardship. Meanwhile, the Indigenous Leadership Initiative has published a 2026 state of play for Indigenous Fire Stewardship in Canada.
Turning to children and young people in disasters, this article from Western Sydney University and the Australian Breastfeeding Association interviewed emergency responders to identify challenges, lessons and solutions in infant and young child feeding and care in disasters in high-income countries. The findings can be used to inform improved emergency planning in Australia.
Rural emerging adults are the focus of this research from UNSW, which examines their experiences when exposed to multiple or repeated events of bushfires, droughts, and/or floods.
The American Psychological Association has also released a report that examines how extreme heat affects students, educators, families, and school systems and provides practical, evidence-informed guidance grounded in psychological science to help school communities respond.
Regarding research on equity and inequity, Gender and Disaster Australia have released their Creating Safe and Inclusive Emergency Evacuation Centres Report, which a practical guide to strengthening safety, accessibility and inclusion in Emergency Evacuation Centres. The report was developed through extensive consultations with community representatives, advocates and specialist organisations, this report provides evidence-informed recommendations to help create Emergency Evacuation Centres that are gender-safe, culturally responsive, trauma-informed and accessible to all.
On a different note, this report called ‘On Call in a Burning City’ shows that for women in beauty services, domestic work, food delivery, e-commerce, and ride-hailing, heat is not just a climate issue. It is a labour rights, gender, health, and urban infrastructure crisis.
Looking at weather and climate change, this article by the Bureau of Meteorology outlines that a strong El Niño is underway, but other climate influences continue to impact rainfall and temperature across Australia. This article examines the scope and utility of climate change services in Australia. It finds these services have strong scientific foundations, extensive publicly available data, and growing adoption across sectors. However, there are also weaknesses including fragmentation and variable alignment with user needs. In the US, this paper from the RAND Corporation critically examines the potential for leveraging the US emergency management (EM) system to enhance national resilience to future acute climate risks. It recommends reforming policy frameworks, expanding local capacity, and professionalizing adaptation within EM to create a flexible, climate-ready enterprise capable of managing the escalating risks of a warming world.
In the lead up to COP13 in Turkey in November, preparatory meetings are underway. The pre-COP gathering in Fiji was co-hosted by Australia this month. It was criticised for low attendance by international leaders, but also gave Pacific leaders, ministers and climate envoys a platform to call on nations to keep global warming as close to 1.5°C as possible. This article reflects on the messages and tone of the Fiji meeting, describing the 'unabashed honesty about the emotional, psychological and cultural toll climate change is taking'.
In health, this report presents the conclusions adopted by the Meeting of Experts on Occupational Safety and Health in Extreme Weather Events and Changing Weather Patterns, held in Geneva from 20 to 24 April 2026. It examines how extreme weather events and changing weather patterns affect worker safety and health, livelihoods, business continuity and resilience. The conclusions provide guidance to governments, employers and workers on occupational safety and health (OSH) policy frameworks and workplace-level measures.
In looking at governance, leadership and capacity building, In New Zealand, there is a new Emergency Management Act that outlines the country’s next steps to better deal with major disasters and the inquiries that follow them. Among other changes, it aims to strengthen the role of communities and iwi Māori in emergency management through representation on Co-ordinating Executive Groups and new planning requirements. Find out more here.
In looking at new developments in technology this month, this Conversation article outlines the new technology being used to aid in the bushfire seasonal outlook and how this satellite tool can help communities better prepare for disasters.
Considering knowledge development and translation, a report from the RAND Corporation finds that emergency management research is 'hard to find, even more difficult to organise', and warns of a knowledge deluge threatening disaster research.
In WNIK TV, you can now watch the NHRA August webinar on Transformative scenarios in a climate-challenged world. This webinar from the Centre of Excellence for Young People and Disasters describes what the Centre heard from consultations with organisations across Emergency Management, Community, and Youth Sectors when establishing the Centre.
You can also now watch the July Resilience Matters webinar from AIDR, which explore principles and practices of community-based disaster risk reduction with community and disaster resilience practitioner Maree Grenfell, and Natasha Odgers and Sally Foreman from Neighbourhood Centres Queensland.
Compiled by Blythe McLennan and Lexi Barrington