Disaster Strategy For Brisbane: Environmental Issues And Solutions Essay.

Overview of Brisbane

 The main objective of this project is to develop a disaster strategy for the city of Brisbane, capital of Queensland in Australia. It includes the basic characteristics of the city and various communities living there. It mainly focuses on the environmental issues faced by the residents and the development of strategies to deal with negative effect of the environment. It also involves various methods to address to these environmental issues, which will help in the improvement of its environmental quality.

Brisbane is the state capital of Queensland and the most populous city of Australia. It is the third most populous city in Australia. It is the centre of country’s finance and trade and the center of political issues. According to 2016 report, the city had a population of 2.3 million which forms around 19% of the total population in Australia (Shanahan et al., 2014 ).The people living Brisbane in speak various languages and follow various cultural traditions. The city is a famous destination for tourists visiting the city from all over the world. Brisbane is prone to a large no of floods as it is present along the river of Brisbane which leads to destruction of life and property. The climate of Brisbane is humid and hot during summers and moderated warm during winters .

 Brisbane is named after Sir Thomas Brisbane who was a British soldier and a colonial administrator. He was born in Ayrshire, Scotland. He was also the Governor of New South Wales. Brisbane is known for its famous Queensland architecture that forms an important part of heritage of the City.

There are many environmental issues faced by the residents of the city. The main reason is high growth rate of population and faster industrialization. There are other issues also like deforestation for the economic development in the city and rapid rate of urbanization like construction of building for housing and offices. There are various other environmental issues like floods, loss of Biodiversity  and increased population growth (Hobday & McDonald, 2014 ).  Various issues faced by the people residing in Brisbane is explained in detail:

It is one of the major concerns in the city as the drinking water contains microbial contamination. It was reported that various types of bacteria was found in the drinking water such as E.coli, salmonella and giardia that indicates fecal contamination. This microbial contamination is increases after the rainfall and leads to various health issues in the residents. Government of Australia has planned various strategies to deal with these issues such as monitoring of water quality especially after the rainfall. It plans to place garbage traps at various locations in the rivers to prevent them from pollution (Kennedy et al., 2015 ). The government will also recruit various people to clean the rivers and remove the toxic wastes.

History of Brisbane

The main cause of air pollution in Brisbane is high population. The city also suffers from traffic jams, which in turn increases the air pollution. The toxic wastes from the vehicles leads to various health issues in the individuals like respiratory issues, asthma, cardiac problems and cancer in lungs. Increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide also leads to the increase in global warming. There are many other reasons of air pollution like wastes from the factories that are not recycled and deforestation. There are various strategies followed by the Brisbane’s City Council to reduce air pollution like addition of new fuels, plantation of trees program, improvement of traffic management and adopting clean technology that has decreased the level of pollutants like carbon monoxide, lead and nitrogen dioxide. The City has also received the Clean Air Achievement Award for 2016 that was awarded by the Clean Air Society of Australia and New Zealand (Lynch et al., 2015 ). 

Deforestation in Brisbane has lead to a large no of environmental impacts. Due to the cutting of trees and burning for the construction of housing facility and cultivation, it has lead to increase in the emission of green house gases. Brisbane City Council has planned various mechanisms for sustainable development of environment and forests as it provides free plants to various community groups that are registered, corporate, schools, clubs and residents to plant them in their ground.

Brisbane is more prone to floods because of its location, topography and climatic conditions. Changes in climate leads to an increase in the temperature and increased rainfall. This in turn leads to a rise in the sea level that cause floods and increase in the destruction of life and property. Brisbane City Council has planned a Flood Action Plan to keep them prepared for any natural disasters. They will also recruit staff in the rainy season to keep a check on the risks related to flood (Miller et al., 2015 ).

There is a major transportation problem in Brisbane as there is a lack of public transports due to which the residents have to use their private vehicles. This leads to a lot of traffic congestion and air pollution in the city. There are various strategies planned by the government like to control the traffic congestion on the roads. The transportation system of Brisbane also leads to various health effects in the population living there, emission of toxic gases from the vehicles that leads to air pollution, and extreme changes in the climate and the weather conditions. Brisbane City Council has designed various transport projects to improve the transportation facilities in the City.

Environmental Issues in Brisbane

There are so many problems related to solid and waste management in Brisbane as tonnes of waste are produced every day. Brisbane City Council has started various services and measures like recycling, Green Heart, green waste bin services for sustainable management in an effective manner.

Loss of Biodiversity is a serious issue in Brisbane and the major cause destruction of natural habitat is activity of human beings. Brisbane is the most biodiverse city of Australia and it has a variety of plants and animals. Brisbane City Council has proposed various programs like “Restore Brisbane Program” and Wildlife Conservation Partnerships Program for the conservation of biodiversity (Cook et al., 2014).

Extreme climate and weather conditions in climate has a negative impact on the communities living on the coast of the sea. Drastic changes in climatic conditions leads to rise in the sea level and it has been rising every year. Occurrence of cyclones in Queensland can lead to a decline in production of crops and destruction of infrastructure. Increase in the rainfall leads to increase in floods. There are various policies developed by the government of Australia to address the changes in climate like increase the use of renewable energy sources a, increasing the productivity of energy sources , decreasing the waste , rehabilitation of degraded land and creating innovative strategies.

The increase in the emission of greenhouse gases in Brisbane has lead to various climatic changes. The Government of Australia has proposed a scheme “The Renewable Energy Target” to decrease the emission of these gases and promote the generation of electricity from various renewable sources and solar energy (Packer et al., 2015 ).

Impact of Various fertilizers and increase in the level of sea is a major cause of damage of “Great Barrier Reef”. Government has planned various measures like “Reef 2050 Long Term Sustainability Program” to manage and protect the reef from damaging. The Government of Queensland and Australia has invested 200 million dollar to protect the reef.

There are various steps involved which are as follows :

The first step involves the formation of strategy by meeting with various disaster management groups and consulting them about the various issues faced by Brisbane. The main function of Disaster management groups is to advice and provide information to the local group in order to  prepare them and protect from natural disasters. They  should make sure that the local community is recovered as soon as possible after the event.

Water Pollution

It is very important to identify the various environmental issues the city is facing and its negative impacts on the communities living there. It is important to layout a framework of various procedures for natural disaster like floods and storms. It should be informed to Local disaster Coordinator and CEO of Brisbane City Council (Russell-Smith et al., 2015 ).

It is an essential step in the strategic development of disaster management. Analysis of the various risks involved in natural disaster should be studied carefully and preventive measures should be taken against them.“Business Impact Analysis” is an important method to determine the magnitude of negative impacts of the natural disasters (Sinnewe et al., 2015 ).  

It is a possibility that there may be many issues which had a high level of risk but were not possible to address them due to lack of financial resources and time or due to any other issues. Therefore, it is crucial that these issues should be discussed with the disaster management team to decide that which issues having a high risk should be on top priority.

The main goal in disaster management plan is the identification, assessment and prioritization of of the risks involved in the natural disasters and the availability of resources required to recover from events such as floods and storms. It should be made sure that local government and the disaster management team is taking necessary preventive measures to prevent the effects of natural disaster and recover the local community from these events.

It is important to collect all the information  required from the local disaster management team and develop a proper strategy to prevent the harmful effects of natural disasters.

It is an  important step for the validation of strategy documented  and discuss with the local government authorities and the local  disaster management team to implement it in effective manner and save the local community and property from various disasters such as floods and fires.

The results should be presented to the local population of Brisbane after the approval of the local authorities.

After the strategy has been approved by the government authorities and presented to the local population, it should be implemented effectively and emergency response systems should be set up in the entire city. There should be a proper communication system that can be used during the implementation of strategy or any emergency.

It is the most important step in the development of strategy for disaster management. Monitoring refers to keep a track of the various activities implemented and the results obtained after implementation of the strategy. Evaluation refers to the assessment of the impact of strategy followed  to protect the local community from natural disasters.

References

Cook, S., Sharma, A. K., & Gurung, T. R. (2014). Evaluation of alternative water sources for commercial buildings: A case study in Brisbane, Australia. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 89, 86-93.

Hobday, A. J., & McDonald, J. (2014). Environmental issues in Australia. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 39, 1-28.

Kennedy, R., Buys, L., & Miller, E. (2015). Residents’ experiences of privacy and comfort in multi-storey apartment dwellings in subtropical Brisbane. Sustainability, 7(6), 7741-7761.

Lynch, A., Thackway, R., Specht, A., Beggs, P. J., Brisbane, S., Burns, E. L., ... & Davies, J. M. (2015). Transdisciplinary synthesis for ecosystem science, policy and management: The Australian experience. Science of the Total Environment, 534, 173-184.

Miller, K. L., Trezise, J. A., Kraus, S., Dripps, K., Evans, M. C., Gibbons, P., ... & Maron, M. (2015). The development of the Australian environmental offsets policy: from theory to practice. Environmental Conservation, 42(04), 306-314.

Packer, J., Ballantyne, R., & Hughes, K. (2014). Chinese and Australian tourists' attitudes to nature, animals and environmental issues: Implications for the design of nature-based tourism experiences. Tourism Management, 44, 101-107.

Russell-Smith, J., Lindenmayer, D., Kubiszewski, I., Green, P., Costanza, R., & Campbell, A. (2015). Moving beyond evidence?free environmental policy. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 13(8), 441-448.

Shanahan, D. F., Lin, B. B., Gaston, K. J., Bush, R., & Fuller, R. A. (2014). Socio-economic inequalities in access to nature on public and private lands: a case study from Brisbane, Australia. Landscape and Urban Planning, 130, 14-23.

Sinnewe, E., Kortt, M. A., & Dollery, B. (2015). Is biggest best? a comparative analysis of the financial viability of the Brisbane City Council. Australian Journal of Public Administration.