‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.’ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.
A little dramatic perhaps, but I was reminded of this famous quote recently as I reflected on two very different experiences of community consultation, for two related studies both funded by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) as part of the Northern Rivers Resilience Initiative (NRRI).
The NRRI is focused on understanding climate, catchment and hydrological drivers in our area and aims to find evidence-based ways to reduce flooding in the Richmond River catchment. A CSIRO team led by Dr Jai Vaze was asked to build a hydrological model of the Richmond catchment to model potential flood mitigation measures.
Richmond Landcare Incorporated (RLI) in association Australian National University (ANU), Macquarie University and Southern Cross University, were asked to perform pilot studies in the upper catchment of Nature Based Solutions (NBS) for flood mitigation so the data could then be used to model NBS at a catchment scale.
Community consultation
I have commented previously on how poorly recent community ‘consultations’ were run by NEMA/CSIRO.
In contrast, it was a delight to join a large audience in Lismore last Thursday (16 November) for ‘Science in the Club: Nature-based Solutions for flood resilience’.
Associate Professor Dr Roslyn Prinsley (ANU lead scientist), Lou Rogers (RLI NBS project manager) and their teams showed how these community consultations should be done. They gave highly professional and engaging presentations, then took questions from the floor which they answered openly and clearly with expertise and nuance.
Afterwards, there was the opportunity for more in-depth and specific one-on-one discussions. Attendees were allowed to hear each other’s perspectives and concerns, not just of those running the project. Robust discussion of the economic, environmental, social and cultural implications of potential mitigation measures, green or grey, was welcomed rather than dismissed or feared.
We heard that NBS approaches use natural processes to address challenges such as flooding, while simultaneously delivering environmental, social, and economic benefits. Inspired and powered by nature, NBS work with – rather than against – natural systems to protect communities, enhance resilience, and provide multiple co-benefits that traditional engineering solutions often cannot match.
We also heard that international World Bank guidelines clearly state that when choosing flood mitigation projects, green (nature based) solutions should be prioritised, and grey (hard engineering) measures only then used in addition and if necessary.
Indeed, Dr Prinsley emphasised that it would be very rare if ever that a hard-engineering only approach should be considered.
Nature-based solutions sidelined
Given all this, the continued bureaucratic and political sidelining of NBS has been very disappointing.
One would expect that NEMA would wish to maximise the benefits of and integrate both its CSIRO and RLI/university projects. However it has not allowed adequate time for the latter to run its NBS pilot studies and feed data into the CSIRO model so that those mitigation measures with community support – which clearly includes NBS – could be modelled together and directly compared. They must now instead run on different models at different times.
The CSIRO team also needed to demonstrate both the capability and desire to accurately model nuanced NBS, not just simplistic hard-engineering measures, and to collaborate with experts on NBS from the universities to achieve this.
Finally, NEMA should have provided much better support to the CSIRO team, to run clear, informative, open and honest community consultations, explicitly addressing the economic, environmental, social and cultural concerns about mitigation measures we were expected to vote for.
Before I became a medical doctor, I did a science degree and worked in medical research, and I know that as talented as they may be, not all scientists are good at public engagement. This CSIRO team was clearly frequently out of their depth and uncomfortable having a dialogue with an active, educated community that cares deeply about its home.
In the end, one is left wondering whether all this stultifying of NBS is just by accidental bureaucratic incompetence or occult political design?
Political representatives missing
Interestingly, neither the current federal member for Page, Kevin Hogan (Nationals) or Lismore mayor Steve Krieg (voted in as an ‘independent’ but now a National Party member) even bothered to turn up last Thursday to listen to the RLI/ANU presentation and their community on this important government-funded project.
Yet they were happy to breeze into an earlier CSIRO Lismore community forum to corral a clearly reluctant Dr Vaze – who I’m sure as a public servant would not like to be publicly associated with a particular side of politics – into a widely circulated political photo-op.
Hogan and Krieg occasionally pay some lip service to including NBS in mitigation options, perhaps out of fear of their community who consistently demonstrate strong support for NBS. However their ongoing public pronouncements, policy positions and actions clearly demonstrate their true love is grey, and their real desire for more concrete, whatever the evidence.
In contrast, Dr Prinsley and her ANU team as public servants have presented us with clear and honest evidence from previous studies of NBS around the world: ‘With careful planning and design, combined NBS can effectively mitigate moderate floods (up to a 1-in-20 year flood) and reduce the impacts of rare floods (a 1-in-100 year flood).
‘NBS are less effective in mitigating very rare floods (over a 1-in-1,000 year flood), and single NBS may often only mitigate the impacts of moderate flood events.’
Our community looks forward to the results of their studies with RLI and other universities for this catchment, and expect that decision-makers give NBS the serious attention they deserve, not just for their potential mitigation of minor-moderate floods, but for their multiple environmental, economic, social and cultural co-benefits.
To end this ‘Tale of Two Studies’, let us note that there is agreement from experts in both research teams that no mitigation measures, green or grey, will stop catastrophic floods. As Jai Vaze from CSIRO acknowledged in a recent interview, nothing could hold back the impacts of a February 28 2022, 14.4m flood in Lismore.
Ultimately, in our new world of climate change, to keep people and property safe from more floods like this, we need to get them off the floodplain.
You can find out more about the ANU’s work in this area here.
Find out more about local nature-based solutions here.
Dr Luke Robinson, upper Richmond catchment resident & spokesperson for Lismore Greens.
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