Buying a house is one of the most high-stakes decisions many people will make in their lives. Yet many households are investing millions without an adequate understanding of a property’s exposure to growing climate risks.
Buying a house is one of the most high-stakes decisions many people will make in their lives. Yet many households are investing millions without an adequate understanding of a property’s exposure to growing climate risks.
In Australia, perhaps the starkest climate hazard is flood. Flooding ranks as one of the most financially damaging weather-related disasters, with costs rising sharply over the past five years.
So, how do you find out a given property’s flood risk? This information certainly exists. It is embedded in the insurance premiums we are charged.
But in Australia, unlike many comparable countries, this information is not readily available to all households. Changing that would help them make smarter, more informed decisions—and could benefit us all.
Flooding is a growing problem for households across the nation, and forecast to grow as the climate changes. Yet, flood risk is not always easy to identify. It reflects the complex interplay of two key elements.
The first is topography, the layout of natural and built features on the land, such as hills, rivers, roads, and buildings. The second is hydrology, the way water sources including rainfall, rivers and groundwater are distributed and interact with the environment and human systems.
Efforts to create a unified flood risk map have been limited by fragmented data ownership, proprietary licensing and poor coordination.
Some detailed resources do exist. Queensland, for example, has developed a Property Level Flood Information Portal, currently available to 39 eligible local governments. It’s part of an opt-in program requiring councils to voluntarily participate.
Scaling this kind of initiative to a national level would require collaboration across hundreds of councils, each with varying priorities, resources and technical capacities.
