FMA Flyer 5 May

Published: Fri, 06/06/25

Updated: Fri, 06/06/25

FLYER ISSUE 5: MAY 2025

READ IN BROWSER

NEXT FMA MEETING:

QLD CHAPTER - WEDNESDAY 6 AUGUST IN BRISBANE

NSW/ACT CHAPTER - THURSDAY 14 AUGUST IN SYDNEY

Before I reflect on the successes of FMA’s 2025 National Conference held in Melbourne in May, it is important to firstly consider the significant flooding that occurred less than a week later on the mid-north coast of NSW.

In their Briefing Note 515 (23 May 2025), Risk Frontiers outlines some key information about this flood event, where four rivers exceeded their major flood level — the Nambucca River at Macksville, the Macleay River at Kempsey, the Hastings River at Wauchope Railway Bridge and Settlement Point, and the Manning River at Wingham, Taree and Croki. At Taree, the Manning River reached its highest recorded level at the Martin Bridge gauge at 6.44m AHD, which is more than 2.7m above the major flood level. This height exceeded the previous record set in 1929 (5.9m AHD) by more than 50cm. Preliminary analysis has indicated that a flood of this size at Taree would have a 1 in 500 chance (0.2% chance) of occurring each year.

As of 29 May 2025, the NSW State Emergency Service (NSW SES) notes they had responded to nearly 8,300 incidents, including more than 800 flood rescues. More than 10,000 damage assessments had been completed covering a range of property types including residential, commercial, industrial, and outbuildings, with more than 1100 buildings deemed uninhabitable.

Even as the FMA National Conference was drawing to a close, NSW SES personnel at the Conference began receiving messages that flooding was likely the following week. FMA has a close working relationship with the NSW SES and the Bureau of Meteorology, with both organisations well represented at the Conference. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge our appreciation for all the extraordinary hard work of our flood risk management colleagues during and after this event.

On a lighter note, I would like to also highlight some of the key stats from the 2025 FMA National Conference held in Melbourne just a couple of weeks ago. Here is the Conference in numbers:

4 action-packed days
485 registrations (equal to second highest attendance in Brisbane in 2024; highest was Sydney with 500)
106 presentations
2 half-day workshops
2 outstanding keynote speakers plus the fantastic Very Young Floodplain Managers from St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Eugowra in regional NSW (all under the age of 13 who entered a STEM competition and designed a flood warning system for their home town of Eugowra)
nearly 40 poster presentations
4 technical field trips
4 amazing social functions
19 trade booths
5 Excellence Awards at our Gala Dinner
8 additional recognitions of excellence for our best presentations for the 2025 Harold Sternbeck Medal and the 2025 Outstanding YFM Presenter Award, plus Best Poster Presentation — which are announced later in this Flyer!

While you are still buzzing from the 2025 FMA Conference make sure you put the dates for the 2026 FMA Conference at the Gold Coast from 21 to 24 April 2026 in your diary (only 320 days to go!).

Sue Ribbons

FMA President

FMA NATIONAL CONFERENCE WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

HAROLD STERNBECK MEDAL AND OUTSTANDING YFM PRESENTER

Floodplain Management Australia (FMA) is delighted to announce the 2025 winners of the Harold Sternbeck Medal and Outstanding YFM Presenter.

FMA hosts two prestigious competitions each year at the Conference to encourage excellence across all aspects of a conference presentation. This year there were around 106 presentations (including both 10 minute and 20 minute presentations).

The Harold Sternbeck Medal competition has been an FMA Conference tradition for many years and is awarded to the best paper presentation at the FMA Conference. In 2021, we also introduced the Outstanding YFM Presenter Award.

The Harold Sternbeck Medal is awarded in recognition of Harold Sternbeck's contribution to the FMA. Harold was a former Chairman of FMA and FMA’s first Life Member. He was a fierce negotiator on all things flood related, especially the politics of funding allocations.

The FMA Young Floodplain Managers (YFM) network exists to represent, engage, and inspire young floodplain management practitioners across Australia and beyond to share new ideas and engage in industry discussions.

The winner of the 2025 Harold Sternbeck Medal is:

Daniel Sheehy, WRM Water & Environment (Qld) — Floodways and flooded roads – are we sending mixed messages to drivers?

The winner of the 2025 Outstanding YFM Presenter Award is:

Liz Frazer, Victoria State Emergency Service (VicSES) — Engaging for community action & behaviour change

Congratulations to Daniel and Liz for their excellent presentations.

Because the quality of presentations was so high once again, we are pleased to acknowledge the following highly commended awards:

2025 Harold Sternbeck Highly Commended Awards:

Doug Bellamo, AECOM (Virginia, USA) — Hurricane Helene: Impacts, Challenges, and Breaking the Damage Rebuild Damage Cycle

Sam Bowstead, Resilient Homes Fund, Department of Housing and Public Works (Qld) and Vina Varsani, Queensland Reconstruction Authority (Qld) — Enduring Resilience for Queenslanders – The Resilient Homes Fund

Sharyn Westlake, Greater Wellington Regional Council (NZ) — Transforming Te Awa Kairangi /Hutt River – More than Meets the Eyes.

2025 Outstanding YFM Presenter Highly Commended Awards:

Erica Deegan, City of Launceston (Tas) — Managing Launceston’s Floodplain: Past Lessons, Current Challenges, Future Actions

Niroy Sumeran, Bay of Plenty Regional Council (NZ) — Modern solutions to flood protection infrastructure – Rangitāiki River floodway and spillway

In addition to the formal awards, we would also like to congratulate the following presenters, who were also ranked very highly by the evaluation panel (in alphabetical order by name):

Melissa Daley, NSW State Emergency Service (NSW) — Knowing the flood boundary: Improving timely flood extent mapping in emergency response

Naomi Harris, Blacktown City Council (NSW) — Analysing the Broader Risks of Publicising Flood Information: A Council Case Study (Young Floodplain Manager)

Chris Ryan, Catchment Simulation Solutions (NSW) — Beyond Monaco: Monte Carlo analysis for application to Australian hydrologic models

Kirra Waine & Claire Flashman, NSW State Emergency Service (NSW) — Piecing the puzzle together — subsectors optimising emergency management and warning strategies (Young Floodplain Managers).

BEST POSTER PRESENTATION

In addition to our 10 and 20 minute conference presentations, there were nearly 40 poster presentations at this year’s FMA Conference. Poster presentations are presented as a 3 minute talk during morning tea, afternoon tea and lunch. These presentations are judged as a ‘people’s choice'.

FMA is delighted to announce the 2025 Best Poster Presentation is:

Melissa Daley, NSW State Emergency Service (NSW) — Stop the Guestimation:
Re-interpolation of hydrodynamic flood models to understand flood consequences

Congratulations Melissa!

Once again congratulations to all our winners, as well as all of the other 90+ presenters, for the great contributions they have made towards the success of the 2025 FMA National Conference. Finally, a big thank you always goes to the team of evaluators who attend as many presentations as they can and provide their review scores during the three days of the conference.

FMA NATIONAL CONFERENCE PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS

Papers and Presentations from this year’s FMA National Conference, when provided by the presenters and authors, will be progressively available at the FMA Website, Members’ Section over the next month.

A reminder to presenters and authors – your presentation material is a valuable resource much sought after by colleagues, so if you haven’t yet provided your paper and presentation please do so as soon as possible. As an alternative to a Full Paper, a one page Extended Abstract would be appreciated.

QUEENSLAND WATER SYMPOSIUM - ABSTRACTS CLOSE 6 JUNE

The 25th Queensland Water Symposium, “Limited resources, unlimited challenges", will be held from 17 to 18 September 2025, at the Marriott Hotel, Brisbane.

The Symposium will include presentations covering flood risk, flood forecasting, flood hydrodynamics, coastal hydrodynamics, nature based solutions and water management. It is described as a great forum for young engineers from industry and consulting to attend and present.

Full papers are not required, and the abstracts will be published in the symposium program. Presentations from early career professionals are encouraged.

The Symposium includes the annual Michael Woodhouse Undergraduate Award, which showcases work from Queensland’s most promising future water engineers. Each year, undergraduate engineering students from Queensland universities who have undertaken research projects related to water engineering are invited to present their findings.

FMA Queensland Director Jess Carey said this could be a great option for people who were not able to attend or present at FMA Conference to have a go at presenting in front of a technical audience without travelling interstate.

Full details are at: 25th Queensland Water symposium Engineers Australia

INSURANCE CATASTROPHE DECLARED FOR NSW FLOODS

Image: Floodwaters in Paterson, NSW (Image ABC News)

The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has declared an Insurance Catastrophe for the Mid North Coast and Hunter flooding event that has impacted communities since 17 May. The declaration serves to escalate and prioritise the insurance industry’s response for affected policyholders.

At 29 May insurers had received over 7000 claims with the impact continuing to be felt most significantly in communities along the Mid-North Coast including Taree, Port Macquarie-Hastings, Kempsey, Nambucca Valley, Bellingen and Coffs Harbour, and into parts of the Hunter and Central Coast. 1,743 claims had been received from the Mid-North Coast alone.

More information is at: https://insurancecouncil.com.au/resource/insurer-presence-strengthens-as-claims-numbers-grow

INDIGENOUS EDITION OF AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

The Indigenous Edition of the Australian Journal of Emergency Management is now available on the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR) Knowledge Hub. This edition collects existing Indigenous-led disaster risk reduction research and practice in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia.

It documents and encourages the incorporation of Indigenous peoples’ knowledges into practice and represents a standing invitation to the sector to continue to grow this important body of knowledge.

All contributions to this edition are either authored or led in authorship by First Nations people. Guest editors were Lucy Kaiser and Dr Bhiamie Williamson. Dr Williamson delivered a Keynote Presentation at the recent FMA National Conference, entitled “Culturally reconstructing floods: Embracing indigenous perspectives to enrich disaster discourses”.

Indigenous Edition of the Australian Journal of Emergency Management is available at: https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/ajem-april-2025/

FMA NETWORKING IN QUEENSLAND AND THE USA

Over the last month FMA has participated in major industry events to strengthen and extend our network of flood professionals.

FMA Queensland Director Jess Carey, FMA Technical Director Will Prentice and Alana Mosely, FMA Young Floodplain Managers Queensland Committee Member, attended the Local Government Association Disaster Management Conference in Brisbane from 27 to 29 May.

Pictured: Alana Mosely (centre) and Conference delegates at the LGAQ Disaster Management Conference in May.

The team was kept busy at the FMA exhibition booth, introducing FMA to Local Government Councils and promoting the 2026 FMA Conference to be held at the Gold Coast Queensland.

Ms Mosely said the biggest conversation was around the need for more skills and training in disaster management, including flood risk management, an area where FMA can help via the Conference, the University of Technology Sydney short course, and Quarterly Workshops.

During the previous week FMA Communications Director Catherine Walker and FMA Ambassador Allan Gear participated in the US Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM) Conference at New Orleans, Louisiana. The conference reflected on the 20 years since Hurricane Katrina, lessons learned and the city’s comeback.

FMA has a long-standing relationship with the ASFPM, and both organisations regularly contribute to each other’s conferences. You can hear updates on both events at the August FMA Quarterly Meetings.

RESILIENT AUSTRALIA AWARDS SUBMISSIONS EXTENDED

The Resilient Australia Awards celebrate and promote initiatives that build whole of community resilience to disasters and emergencies around Australia as well as capture and share examples of resilience in action. The awards recognise collaboration and innovative thinking across a broad range of sectors and initiatives that strengthen disaster resilience with communities, institutions, and the private sector.

The Resilient Australia Awards are sponsored by the Australian Government in partnership with the states and territories and managed by the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR).

The submission closing date has been extended to Tuesday 10 June 2025.

Details at: https://www.aidr.org.au/programs/resilient-australia-awards/

LIMB 2020 IFDs: CLIMATE MIDPOINTS

In 2022, localised Intensity-Frequency-Duration (IFD) design rainfall data for four local government areas was released on the Australian Rainfall and Runoff Data Hub, which are commonly known as the LIMB 2020 IFDs. Australian Rainfall and Runoff (ARR) was updated in August 2024 to include updates to climate change considerations in Book 1 Chapter 6, ARR version 4.2 (Wasko et. Al. 2024). Midpoint or baseline date estimation for rainfall data is necessary for using the ARR 4.2 guidance.

A report documenting the use of the LIMB 2020 IFDs in conjunction with ARR version 4.2 is now available on the ARR data hub at LIMB Specific Data | ARR Data Hub (at bottom of page). The report highlights that the midpoint is 2002 for sub-daily rainfall data. For daily design rainfall data, the midpoint is the same as the 2016 Bureau IFDs. This raises important considerations for the enveloped Bureau/LIMB datasets currently available on the Data Hub, as detailed in the report.

The report also provides clarity about the midpoints for Probable Maximum Precipitation estimates, applicable to all locations in Australia.

YFM MONTHLY FEATURE

At the FMA conference, the YFM was pleased to announce the launch of its first ever “YFM Survey”. One reason for the existence of the YFM network is to represent and empower early career professionals in the floodplain management industry. We can't do this without knowing what's important to YFMs, which is why we're surveying our membership for the first time. The survey covers topics like work hours, mentoring and training, current challenges, well-being and aspirations. We’ve given it several test runs and it should only take 10mins to complete!

This survey is for any early career professional (persons with up to 10-15 years experience) in the floodplain management industry, be they FMA or YFM members or not. Please share the below link with your networks to encourage broad participation in the survey. We look forward to hearing back from the early career professionals in our industry!

Complete the survey here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc_1GlMsodpLnrEjnNehvcGpbyj92Kq903fBsvPsQcrJI35fg/viewform?usp=dialog

NSW YFM “Mentor/Mentee Speed Networking” Night
We are excited to share that the NSW YFM Committee are currently planning our next in-person mentoring event! This "Speed Networking" Night will connect early-career professionals with experienced mentors across various sectors in floodplain management through a series of mini mentoring sessions — plus flood, drinks, and great conversations!

Save the Date: Thursday, 19th June 2025, 6-9 pm Location: Haymarket HQ (Level 2/63 Dixon St, Sydney NSW, 2220) https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/speed-mentoring-tickets-1375202791569?aff=oddtdtcreator

Mentors will be posted very soon. Registration will be required as spots are limited. We look forward to seeing you there and bringing like-minded people together from across the industry.

UPCOMING MEETINGS AND EVENTS

FMA Meeting Dates for 2025
FMA QLD Chapter August Meeting - 6 August in Brisbane

FMA NSW/ACT Chapter August Meeting - 14 August in Sydney

Australian Disaster Resilience Conference - 27-28 August in Perth

POSITIONS VACANT

Planning Policy Officer - Resilience and Sustainability
NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure

TRAVELLING CONFERENCE SWAG

Pictured: Laura Baxter and her new FMA Conference Beanie at The Living End concert in May.

Have you got a photo of your FMA Swag?

Send us your photos!

FLOODS.ASN.AU

MEMBERSHIP

CONFERENCE

115 Marshall Street
Garden Suburb NSW 2289
AU

Unsubscribe | Change Subscriber Options