Use case: Department of Health and Aged Care
NBIC collaborators in this project include: Emergency Management Spatial Information Network Australia | Australian Research Data Commons | Geoscience Australia | CSIRO | Alluvium | Maitec
The challenge
A satellite view of a bushfire with smoke streaming into the atmosphere
A view of a bushfire from space Source: Shutterstock
We know bushfires impact health services and smoke impacts a range of health conditions.
We also know the health impacts of uncontrolled bushfires are costly to manage. For example, in the 2019-2020 bushfire season smoke-related health costs alone were estimated at $1.95 billion1.
As the national agency responsible for health and wellbeing, the Department of Health and Aged Care needs accurate and timely data and information to manage responses to bushfires for both short- and long-term planning.
This includes understanding the capacity of hospitals to deal with respiratory, cardiovascular or burns patients and being able to deploy resources to where they are most needed.
To meet this need, the Department’s Health Emergency Response App requires spatial information about bushfire boundaries, locations of key health and aged care facilities, relevant Bureau of Meteorology web services, and selected geographic boundaries.
Until recently such a comprehensive data service of national bushfire boundaries describing where, when and how frequently fire has occurred was not available.
Our response
A photo of two medical staff and a patient in an emergency room
A national understanding of bushfire locations and severity help in planning responses
In the wake of the 2019-2020 Black Summer, the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements called for a ‘whole-of-nation’, ‘whole-of-government’ and ‘whole-of-society’ cooperation and effort to help make Australia more resilient to natural disasters.
Compiling national burnt area data is a standout cooperative effort for state, territory and Commonwealth agencies. A demonstration of how to better capture and communicate bushfire knowledge and data from local to national scale.
This work is not simply a matter of bringing together data from each state and territory. This effort was supported by the Emergency Mangement Spatial Information Network Australia (EMSINA) to develop common data schemas that could be delivered via automated systems and aggregated by Geoscience Australia at a national scale.
The National Bushfire Boundaries data service harmonises authoritative bushfire boundaries into standardised national formats and includes:
These data are all accessible to the public via the Digital Atlas of Australia platform.
A screenshot of an app that delivers emergency management data
The Department of Health and Aged Care uses NBIC bushfire boundaries data in their Health Emergency Response App
The Department of Health and Aged Care have incorporated the bushfire boundaries data service into the Health Emergency Response App.
The App is shared with:
- the Department’s Health Emergency Management Branch
- the Department’s state and territory offices in their dealings with State Emergency Services
- National Health Emergency Management Standing Committee (NHEMS) of the Australian Health Protection Committee (AHPC)
- the Department’s Geospatial team in responding to questions on current emergencies.
Who benefits?
A photo of two people walking down a hospital corridor
Hospitals and aged care facilities require accurate and timely information about bushfires to plan, prepare and respond
Access to a national authoritative bushfire boundaries data service aids in decision making for the Department of Health and Aged Care. Decisions aided or influenced using the new data service as an input for the Health Emergency Response App include:
- Welfare checks or advice on evacuations due to bushfire threat to aged care facilities.
- Assessment of risks to infrastructure including hospitals, Aboriginal community controlled health services, residential aged care homes, Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, and general practices.
- Assessment of bushfire affected facilities by policy areas across the Department.
Additionally, during bushfire season the Department monitors bushfire threats and assesses burns unit capacity at hospitals.
The near real-time bushfire boundaries data along with burns unit capacity will enable the Department to monitor hospitals to ensure capacity and that the health system is not overwhelmed during a bushfire emergency.
The new authoritative bushfire boundaries data service has streamlined the collection and delivery of information for use by the Department.
- Johnston FH, Borchers Arriagada N, Morgan GG, Jalaludin B, Palmer AJ, Williamson GJ, et al. 2020. Unprecedented health costs of smoke-related PM2.5 from the 2019–20 Australian megafires. Nature Sustainability 1–6. ↩︎