Here in Queensland, we are recognised as being the most disaster-stricken state in Australia. What can we do in the delivery of natural hazard and disaster mitigation projects? Who can we learn from?

During our many years in the project environment, helping organisations deliver their projects and programs, seldom do we take enough time out to look at what others are doing to improve our own service delivery.

In late 2019, Core Project Advisory Director Andy Wyer, experienced the opportunity of a lifetime undertaking a Core PA funded trip to the United States to gain international learnings on water, hazard mitigation and resiliency related project delivery processes.

Whilst visiting Los Angeles, Washington DC and New York, Andy held numerous discussions with industry and authoritative leaders; learned creative insights from academics; attended site tours consisting of billion-dollar pipelines and heard insider understandings on how some places in the USA deal with and understand flood mitigation processes, resilience and sustainability initiatives, and challenges.

Natural disasters have no set timeline, and they have a habit of flowing one after the next, making it hard for governments to respond and mitigate when issues relating to these events are overshadowed by the most recent disaster that is at hand.

In recent years, a multi-hazard resilience focussed approach has emerged from state and federal government in Australia, which recognised the need to support local governments in aiding the community in awareness, preparation, response, and recovery from these events.

This approach has been in place in the USA for some time and they have built on that soundly over the years. Whilst the USA, like most countries around the world, has its hands full at this point in time with the COVID-19 pandemic and other issues,  they continue to do good things on a grand scale, tackling various high impact hazards with multi-faceted mitigation strategies and investment.

Andy has embraced many of his learnings from the USA which continue to influence the approach to his work here in Queensland in the water, hazard mitigation and resiliency space.

So, whether its resilience projects or any other industry you are involved in, we believe it’s important to recognise the value you will gain out of generating and maintaining new connections with national or international players that demonstrate the practices and values you want to emulate in your service delivery.

We would love to hear your thoughts on this or even help you with your own project insights, learning and development. Watch this space as we share some more insights from Andy’s time in the USA.