Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

180 The impacts of drought on the community and NRM were discussed in three regions: Boorowa-Yass and Crookwell-Goulburn and Cooma-Monaro. The hazard map Figure 1 indicates that exposure to drought is high throughout these regions and very high in selected areas. These regions suffer from a combination of relatively variable and unpredictable rainfall patterns and large areas of shallow, sedimentary soils predisposing them to drought. The largely agriculture-based economy in these towns means that the community is greatly impacted by this type of extreme event. Storms and flooding were discussed at one workshop in the Illawarra-Shoalhaven landscape. Storms resulting from the formation of intense East Coast Low (ECL) pressure systems are one of the most damaging weather events for the entire South East coast of NSW [16]. ECL often intensify rapidly overnight and their relatively weak pattern of occurrence, primarily in autumn and winter, means that coastal residents receive little warning. The hazard map Figure 1 indicates that susceptibility to flooding occurs in discrete locations that coincide with coastal river catchments (and urban settlements). A combination of a narrow coastal plain and many small river catchments amplifies on human populations and high value infrastructure the impacts of sea level rise, storm surges, flooding and subsidence. In addition, the SE Region has numerous shallow coastal lakes and estuaries (including swamps and salt marshes) that are officially recognized as important threatened ecosystems. The lakes are exposed to the risk of marine sediment deposition which limits flushing and replenishment leading to stagnation and eutrophication. 2.2. An Extreme Event Timeline To frame a discussion of extreme events in the context of improved protection of natural resources that span multiple types of events in multiple regions by multiple actors we propose a theoretical extreme event time line (Figure 2). The timeline illustrates the level of activity that occurs in each phase of the PPRR cycle throughout the duration of an extreme event. It draws on general information elicited through the workshop process and seeks to show how the different types of extreme events can vary from the theoretical, and where the current short comings in the use of the PPRR cycle lie from the dual perspectives of the community and of natural resource management. Figure 2. Theoretical extreme event timeline to illustrate levels of emergency management activity, social assistance activity, community activity and natural resource function in each phase of the emergency management cycle. The actions of diverse emergency response actors have been grouped into 3 separate timelines: EM service agencies under emergency management activity, NGOs involved in community support under social assistance activity; and, community members not directly involved in volunteer EM services under community activity. An additional timeline seeks to illustrate the impact of an extreme event