Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

186 remediation works following a flood event. NRM volunteers at the workshop indicated that replacement of storm-damaged NRM works would require a new funding application, with no guarantee of success, which can be disheartening for NRMworkers. In addition, action to clear waterways and coastal lakes of sediments involving dredging can impact the fragile estuary environments. 2.5.4. Prevent Workshop participants recognised that flood prevention was a whole-of-catchment issue. Land use change in the upper catchment affects flood risk in the lower catchment. Some locations have a limited floodplain and the cumulative impact of urban development increases impervious areas with dramatic effects on the volume and velocity of surface runoff, exposing areas to the risk of erosion and flash flooding. For coastal areas subject to beach erosion and storm surges, participants feared that the natural coastal protection features, such as dune systems and the vegetation they support are being damaged through residential development. Aside from the significant loss of these endangered ecosystems, the damage to “bio-protection” buffering increases the exposure of beach-side dwellings to storm impacts. There is a need to spatially identify areas exposed to the impact of storms and flooding to ensure that future developments consider the increased risk of extreme ECL events. Riparian restoration is a focus of NRM actions in coastal catchments to prevent stream bank erosion. However, workshop participants identified some NRM actions in riparian zones as producing downstream consequences in floods. In particular, the materials such as weed matting or bamboo canes used to assist re-vegetation efforts are often washed downstream during a flood, adding to pollution in estuaries. Participants felt that planning for storms in coastal catchments must become a more integral part of community preparedness for extreme events. In particular, the community needs to become much more aware of the role of ecosystem services in coastal protection. The current mindset appears to allowdegradation to occur, then replace green infrastructurewith inadequate (non-adaptive) engineered structures, which are prone to failure and can be more costly than green infrastructure. 3. DISCUSSION Four questions were posed in the introduction to this paper in relation to the protection of natural resources from extreme climate events. The narrative constructed in the results about each type of event will be interrogated to discuss these questions. 3.1. Is the PPRR Emergency Management Cycle Useful for the Range of Events Experienced by Rural and Regional Communities? The PPRR emergency management cycle is a useful concept to engage rural and regional communities in the generic responses to extreme climate events including the roles of government combat and support agencies and NGO social services [17,18]. It also helps to identify the responsibilities of local communities for ensuring their own readiness for extreme events. However, it has limitations. For example, in practice, variations among the types of extreme events, the hazards within specific landscapes and the capacity of discrete communities within the South East region [19,20] most often means that the PPRR cycle does not accord with the lived experience of a community. Participants generally agreed that there was considerable blurring of the demarcation between prevent and prepare phases, particularly where the former may be abruptly truncated (as is the case with coastal storms). 3.2. How Does Government’s View of a Community’s Progress through the PPRR Cycle Accord with the Lived Experience of that Community? The question of divergence among government and community perceptions of the PPRR cycle is important because the cycle is embedded in central government’s emergency management policy, which in turn determines the broader governance of an event. The duration of each phase of the cycle from the community’s perspective will depend on the type of extreme event. For drought the Prepare phase progresses slowly merging into Respond and results in a gradual deterioration of natural resource function that underpins economic activity, with flow on effects to community social cohesion as the drought continues [21]. For bushfire the threat is regular and seasonal but the high risk period is being extended by changing climate so that Prepare and Prevent phases are becoming less well defined. Community interest tends to wane through the need for a constant state of readiness [18]. Storms are unpredictable and of limited duration so Prepare and Respond phases are correspondingly short allowing little opportunity for community action. Recovery, or the ability to bounce back from shocks, is central to theories of social ecological resilience [22]. However, the recovery phase of the PPRR cycle is the most complex, hardest to manage and, in many ways, the most critical phase of the cycle. The often protracted nature of recovery and its reliance on local context make it difficult for centralised responses from government. The speed of recovery varies across economic, social and environmental components of social-ecological systems. While economic recovery can be slow, it is supported through rebuilding of private assets with insurance payouts, and essential public infrastructure through government disaster funding. Social impacts of extreme events, particularly those on mental health, are becoming recognised as increasingly important if not always fully addressed [23]. Recovery from bush fires generates high public interest and is often a focus of media attention because they are of relatively short duration and provide moving images (e.g., media coverage of the anniversary of the 2013 Blue Mountains