资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

After devastating bushfires tore through Australia just over a year ago, a University of Canberra researcher is looking to the future and pushing for a rethink of how and where we live.

Professor Barbara Norman, Director of Canberra Urban and Regional Futures (CURF) and lead author says the Australian bushfires last year have challenged the way we plan settlements, and is arguing her case in a paper recently published in Nature Urban Sustainability in conjunction with Professor Will Steffen from the Australian National University and Professor Peter Newman from Curtin University.

Professor Norman has questioned the future for small urban settlements within fire-vulnerable forests and bushland, and has put forward a scenario that suggests last year’s bushfire  experience can lead to a new model for climate resilient development that can flow into larger centres, with multiple benefits.

“The dramatic impacts of the bushfires in 2019/2020 across the Australian landscape are driving a deeper consideration of their implications for the future pattern of urban development,” Professor Norman said.

Read the full article on the University of Canberra website, featuring research co-authored by Emeritus Prof Will Steffen