PHA Qld member Margaret Cook recently published an article that exposes the dominant socio-economic and political values that shaped flood management between 1974 and 2011 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Drawing on scholarship that frames floods as a cultural, rather than natural event, this paper shows that the state government of Queensland prioritised property development and continued to rely on dam building as a way of controlling floods. When legislation and regulations were introduced to control floodplain development, they reflected popular sentiment against land use restrictions, the results of which were fully exposed in 2011 when a substantial increase in damages accompanied flooding of the Brisbane River.
To read more, please follow this link to Margaret’s article.