The series of floods seen in eastern Australia in 2022 were among the worst in recorded history, with many communities inundated multiple times.
Nearly 200 people affected by these floods shared their personal experiences with researchers in interviews to help improve flood management and communication, as well as recovery efforts and support.
The research, which was based on 430 survey responses as well as 192 interviews, was published in a report by Natural Hazards Research Australia.
Lead author Associate Professor Mel Taylor, a professional psychologist at Macquarie University, said this open-ended interview method had been used to interview bushfire survivors in the past.
“A participant who has been through, in this case, a flood, can say what’s important to them,” she says.
The researchers, who also come from the University of Southern Queensland and the Queensland University of Technology, interviewed and surveyed people who experienced flooding in New South Wales and Queensland in the first half of 2022.
“Most of the people we talked to wanted others to learn from what they went through,” says Taylor.
The researchers extracted thirteen themes from their interviews, including topics such as the unavailability of good flood data, local knowledge, temporary housing, and frustration with disaster opportunism.
“Sometimes you leave and shed a tear,” Taylor says.
“In fact, I remember there was one interview where I pretty much cried myself during the interview – which is probably unprofessional, but we’re all human.”
The researchers identified four broad challenges: erosion of trust, the need to embrace local communities, managing long-term psychological impacts and the need for a holistic, people-centred approach to disaster support.
One of the leading themes was the desire of people to return to their homes, even if they were not repaired.
“Coming back was obviously important for people’s well-being, I think, and to have an extra sense of control over it,” Taylor says.
She adds that people wanted to return to their homes earlier, both to oversee the reconstruction and to be close to jobs, schools and sources of community support.
“Even if the places were perfectly normal, it was still better to go back to living in something less comfortable, but at least familiar, where you’d be close to neighbors and have all the benefits of being connected to them. “
The study also highlighted that places with many connections to the local community are more resilient to flooding.
“Where the community was strong, it seemed to be easier for people to recover,” says Taylor.
“People still haven’t recovered – it takes a long time to fully recover. [But] I think that’s one thing that was encouraging.”