How to fight bushfires with data: aggregating, curating and harmonising data
Kylie Black1, Stefanie Kethers1, Sheida Hadavi1 1Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC)
Abstract
The unprecedented 2019/2020 Australian bushfires showed in full force the devastating impact bushfires can have on the natural landscape, the built environment and human health.The resulting Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements (2020) recommended supporting better decision making through the sharing of data. In response, the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) launched its Bushfire Data Challenges program.
Data sharing is a key challenge for the numerous Australian agencies. Data is being captured in different formats, with different metadata, and by different levels of government in the states and territories. The ability to harness the full power of data by sharing it across organisations and borders will have a significant impact on Australia’s bushfire resilience, response and recovery.
Bringing together collaborations from government and research institutions, projects in this program address data challenges in accessing bushfire related data infrastructure to improve the understanding of bushfire behaviour and impact.
In this presentation, we will provide an overview on three of the key outputs from this program:
- Nationally aggregated bushfire history dataset, which harmonises, aggregates and curates the fire history data from the states and territories developed by Geoscience Australia and Emergency Management Spatial information Network Australia (EMSINA).
- Framework for sharing bushfire data between jurisdictional agencies developed by the Australasian Fire Authorities Council.
- Spark wildfire modelling platform, developed by Data61 at CSIRO.
Biography
Sheida Hadavi – Sheida is the ARDC Director of Translational Research Data Challenges. Her background is in data analytics and computer science and she is passionate in building collaborative and innovative digital infrastructure that address societal challenges.
Stefanie Kethers – Stefanie is the ARDC Program Manager (Data Challenges). She has worked in eResearch for over 13 years and has a long-standing interest in facilitating cooperation between individuals and groups.
Kylie Black – Kylie is a Research Data Specialist (Data Challenges), on secondment from the University of Western Australia Library where she is a Senior Librarian in Research and Academic Engagement. She is pursuing an interest in research data management and support, particularly in academia.