The Resilience Matters webinar series will focus on systems, environments and human factors that intersect to influence the varying levels of risk, harm and equity that people experience before, during and after a disaster. 

Presenters from a variety of research, government and community backgrounds will be invited to provide their insights and perspectives as we seek to understand how we can reduce harm in these systems to reduce disaster risk and build resilience.

Throughout the series, we will build on these foundational concepts. Everyone is welcome to attend, whether you are an experienced practitioner or new to these concepts, or somewhere in between.

Look out for new webinars as they are developed and added to the events calendar.

Webinar two: Thinking systemically about disaster risk

Wednesday 11 June 2025

AIDR welcomes Professor Lauren Rickards, Director of the La Trobe Climate Change Adaptation Lab. Lauren will draw on a range of systems ideas in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation research to explore what systemic risk means and why it matters for our work.

This webinar will help participants think systemically about the interconnected and cascading nature of disaster risk.

For the most part, our existing lifestyles and daily activities are heavily dependent on largely unseen and interconnected systems for the delivery of essential services when we need them (e.g. energy, water, food, health and education services, transport, and communications). These systems reflect a chain of accumulated decisions and choices made over generations, in different circumstances and with different priorities.

Current approaches to disaster risk reduction are being challenged in a world of more frequent and compounding hazards. As the population and economy continue to grow, increasing exposure is creating complex interdependencies that are leading to more systemic vulnerabilities.

The United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reduction has identified that a linear approach to managing risk is no longer sufficient, given the systemic nature of disaster risk. We need to better understand the consequences of disasters, how these can cascade through systems, where the boundaries of systems lie, and where the fragility in the connections within and between systems lie.

Guest Speakers:

Professor Lauren Rickards

Director of the La Trobe Climate Change Adaptation Lab

Lauren is Director of the La Trobe Climate Change Adaptation Lab. With colleagues within and affiliated with the Lab, she is using innovative social research to examine: the impacts of climate change on the sectors of society that sustain us (including environmental sustainability, government, agriculture, water, education, health and emergency management); the far-reaching implications of these impacts for our collective wellbeing; and the deep, multi-level adaptation required.

Primarily a geographer by training, Lauren was a Lead Author with the Australasia chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Sixth Assessment Report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. She has a MSc in Environmental Change and Management and a DPhil in Human Geography from the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and a BSc (Hons) in Ecology from the University of Melbourne.

Dr Neville Ellis
Manager of the Climate Adaptation Program

Neville Ellis is the Manager of the Climate Adaptation Program for the Western Australian emergency management sector, based within the Department of Fire and Emergency Services.

Neville was formally a Contributing Author and Chapter Scientist on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 1.5°C Special Report and has published research in various prestigious international journals. Neville is particularly interested in systemic risk and social-ecological resilience and their implications for emergency management.

John Richardson (host)

Executive Director, Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR)