Using Value Chain Tools to Learn from a Major Flood Event in Australia

National weather services often review their forecasts and warnings following high impact weather events to analyse performance and identify areas for improvement. These reviews can be internal or external with agency partners and the community.

A major flood event in eastern Australia in March 2021 led to the evacuation of 18,000 people, 1000 flood rescues and an estimated economic damage bill of $2.9billion and signicant social disruption.

As part of its post-event review the Bureau of Meteorology brought contributors across the whole value chain together to analyse the effectiveness of the service provided during this flood.  The intention was to connect pre-season engagement, weather observations, modelling, hazard prediction, forecasts and warnings, communication, response, impact and recovery with the aim  to better understand:

• the end-to-end value chain linking weather and warnings to stakeholder decisions and benefits,
• strengths and weaknesses of the various value chain elements and their linkages as they played out in the March 2021 flood event,
• roles and expectations of different groups within the value chain for exchange of data, information and engagement, and
• developments underway or planned, and improvements needed.

The WWRP Warning Value Chain project interim database template was used to guide information collection. Methods included review of quantitative data, document analysis and pre-workshop interviews. The template systematically draws out description and analysis of the different elements of the warning value chain, the information flows along the chain, its overall success and challenges in creating benefit.

The post-event review workshop had two parts. The first used short presentations from subject matter experts along all parts of the chain to describe how the event unfolded, who did what and when, and the performance of the various elements. The second part used small group collaborative processes to explore what went well and what could have been better. The groups were purposefully formed to bring together contributors along the value chain who would not normally directly interact. The processes included activities and technologies (collaboration boards, shared spreadsheets, and survey) that accommodated diverse communication styles to enable deeper discussion, ideation, and prioritisation for improvement.

The value chain approach facilitated identification of the key stakeholders and their capabilities and brought focus to the important linkages between them. The evaluation of the effectiveness of information exchange along the warning chain identified a range of improvements which have potential to improve services and reduce economic and social harms. This approach engaged a broader and more diverse range of players in the post-event review and brought additional insights in the observation, modelling and post-processing parts of the value chain.