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Quantitative Modelling of Vulnerability to Severe Wind

Created 16/10/2025

Updated 16/10/2025

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Modelling of the risk posed by the impacts of extreme weather events requires knowledge of the vulnerability, or performance, of building assets. Furthermore, to assess the benefits of mitigation an ability to quantitatively model the change in vulnerability associated with mitigation actions is required. In Australia past efforts at establishing vulnerability relationships between building damage and severe wind have centred on empirical techniques, using data from damage surveys or insurance losses, and heuristic techniques. Neither of these methods permits the change in vulnerability afforded by mitigation work to be quantitatively modelled. The Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC project “Improving the Resilience of Existing Housing to Severe Wind Events” is developing a software tool, Vulnerability and Adaption to Wind Simulation (VAWS), to provide a quantitative vulnerability model for Australian house types. It is based on the premise that overall building damage is strongly related to the failure of key connections. The software uses a Monte Carlo approach whereby numerous realisations of a single generic house type are subjected to an increasing gust wind speed and the loss at each wind speed is calculated. Each realisation of the house varies from others as many key building parameters, such as connection strength, are sampled from probability distributions. For each instance, at each wind speed, the number and type of failed connections are related to damage states and extents of damage which permits the repair cost to be calculated. The repair cost is adjusted for the repair of debris impact damage and water ingress damage. The modelling of mitigation is easily accomplished by rerunning a house modelled with the probability distribution of an upgraded connection’s strength substituted. The software tool provides quantitative measures of reduced vulnerability that can be used in assessing the incremental effectiveness of a range of mitigation strategies in economic terms. Abstract submitted to/presented at AMOS-ICSHMO 2018 (https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/meetings-events/ams-meetings/amos-icshmo-2018/)

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Additional Info

Field Value
Title Quantitative Modelling of Vulnerability to Severe Wind
Language English
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/425a4857-4856-4075-b39e-9cec37cb5b36
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 22/08/2017
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
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Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "Quantitative Modelling of Vulnerability to Severe Wind". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/quantitative-modelling-of-vulnerability-to-severe-wind