Urban planner slams risk threshold for current floodplain developments

An urban planning expert says new settlements need to be much more “risk avoidant” to natural disasters .

It comes as insurance claims in Queensland and New South Wales topped $1 billion.

Professor Alan March, urban planning & disaster risk reduction expert at the University of Melbourne, told Tom Elliott the threshold for risk for needs to be much higher.

“One of the big problems we still have is people use one in 100 year flood, and it’s a line on a map,” he said on 3AW Drive.

“Now the flood doesn’t know someone drew a line there, and we should actually be much more risk-avoidant than that.

“We need to go to peak, maximum flood levels; which is usually one in 1000, or even up to one in 4000 (year flood) level.

“And that’s the kind of risk-avoidance we need to be taking.”

Press PLAY to hear more below

Image: Twitter, Airlie Walsh