Lismore City Council has installed two new flood gauges as part of its local strategy to improve real-time monitoring and better support emergency and disaster response planning.
The gauges, located at Rocky Creek Dam and Ballina Street Bridge, were funded and delivered by the Council following the 2022 floods, which exposed critical information gaps in the region’s flood alert systems.
The new installations aim to deliver continuous water level data to support more timely decisions during high-risk weather events.
Local emergency services, including the NSW State Emergency Service (SES) and the council’s own teams, will have immediate access to the data through the council’s internal systems.
Joshua Smith, acting chief operating and financial officer at Lismore City Council, said the sites were selected based on their relevance to regional flood forecasting models.
“These gauges will soon be feeding real-time data into emergency systems and helping improve decisions in flood events,” he said. “We’re grateful to Rous County Council and the Bureau of Meteorology for their support during installation.”
The Ballina Street Bridge gauge serves as a secondary river-level monitoring point within the catchment.
Meanwhile, the Rocky Creek Dam gauge is located at the Nightcap Water Treatment Plant, managed by Rous County Council.
The Bureau of Meteorology and the NSW Department of Climate Change provided technical support.
As part of a national transition plan under the Federal Government’s Flood Warning Infrastructure Network (FWIN), ownership and long-term maintenance of the gauges will eventually shift to the Bureau of Meteorology.
Smith said this shift will align local monitoring with national systems and improve overall resilience.
Data from the gauges will eventually be integrated into the Bureau’s public platforms, although full inclusion could take up to 18 months.
Meanwhile, the council plans to make the information available via its local Disaster Dashboard once technical work is complete.
The installation coincides with the recent Natural Hazards Research Forum 2025, held in Adelaide, which showcased new data-driven tools and research designed to improve disaster preparedness across sectors.
Several programs introduced at the forum have direct applications for insurance firms and risk analysts.
The Australian Disaster Resilience Index (ADRI) was relaunched with updated metrics under the ADRI-2 framework. Developed by Natural Hazards Research Australia in partnership with the University of New England, the tool offers regional breakdowns of resilience capacity across more than 2,300 localities. It provides a comparative view of how communities are positioned to withstand and recover from events like fires, floods and storms.
Complementary initiatives introduced at the forum include the “Transformative Scenarios for a Climate-Changed World” program, which encourages the use of multi-scenario planning to account for uncertainty in climate projections.
Another set of research tools – the “Extreme Fire Behaviour Knowledge Modules” – offers updated fire modelling based on the 2019–20 bushfire season.
The “Predictions in Public” project is also under development, with a focus on improving the way fire spread forecasts are communicated to both emergency services and the public through standardised visual tools.
The forum also covered human decision-making in disaster conditions.
The Human Factors research stream explores how responders operate under pressure, aiming to reduce error and improve coordination in emergencies.
In a separate release, Natural Hazards Research Australia presented new protocols to guide partnerships with First Nations communities in land and hazard management.
The “Principles and Protocols for Cultural Land Management Governance” framework is intended to ensure respectful and effective collaboration in future research and planning.
