What History Tells Us About the Brisbane Floods

The March 2022 Queensland floods are a reminder of how futile it is for man to try to hold nature at bay and yet for over two centuries, we’ve constantly rebuilt towns and homes built on floodplains – is it worth it? 

When will we ever learn from the lessons of history?

Dr. Margaret Cook, a flood historian and the author of the book “A River with a City Problem” shares the history of the Brisbane floods – how long has the flood risk been apparent? Is there a permanent solution to the flooding? What’s the government doing?

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Episode Highlights:

1. Why Margaret wrote her book on the Brisbane floods [02:06]
2. What does “1 in 100 year flood” actually mean? [03:31]
3. Human behavior, recency biases, and path dependency [06:56]
4. Thoughts on why the government overlooks flood risks [12:44]
5. Flood risks and insurance issues in Queensland [14:43]
6. Are flood maps and weather reports reliable? [18:44]
7. On building around nature and flood-ready homes [23:27]
8. Managing Brisbane’s flood risk [27:20]
9. How floods affect property prices [32:13]
10. Small windows for big opportunities and making the tough call [38:15]
11. Realistic predictions on Brisbane’s future [44:02]
12. Keeping dam levels at bay [47:56]
13. The aftermath of the 2011 Brisbane floods [51:13]
14. Floods vs Drought: Which is Brisbane’s biggest problem? [53:31]
15. Margaret’s recommendations for flood prevention [55:57]
16. Margaret’s property dumbo [59:34]
17. How banks and insurers deal with flood-risk properties [1:01:59]
    
    

About our guest: 

Margaret Cook is a history lecturer at the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC). She specialises in the history of ‘natural’ disasters in Australia especially floods and earthquakes. The history of floods in the Brisbane River catchment was the subject of her PhD (UQ 2018) and is now a book, A River with a City Problem: A History of Brisbane Floods (UQ Press, 2019). Her broad academic areas of interest are environmental and social history and cultural heritage with particular focus on floods, climate, cotton, water, agriculture and gender. Her research focus is environmental and social history.

Links from the show:

• A River with a City Problem by Margaret Cook
• Ep 164: Australia’s underinsurance epidemic: 83% underinsured!?

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