Intelligent cyclone risk management

SYSTEMS Engineering Australia (SEA) recently launched its Engineers Australia award-winning, innovative SEAtide storm tide and wind risk modelling software across Australia.

SEA principal Dr Bruce Harper, who worked as chief ocean engineer at Woodside in the late 1980s, established SEA in 1996 to provide quantitative natural hazards risk assessment services to the insurance industry.

From there, Dr Harper became a leading international figure in tropical cyclone impacts, research and climate change adaptation planning.

SEAtide is a prediction and analysis system that enables operations and emergency managers to rapidly evaluate the possible impact of storm tide threats to coastal facilities and communities.

The system has been in operational use by the Bureau of Meteorology in the Northern Territory since 2005, in QLD since 2014, and is now available Australia-wide for industry and local Government applications.

With SEAtide, decision makers can rapidly explore potential impacts during emerging cyclone events, adopt specific strategies around tolerable risk avoidance, examine historically-possible impacts at their leisure, provide critical staff training and inform strategic emergency planning.

The system is especially effective in regions with a high tidal range, such as the WA Pilbara.

In addition, SEA offers a wide range of specialised natural hazards risk services.

Bureau of Meteorology radar image of Severe Category 5 Tropical Cyclone George approaching the Pilbara coast in March 2007 (right) and SEAtide’s ability to rapidly model uncertainty in track, size and intensity as well as the tidal variation, to provide statistical guidance on the peak storm tide impacts (left).