Disaster Risk Reduction Fund - State Risk Reduction Stream
The NSW Reconstruction Authority is administering funds to projects that focus on significant state level initiatives to support the prevention, mitigation and management of disaster risks.
Nearly $13 million has been awarded to 13 projects that will help reduce disaster risk across NSW. The funding recipients, announced on 9 November 2022, include NSW Government agencies, not‑for‑profits and other organisations.
The funded projects address common natural hazards such as floods, bushfires, heatwaves and storms. Initiatives focus on capability building, community engagement, improved data and technology, and other innovative approaches to reducing disaster risk.
Key information
- Status: Closed (May 2022)
- Funding available:
- Discovery projects – up to $500,000
- Scale projects – up to $2.5 million
- Applications closed: 6 May 2022
- Funding awarded: more than $12.8 million awarded to 13 projects
- Project timelines:
- Discovery projects must be completed and financially acquitted by December 2023
- Scale projects must be completed and financially acquitted by 30 June 2024
Program objectives
- addressing a risk of state significance, such as impacts to the economy, sensitive ecosystems or critical infrastructure
- contributing to improved understanding of state-level risk or effective practices in disaster risk reduction practices in NSW
Eligibility criteria and details of the assessment process are outlined in the guidelines under key documents. Funding is available through two pathways:
Funding awarded
Up to $500,000 in funding was provided for Discovery projects to support initiatives that test or pilot innovative approaches to disaster risk reduction. These projects focus on exploring new ideas and demonstrating their potential for broader application, with an emphasis on solutions that could ultimately deliver statewide relevance or impact.
Up to $2.5 million was provided for Scale projects to support initiatives that deliver new products, technologies, platforms or approaches capable of being implemented widely across NSW. This stream supports projects that can be deployed at scale, driving significant and sustainable improvements in disaster resilience across the state.
Fire and Rescue NSW
Funding: $392,500
Project: Reducing risk and increasing community resilience in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities through culturally appropriate communication
Description: Promoting culturally competent communication in public safety; and exploring the use of new technologies to increase resilience in potentially high risk CALD communities.
Forestry Corporation of NSW
Funding: $400,000
Project: Building capacity to link satellite and ground-based data for fuel load and fuel moisture mapping, modelling and monitoring.
Description: This project will investigate ways to improve information available from satellite-based soil and vegetation indices by incorporating ground-based verification data across a range of different forest types
Local Land Services
Funding: $490,000
Project: Scaling up and accelerating preparedness and resilience within natural disaster fatigued communities.
Description: Project seeks to understand impacts of successive natural hazards on the capacity, risk behaviour, and preparedness activities of regional land owners, and identify behaviour, barriers and enablers to participation in resilience building initiatives.
NSW Department of Planning and Environment
Funding: $404,263
Project: Improving NSW regional-scale flood hazard projections under plausible climate change scenarios
Description: To inform prevention and preparation activities, the project will convert regional climate projections into spatially explicit flood projections and assess future changes in annual probabilities of regional-scale flood hazards under plausible climate futures.
University of Sydney
Funding: $435,303
Project: A new “Heat Stress Scale” for reducing personal health risk during heatwave disasters
Description: Develop, disseminate and pilot test in Western Sydney the utility of a new publicly available “Heat Stress Scale” (HSS) delivered on a personalised app and on public-facing displays for enhancing community resilience to heatwave disasters.
University of Sydney
Funding: $487,767
Project: Self-organising Systems to Minimise Future Disaster Risk
Description: This project will focus on the substance, organisation, continuity, and potential formalisation of spontaneous community networks of support in the wake of shock climate events.
NSW State Emergency Service
Funding: $1,032,200
Project: Flood, Storm and Tsunami: awareness and preparedness for NSW CALD Communities
Description: NSW SES will develop bespoke CALD communication strategies and assets for flood, storm and tsunami awareness and preparedness. This will enable effective engagement with at-risk CALD communities across NSW.
Australian Red Cross
Funding: $500,000
Project: Community Resilience Teams Led by Young People
Description: Community Resilience Teams will be established in three disaster affected regions in NSW. Young volunteers will work with local governments, emergency services and communities to reduce disaster risk and improve community resilience.
Bushfire Building Council of Australia Limited
Funding: $2,210,560
Project: Disaster Resilience & Energy Efficiency Ratings - Building Assessor App & Training Program
Description: The project provides a single home assessment program for energy efficiency and disaster resilience ratings, assessor training and rating certification program. The purpose is to enable private investment in household disaster risk reduction action.
Landcare NSW
Funding: $1,900,000
Project: Enhancing Household and Landowner Engagement in Disaster Preparedness and Prevention (People Led Prevention).
Description: Enlisting the Landcare NSW Community Network in landscape risk reduction activities. Engage disaster-risk experts to better understand barriers to disaster resilience behaviour change in communities. Deliver practical workshops to communities, households and landholders, to increase their connectivity and their capability to implement risk reduction activities.
NSW Department of Planning and Environment
Funding: $1,600,000
Project: DPE Regional Adaptive Pathways Planning (RAPP)
Description: Drawing on plausible futures and multi-hazard disaster risk assessment, the project will engage stakeholders in a series of adaptive pathways planning workshops, to develop approaches to embedding disaster risk reduction for the Illawarra Shoalhaven, and guiding adaptive pathways planning in city and regional planning across NSW.
NSW Department of Planning and Environment
Funding: $985,547
Project: NSW Coastal Erosion and Inundation Mapping and Exposure Assessment
Description: This project will deliver an updated assessment of potential exposure to both current and potential future hazards associated with coastal erosion, estuarine tidal inundation and impacts of storm surge and wave runup.
NSW State Emergency Service
Funding: $2,000,000
Project: Flood Risk Assessment and Visualisation
Description: Integrating flood intelligence systems, GIS data, planning and visualisations which will enable communities to better understand their flood risk, the best evacuation strategies and the impact of flooding so they can make safe decisions.
Key documents
Contact us
You can contact us via email at drrf@resilience.nsw.gov.au if you have concerns regarding the probity or integrity of the fund.
Privacy notice
When you submit an application to the NSW Reconstruction Authority for funding under the Disaster Risk Reduction Fund, or provide any additional information related to your application, we collect information from this activity. This information may include personal and organisational details such as your full name, phone number, business name and ACN details, email and street address.
The NSW Reconstruction Authority collects your personal information to:
provide you with further information about the Disaster Risk Reduction Fund
assess your eligibility to apply for a grant under the Disaster Risk Reduction Fund
process and determine your application
deliver and administer the grant funding, if you are successful, and
other directly related purposes.
If you do not provide the information requested in the application, or information requested separately by the NSW Reconstruction Authority in relation to your application, we may be unable to consider or determine your application.
The NSW Reconstruction Authority may use and disclose your personal information to:
verify the information you provide in support of your application with a public or private authority
assess your eligibility for other state and Commonwealth government financial support programs
partner organisations and other government agencies that may assist in ensuring the grant funding achieves its objectives
internal and administrative purposes within NSW Reconstruction Authority
other purposes related to the Disaster Risk Reduction Fund.
If the NSW Reconstruction Authority engages other people to collect, store or use personal information, we will ensure that they comply with the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 No 133 (NSW).
The NSW Reconstruction Authority will not provide your personal information to a third party for any purpose not already stated in this privacy notice without your consent, unless we are required or authorised to do so (for example, we may disclose your information for law enforcement purposes or to statutory or regulatory bodies as required by law).
The NSW Reconstruction Authority takes reasonable security measures to protect your personal information from loss, unauthorised access, use, modification, disclosure, or other misuse.
You may request access to the information we hold about you at any time and request to update, correct or amend your personal information by contacting us via email at drrf@resilience.nsw.gov.au.