Keyword "Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Environmental Knowledge"

In Australia there is great uncertainty when estimating the frequency of major floods because gauging of floods is only a relatively new practice, introduced slightly over 100 years ago. With such a limited data set, it is difficult to design water engineering projects intended to withstand floods with Average Exceedance Probabilities (AEP) of even 200 years or more. Pre-gauged data can reduce this uncertainty on the assumption the past is representative of the future. Aboriginal people have lived in Australia for an estimated 40,000 years prior to the First Fleet arriving in 1788. In this time, Aboriginal people would have witnessed extreme or rare flooding events within their respective tribal lands. Recollection of these floods captured in stories and memories passed down within tribes from where they originate could potentially hold useful evidence of flooding in that region. By exploring these Aboriginal stories and extracting the information that can be used to model floods, this can then be used to create improved estimates of flood frequency. Using Aboriginal Knowledge in an engineering context is a pioneering study; this project will evaluate the value of this ancient knowledge in a modern world.