Resilience NSW will oversee and coordinate emergency management policy, service delivery and disaster recovery, with former Rural Fire Commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons appointed to lead the new agency.
Kieran Power, WSP’s National Lead, Resilience and Climate Change, says, “While the focus is currently quite rightly on recovery, it’s encouraging to see that the agency will also play a role in disaster prevention and preparedness for the NSW community.
“As we begin to emerge from this unprecedented period of disruptions, we have a unique opportunity to ensure that our investments in recovery help us bounce forward and reduce our vulnerability to whatever shocks the future holds.”
This holistic view of resilience has been a major focus of the City of Sydney’s Resilient Sydney Strategy, which sets out five strategic directions in creating a more connected, inclusive and resilient metropolis.
The opportunity now is for Resilience NSW to take this more holistic approach to resilience across the state, considering interdependencies between our emergency services, communities, infrastructure, economy and climate.
“In our work on major infrastructure projects we are seeing escalating interest in resilience. Our clients are recognising that resilience is about more than physically strong assets and effective emergency response – we must also consider how planning and delivery of infrastructure can support the prosperity and adaptive capacity of end users,” adds Kieran.
With our close global connections and opportunity to draw on lessons learnt in other regions, WSP is ready to help our local clients with charting a way forward, in creating more resilient communities in NSW and more broadly across Australia.
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