Mr Garth Warren
Pronouns: he,him,his
Spatial Analyst and Social Psychologist
Biography
Garth Warren has dedicated the last 6 of his 17-year research career to helping communities manage the risks associated with bushfires. He is particularly interested in the human element of bushfire risk management and is an emerging leader in understanding how to educate and motivate communities to adopt better risk management practices.
Garth’s recent activities include publishing two best practice guidelines that show builders and homeowners how to build and retrofit homes so they have a greater chance of surviving a bushfire. The guidelines consolidate decades of research and include advice that goes beyond the current regulatory standards.
Garth has also played a leading role in the ongoing Bushfire Surveyor Application Suite of projects, which are developing the next generation of tools and training that will allow experts and lay members of the Australian public to conduct post-bushfire surveys. These surveys will collect knowledge and observations from bushfire events. Together, this data will increase what we know about bushfire and how they impact people and built environments.
To compliment his current roles, Garth is completing a PhD in social psychology at the University of Melbourne. His ongoing research is investigating how culture, psychology, and societal factors influence how people and groups share information, how this information can evolve over time, and how it can affect social norms, attitudes, and perceptions. A central part of this work is investigating how risk management agencies can communicate risk management information to the public in a way that translates to risk adaptive behaviours.
Before joining the Bushfire Adaptation team in 2018, Garth worked primarily in environmental resource accounting in CSIRO’s Land and Water division, where he provided GIS and spatial analysis expertise to large multidisciplinary projects, many of which have had significant national science impacts: informing policy, government works, and future science directions. Some highlights from this period of his career include the development of a flood inundation workflow for the River Murray Floodplain Inundation Model (RiM-FiM). The RiM-FiM workflow consolidated multiple disparate programs, scripts, and manual tasks into a single application, which was subsequently used to produce estimates of flood inundation for the Murray Darling Basin Authority. Garth also developed a model benchmarking package as part of the Water Information Research and Development Alliance (WIRADA). This software package was subsequently adopted by the Bureau of Meteorology to evaluate and report on national water model estimates.
Professional Areas
Academic Qualifications
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2018
Graduate Diploma in Psychology (Advanced)
The University of Melbourne -
2017
Graduate Diploma in Psychology
The University of Melbourne -
2005
Bachelor of Science (Spatial Information Science, Biology, and Mathematics)
Charles Sturt University
Achievements and Awards
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2018-2018
Norma Grieve Prize
The University of Melbourne -
2016-2016
CSIRO Medal for Science Impact, team award for the Water Information Research and Development Alliance
CSIRO -
2016-2016
Recognition award, for contributions to the Northern Australia Water Resources Assessment
CSIRO -
2013-2013
Excellence in Research
CSIRO Land & Water -
2013-2013
Application Excellence award, for the Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems Atlas team
Geospatial World Forum -
2013-2013
Spatial Excellence award in the Spatial Enablement category, for the Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems Atlas team
The Victorian Spatial Excellence Awards (VSEA) -
2012-2012
Excellence in Research Support, for the Australian Water Resources Assessment technical team
CSIRO Land & Water -
2011-2011
Recognition award, for contributions to the Water for a Healthy Country (WfHC) National Water Commission Ground Water Dependent Ecosystem Project
CSIRO Land & Water -
2009-2009
Recognition award, for contributions to the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) Precision Agriculture & Precision Conservation Project
CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems