John Handmer
Emeritus Research Scholar
Equity and Justice Research Group
Population and Just Societies Program
Biography
John Handmer is Senor Science Adviser in the Risk and Resilience (RISK) Program at IIASA, an Emeritus Professor with the RMIT School of Science, an Honorary Professorial Fellow with Geography, University of Melbourne, and a Fellow of the Australian Social Science Academy. He works closely with the Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC (Cooperative Research Centre). He has also held positions at the Australian National University and the Flood Hazard Research Centre, Middlesex University (London). He chairs the Scientific Committee of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) Program of ISC (International Council of Science and the UNDRR), and is, or has recently been, on a number of Australian advisory bodies. These include climate change adaptation, disaster risk and resilience, and most recently the National Vulnerability Profile project. He has qualifications and experience in human geography, economics and law. His research group at RMIT has won a number of Australian industry and national awards over the last few years, for its work on wildfire risk. He co-led the human dimensions research following the Australian fires of 2009.Recent papers include work on transformation both as a concept and within disaster risk reduction, and on the need to integrate effort across climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and the sustainable development goals. In addition to these areas, current research interests include disaster economics, reimagining warnings and risk communication, and disasters as an existential threat.
Last update: 17 JAN 2020
Publications
Hochrainer-Stigler, S., Deubelli, T. , Mechler, R. , Dieckmann, U. , Laurien, F. , & Handmer, J. (2023). Closing the ‘operationalisation gap‘: Insights from systemic risk research to inform transformational adaptation and risk management. Climate Risk Management 41 e100531. 10.1016/j.crm.2023.100531.
Chang, S.E., Brown, C., Handmer, J., Helgeson, J., Kajitani, Y., Keating, A., Noy, I., Watson, M., Derakhshan, S., Kim, J., & Roa-Henriquez, A. (2022). Business recovery from disasters: Lessons from natural hazards and the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 80 e103191. 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.103191.
UNDRR (2022). The need for a new narrative in an era of systemic existential threats. United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction
Yumagulova, L. & Handmer, J. (2021). Introduction to the special issue on unaffiliated volunteering: the universality and importance of volunteering. Environmental Hazards 20 (1) 1-6. 10.1080/17477891.2021.1877606.
McLennan, B.J., Whittaker, J., Kruger, T., & Handmer, J. (2021). Navigating authority and legitimacy when ‘outsider’ volunteers co-produce emergency management services. Environmental Hazards 20 (1) 7-22. 10.1080/17477891.2020.1727829.