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Problem, research strategy and findings: On January 10, 2011, the town of Grantham, Queensland (Australia), was inundated with a flash flood in which 12 of the town's 370 residents drowned. The overall damage bill in Queensland was AUD∃2.38 billion (USD∃2.4 billion) with 35 deaths, and more than three-quarters of the state was declared a flood disaster zone. In this study, we focus on the unusual and even rare decision to relocate Grantham in March 2011. The Lockyer Valley Regional Council (LVRC) acquired a 377-hectare (932-acre) site to enable a voluntary swap of equivalent-sized lots. In addition, planning regulations were set aside to streamline the relocation of a portion of the town. We review the natural hazard literature as it relates to community relocation, state and local government documents related to Grantham, and reports and newspaper articles related to the flood. We also analyze data from interviews with key stakeholders. We document the process of community relocation, assess the relocation process in Grantham against best practice, examine whether the process of community relocation can be upscaled and if the Grantham relocation is an example of good planning or good politics. Takeaway for practice: Our study reveals two key messages for practice. Community relocation (albeit a small one) is possible, and the process can be done quickly; some Grantham residents moved into their new, relocated homes in December 2012, just 11 months after the flood. Moreover, the role of existing planning regulations can be a hindrance to quick action; political leadership, particularly at the local level, is key to implementing the relocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates school travel from four schools in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Documented evidence reveals that far fewer children are cycling or walking to school than in previous generations, and that more and more are being driven to school by car. This shift in travel behaviour is claimed to be contributing to declining levels of physical activity in children, and the associated detrimental effects on health. Regular cycling or walking to school is held up as providing an important opportunity for children to stay active. In this study, links between school travel modes and the built environment are investigated. The study additionally investigates the role that parents play in determining the mode their children travel by. Results show that the majority of students travelled by car both to and from school. Further analysis was able to demonstrate that children in schools in different locations have different travel patterns, with those in suburban areas having higher percentages of car travel, compared to those in the inner city and in a master planned development. However, despite the influence of the built environment, the most common reasons for car use cited in parental surveys related to parental safety concerns. [image omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the spatial linkages between natural amenities and tourism employment spillovers under alternative neighbourhood structures. A main contribution is to contrast models where economic distance defines neighbouring regions with a model where the spatial structure is defined by geographical proximity. Significant spillovers are found not only between geographical neighbours, but also between economic neighbours with important implications for policy design. Internet, population, regional parks and state forests and World Heritage Areas are found to be important drivers of regional spillovers. This study uses data for Queensland, Australia, however the approach and conclusions can be extrapolated to similar economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to investigate the interactions of natural and anthropogenic variables at different spatial scales related to changes in mangrove distribution during a relatively wet period (1972-1990) and a dry period (1991-2004) in subtropical eastern Australia. Previous research has demonstrated that mangroves are encroaching into salt marsh. Mangrove spatial change in southeast Queensland is related generally to landscape variables especially during the relatively wet period. What has not been explored is the spatial scale of the influence under the two rainfall regimes (wet and dry) and that is the aim of this paper. Ten sites were examined at different levels of resolution including catchment, sub-catchment and two buffer zones (1000 and 500 m), under the period of relatively higher and lower rainfall. Land use was ascertained from Landsat satellite imagery using Maximum Likelihood Classification techniques. Partial least squares regression analysis was used to study the relationships between the predictor variables and the rate of change in the mangrove distribution. The research has found that the impact of land use/cover on the encroachment of mangrove into saltmarsh can vary and appears to be related to rainfall patterns, which in turn affect hydrological connectivity. A major finding of this research was that the changing spatial patterns of mangroves during the wet period was more a function of land use/cover pattern and population density at the sub-catchment level, whereas during drier periods it was more affected by the local effects of nearby land use/cover in buffer zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The health of an individual is determined by the interaction of genetic and individual factors with wider social and environmental elements. Public health approaches to improving the health of disadvantaged populations will be most effective if they optimise influences at each of these levels, particularly in the early part of the life course. In order to better ascertain the relative contribution of these multi-level determinants there is a need for robust studies, longitudinal and prospective in nature, that examine individual, familial, social and environmental exposures. This paper describes the study background and methods, as it has been implemented in an Australian birth cohort study, Environments for Healthy Living (EFHL): The Griffith Study of Population Health. EFHL is a prospective, multi-level, multi-year longitudinal birth cohort study, designed to collect information from before birth through to adulthood across a spectrum of eco-epidemiological factors, including genetic material from cord-blood samples at birth, individual and familial factors, to spatial data on the living environment. EFHL commenced the pilot phase of recruitment in 2006 and open recruitment in 2007, with a target sample size of 4000 mother/infant dyads. Detailed information on each participant is obtained at birth, 12-months, 3-years, 5-years and subsequent three to five yearly intervals. The findings of this research will provide detailed evidence on the relative contribution of multi-level determinants of health, which can be used to inform social policy and intervention strategies that will facilitate healthy behaviours and choices across sub-populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is the second of two papers that review the field of spatially sensitive social scientific research into the links between social status and transport disadvantage. The first paper undertook a comprehensive review of the social scientific and transport planning literature to mark the level of development in the field and identify conceptual and methodological issues and constraints in this field of inquiry. The present article supports the advancement of socially and geographically sensitive transport research by opportunities for the development of more sophisticated spatial analytical methodologies. The approach we present is able to account for factors not previously addressed in either social or transport planning research, in particular the temporal dimensions of transport service accessibility. The article articulates the methodology through an empirical case study of socio-spatial transport disadvantage within the Gold Coast City. The article demonstrates that there are important theoretical and practical lessons to be gained for researchers and policy makers in addressing the social dimensions of transport and infrastructure provision. Further, the article argues that an attentiveness to new ways of combining and representing social and transport data-sets can promote policy relevant empirical social inquiry. The article also contributes in a productive way to the empirical knowledge of Australia's sixth-largest metropolitan area, which is often overlooked by urban scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]