Preparing for natural disasters means designing emergency systems that can adapt as conditions change, according to researchers from the University of NSW.

A study of the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires found that as blazes spread across several regions, systems for co-ordinating responses came under increasing strain.

“Resources became harder to allocate and share effectively, responsibilities less clear, and communication more difficult,” a paper in the Journal of Management Studies says.

Professor Markus Doellerer from the university’s School of Management and Governance says the Black Summer showed how even sophisticated institutional arrangements can struggle when confronted with climate-driven events of such magnitude.

The researchers interviewed fire chiefs, incident controllers, Defence personnel, police, community groups and government officials.

They found crisis governance requires adaptive systems capable of responding to changing conditions, and recommend “designing for complexity from the outset”.

This requires integrated cross-border information systems and stronger national resource sharing arrangements, so jurisdictions can co-ordinate when multiple major events hit.

Balancing control and integration will ensure diverse expertise stays connected to decision-making rather than allowing agencies to retreat into silos.

Co-ordinating improvisation means developing flexible routines that let responders collectively identify gaps and adapt.

Many organisations prepare for the crisis they expect, not the ones they will get in a climate-changed era, UNSW Business School lecturer Jaco Fourie says.

“The goal shouldn’t be to eliminate improvisation, which is impossible, but to build the capacity to co-ordinate it,” Dr Fourie said. “Organisations that can do that will be far better positioned to respond to the disruptions of a climate-changed future.”