Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 28, 2025
09:27
Wind Tunnel Experiments to Study Chaparral Crown Fires
Published on: November 14, 2017
10.0K
Fuzzy boundaries: Simulation and expertise in bushfire prediction
Timothy Neale1, Daniel May2,1
1Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Australia.
Social Studies of Science
|February 14, 2020
Summary
Climate change and population shifts intensify natural hazards like wildfires. This study explores how Australian bushfire management agencies institutionalize expertise in predicting fire behavior, revealing cultural dynamics and broader implications of managing landscape fires.
Area of Science:
- Environmental Science
- Sociology of Science
- Risk Management
Background:
- Increasing frequency and social impact of natural hazards, particularly wildfires (bushfires), driven by climatic and demographic changes.
- Growing demand for governmental agencies to provide greater foresight into the consequences, occurrence, and behavior of dynamic natural phenomena.
- Emergence of new anticipatory regimes, tools, practitioners, and expertise focused on predicting future fire events.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the emergence and institutionalization of expertise among Australian Fire Behaviour Analysts.
- To explore how the integration of this expertise within bushfire management agencies highlights cultural boundaries and tensions.
- To provide insight into the human and nonhuman infrastructures used for predicting and managing landscape fires.
Main Methods:
- Qualitative research approach.
- Interviews with Fire Behaviour Analysts across Australia.
- Analysis of the institutionalization of expertise within bushfire management agencies.
Main Results:
- Fire Behaviour Analyst expertise has emerged and become institutionalized within Australian bushfire management.
- The embedding of this expertise reveals cultural boundaries and tensions within agencies.
- Human and nonhuman infrastructures are crucial for predicting and managing landscape fires, with 'fuzzy boundaries' negotiated by practitioners.
Conclusions:
- Understanding the practice of expertise is essential for refining critiques of expertise as an individual capacity.
- The study highlights the social and political implications of infrastructures used in fire prediction and management.
- Empirical studies of expertise in practice are necessary for improving the management of natural hazards like bushfires.
Related Concept Videos
01:18Boundary Layer Characteristics
459
When a fluid encounters a solid surface, a boundary layer forms due to the interaction between the fluid's motion and the stationary surface. This phenomenon is characterized by a thin region adjacent to the surface where viscous forces dominate, influencing the fluid's velocity profile. The development of the boundary layer begins at the leading edge of the surface and evolves as the fluid moves downstream.As the fluid flows over the surface, friction between the fluid and the wall slows down...
459
01:17Design Example: Analyzing Capacity Contours for Flood Risk Assessment
244
Flood risk assessment involves careful planning and analysis to ensure the safety of communities near water retention structures. Capacity contours are a vital tool in this process, as they illustrate the potential spread of water at specific levels in a given area. In the context of building a bund across a small valley, these contours play a critical role in evaluating the safety of nearby residential areas.In this example, the bund is intended to store stormwater in the valley. The engineers...
244
01:05Estimation of the Physical Quantities
7.1K
On many occasions, physicists, other scientists, and engineers need to make estimates of a particular quantity. These are sometimes referred to as guesstimates, order-of-magnitude approximations, back-of-the-envelope calculations, or Fermi calculations. The physicist Enrico Fermi was famous for his ability to estimate various kinds of data with surprising precision. Estimating does not mean guessing a number or a formula at random. Instead, estimation means using prior experience and sound...
7.1K
01:29Applications of GIS: Disaster Management and Emergency Response
385
Geographic Information System (GIS) technology is essential for risk identification, action prioritization, and resource optimization in critical situations like flooding and earthquakes. By integrating spatial and demographic data, GIS provides a comprehensive framework for emergency response.GIS integrates data layers, like rainfall intensity, topography, elevation profiles, and river levels, to model high-risk flood zones. These layers assess areas susceptible to flooding based on their...
385
01:10Propagation of Uncertainty from Systematic Error
1.2K
The atomic mass of an element varies due to the relative ratio of its isotopes. A sample's relative proportion of oxygen isotopes influences its average atomic mass. For instance, if we were to measure the atomic mass of oxygen from a sample, the mass would be a weighted average of the isotopic masses of oxygen in that sample. Since a single sample is not likely to perfectly reflect the true atomic mass of oxygen for all the molecules of oxygen on Earth, the mass we obtain from this...
1.2K
00:59Uncertainty: Overview
1.4K
In analytical chemistry, we often perform repetitive measurements to detect and minimize inaccuracies caused by both determinate and indeterminate errors. Despite the cares we take, the presence of random errors means that repeated measurements almost never have exactly the same magnitude. The collective difference between these measurements - observed values - and the estimated or expected value is called uncertainty. Uncertainty is conventionally written after the estimated or expected value.
1.4K