Researchers are looking into the social implications and environmental consquences of floods and flood debris which followed record-breaking rains in the Gladstone and Rockhampton areas last summer...

The project is drawing on biological surveys of beach debris as well as social survey responses about how people prepared for the floods, and how they were affected.

Professor Marnie Campbell, PhD student Chloe Peterson de Heer and Dr Scott Wilson

Funding from a Vice-Chancellor's initiative has been boosted by Xstrata Coal  to enable an expansion of the surveys.

Dr Scott Wilson is conducting the biological surveys, while Professor Marnie Campbell is coordinating the social aspects with the help of face-to-face surveys by PhD student Chloe Paterson de Heer and phone data collected by the 2011 Queensland Social Survey (via the CQUniversity Population Research Laboratory).

There is an additional survey into effects of flood debris on businesses.

"The types of effects we're looking at include impacts to pets," Professor Campbell says.

"A lot of anecdotal information suggests that in Gladstone (Tannum/Boyne) pets were affected by the barramundi that were washed down the river from Awoonga Dam. The fish carcasses polluted the river edge and beaches in Boyne Island and Tannum Sands and some pets received injuries from the dead fish."

"We anticipate that the project outcomes will include information about how people were impacted by the floods and flood debris, how businesses were affected, and how people prepare for floods."