Residents in flood-prone areas must be better prepared, or shifted

Spreading out the floods lowers the peak and thus limits the damage. For Australia, this involves identifying different ways of living and working in flood-prone areas, while still protecting high-value assets.

Reassessing development regulations and possibly moving homes or businesses might be part of the solution.

People living in flood-prone areas can be compensated or helped to be "flood ready", similar to people living in bushfire-risk areas. Re-routing floodwaters to certain areas of the flood plain could be another option.

Australian agriculture also requires flexible and responsive cropping systems that take full advantage of the wet years and make do in the very dry years. For this to be effective, flood risk forecasting, particularly at the long range, needs more focus.

There is significant forecasting at the short range, but full interpretation of long-range climate patterns, their influence on Australia and their possible changes due to climate change still needs more work. While we are able to predict the La Nina pattern, we are not yet able to accurately predict the impact or risk of such a pattern for different areas. Careful assessments of the floods now affecting Queensland will assist with this for the future.

Learning to live with floods rather than preparing to fight floods will lead to a more resilient and prosperous future and allow us to take full advantage of our variable climate.