Improving flood resilience through coordination and collaboration: The 2022 New South Wales Floods in Australia.

This article examines interorganizational coordination and collaboration during the 2022 New South Wales (NSW) Floods in Australia, focusing on the roles and network governance among key agencies involved in flood response. Using Natural Language Processing to analyze two government reports, the study identifies 51 agencies, highlighting the State Emergency Service (SES), Resilience NSW, and the Rural Fire Service (RFS) as central actors with varying degrees of connectivity and coordination effectiveness. Findings reveal a decentralized network with strong ties among some entities but notable coordination challenges, including communication gaps and overlapping responsibilities, which affected timely decision-making and resource allocation. The study underscores the need for enhanced collaboration across government levels, private, nonprofit, and volunteer sectors to improve flood resilience and recommends further research into network governance structures to optimize disaster response in Australia.