INAUGURAL KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION SHARING FORUM 2016

Mackay Regional Council’s coastal hazards adaptation journey

In 2010, following guidance from the State, Council incorporated climate change factors into all new flood and storm tide studies. The presentation will showcase learnings from Council’s recent projects and projects underway to progress the climate adaptation journey around coastal hazards.

What have we learnt from two decades of coastal adaptation studies in Australia?

Over the last two decades the risk to coastal settlements and infrastructure from rising sea levels has been increasingly recognised. In response, local governments, and the owners of major infrastructure have been developing coastal adaption plans and strategies. This presentation will describe the most common shortfalls that have led to a lack of uptake of coastal adaption plans both in Australia and globally.

Overview of the CoastAdapt Tool

Coastal councils are already adapting to rising seas and NCCARF has developed a tool to help. The CoastAdapt tool will provide support to coastal decision makers across Australia.

Phase 1 of a CHAS – Stakeholder communication and engagement

Community engagement underpins the successful development of a CHAS. This presentation will provide insights into a range of techniques that have been successful in engaging communities in long term planning and the need to integrate coastal hazard engagement with future planning activities, and will draw on best practice to illustrate concepts and approaches.

David Corkill - CEO & Shannon McGuire - Principal Planner, Buckley Vann

Phases 3, 4, 5 of a CHAS – Identify current and future coastal hazards, identify key assets potentially impacted and risk assessment of key assets in coastal hazards areas.

This presentation will demonstrate the application of the ISO 31000 Risk Assessment Framework to Coastal Zone Management. Methods for defining hazard (i.e. likelihood), assigning consequence (triple bottom line), and establishing risk levels and spatial mapping will also be presented.

Greg Fisk - Principal Environmental Consultant & Dr Matt Barnes - Senior Coastal Engineer, BMT WBM

Phase 7 – Socio-economic appraisal of adaptation options

Following the identification of potential adaptation options, it is necessary to determine the total economic, social and environmental benefits of these options to help inform decision making and select the preferred option or suite of options to respond to the identified risks. This presentation will discuss the use of Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) as a valuable tool for determining preferred coastal hazard adaptation options.

Moving on from the Townsville CHAS Pilot Study

The 2012 Townsville CHAS has provided Council with significant assistance towards understanding Townsville’s needs in the face of increased exposure to coastal hazards. Project outcomes have informed the Townsville City Plan (2014) to ensure new development avoids areas of future risk and align existing zonings with adaptation pathways. Key learnings from the Townville CHAS pilot study will be explored with examination of how short-comings will be addressed in future coastal hazard adaptation planning.

Facilitating CHAS decision making

A key element of CHAS type assessments is understanding “where to from here?” Typically, much of the effort to date, where funding has permitted, has focussed on: (i) collecting data, and (ii) better understanding risk. However, one of the biggest challenges outside these issues, and one that does not always receive adequate attention, is knowing when to implement measures, and in parallel, understanding the influence this measure has on funding and associated planning decisions.

Ross Fryar -Principal, Water & Environment, GHD

Bureau data and services supporting safer communities

BoM currently hold a range of data sets relevant to assessing coastal hazards including tropical cyclones and their associated storm surge, tides, waves, currents, winds, rainfall and flooding. This presentation will outline the existing data and products available from BoM, and provide information on current major projects focusing on storm surge and catchment-coastal interactions.

Greg Stuart - Manager Coastal Information Services, Bureau of Meteorology

Coastal adaptation: How might the financial sector play a valuable role in CHAS?

The real or perceived financial value of vulnerable and exposed housing is a critical factor in any discussion of coastal hazard risks. The presentation will discuss how insurers, banks and investors could provide useful support in different phases of the CHAS process particularly Phases 4 and 6 to 8.

Kate Mackenzie - Investment and Governance Manager, The Climate Institute

Shoreline erosion management plans in Queensland: lessons learnt

The presentation will discuss lessons learnt from developing a SEMP and how this can be applied to what might be encountered when completing a CHAS. This would include the importance of community engagement; identifying and engaging with all stakeholders; as well as the need to apply leading coastal engineering practices when undertaking technical assessment of hazards.