ANNUAL CONGRESS 2025

Local Level Coastal Adaptation: Evaluating Queensland’s QCoast2100 Program

Not scheduled

20m

Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul

Oral Track 05 | ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE

Speaker

Aysin Dedekorkut-Howes

Description

Climate change impacts such as rising sea levels and the increasing intensity of storms and cyclones pose growing risks to Australia’s lifestyle, environment, and economy. Queensland is one of the most vulnerable states to the coastal climate change impacts in Australia with the highest number of residential and light industrial buildings and the greatest value of existing road infrastructure at risk from a sea level rise. More than 80 percent of Queenslanders live on the coast. In 2016 Queensland government launched the QCoast2100 program which funds coastal local governments to prepare Coastal Hazard Adaptation Strategies (CHAS). Of the 31 coastal councils participating in Phase One of the project 28 of them produced a strategy. Prior research provided a comparative analysis of adaptation to sea-level rise and coastal flooding in all Australian states and territories; however, no such assessment at the local level exists. This project examines local level coastal adaptation through the example of QCoast2100 program. The research focuses on strategies for managing the climate change impacts in Australian coastal settlements and aims to answer the following questions: “How effective has the QCoast2100 program been in improving coastal resilience? Are the Coastal Hazard Adaptation Strategies sufficient? How can they be improved?”
These questions are answered through 47 semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders involved in strategy preparation and implementation. Interviewees include local government officers, consultants, program managers, and expert panel members who reviewed the completed strategies. The semi-structured interviews aim to understand the process through which these plans were produced, areas that can be improved as well as what is needed for their implementation.
Findings indicate that the QCoast2100 program was invaluable in putting coastal hazards on the agenda of local governments. Without the funding, technical support and guidance provided by the Local Government Association of Queensland through the program most local governments would not have been able to undertake such a task. The Strategies produced are viewed as a starting point and provide an understanding of the coastal risks and timelines. In most cases, they are used as basis for funding applications for implementation of the adaptation actions identified. Without this additional funding most local governments do not have the necessary resources to implement the strategies. Majority of the councils do not have dedicated staff for this program and lack of capacity and expertise are hampering the implementation.
Most interviewees found the initiative successful and agree that the presence of uniform guidelines and all coastal local governments undertaking it at the same time was very useful. The program has been a model for similar programs in the states of New South Wales and Victoria. A limited number of consultants worked on multiple projects across the state and were able to apply the lessons they learned from one project to the others. There was overall agreement that the produced documents got better and better with the experience of the earlier ones. The local networks formed with neighboring governments to exchange information was also found to be very valuable.
One of the challenging aspects of the strategy preparation process was public engagement. Controversial topics included climate change, managed retreat, and protection structures. Most documents avoided using the term retreat and substituted transitioning and/or repurposing. In general, the strategies do not view retreat as an urgent issue, but as something that needs to be considered in a couple of decades time. Local governments are unwilling to commit to options they cannot fund and that may prove to be unpopular with their electorates. In this regard, adaptation pathways approach provides local governments a way to broadly consider retreat without making any firm commitments.