Managing the Illawarra’s urban sprawl and challenging coastline into the future will require a collaboration between councils and all levels of government, a new report has found.
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Led by chief investigator Professor Barbara Norman from the University of Canberra, a team of academics tackled the question of what coastal communities in south-east Australia might look like in 2030 and how they may need to adapt in a shifting climate scenario.
Among the team were University of Wollongong academics Professor Colin Woodroffe and Dr Kerrylee Rogers.
Unlike in northern NSW and southern Queensland, little research had been carried out on how adaptive south-eastern Australian coastal communities were to the climate and environmental challenges they faced, Prof Norman said.
The report found that issues such as climate change, coastal management and urban growth were complex and difficult for councils to deal with on their own, she said.
‘‘They are looking to work more with their neighbouring councils and they really do need the active support of higher levels of government to do that work well,’’ Prof Norman said.
‘‘A collaborative regional approach is really the key message coming out.’’
Although parts of the Illawarra are highly developed, most of the South Coast between Wollongong and Lakes Entrance in Victoria remains sparsely populated and dotted with small villages.
Prof Norman said this provided plenty of challenges in terms of planning and infrastructure that would only get tougher to manage as populations increased.
‘‘Now is the time to put in place good planning measures, good planning for climate change, and that will place us on a sustainable pathway for the future.
‘‘We have that opportunity in the south, we don’t have the development of the Gold Coast.’’
Failing to get the decision-making process right could lead to very expensive and even fatal mistakes, Prof Norman said.
‘‘The risk is we’ll make decisions where we place urban development in places of risk and everybody pays for that in the medium and long term.
‘‘Where we’ve got increasing risk of storms, increasing risk of floods and bushfires, then we need to factor all of that into our decision making, particularly in areas of small villages,’’ Prof Norman said.
Although putting the practical plans in place was important, she said it was first vital to determine who would make the decisions.
‘‘If we can get the foundations in place about decision-making processes that will consider all these issues, then perhaps we’re in a much stronger position to be adapting to environmental change with less risk to the communities and the environment in 2030,’’ she said.
