Erosion, flooding... the high price of sea views
Royce Millar February 16, 2008
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SOME of Victoria's favourite seaside getaways and most sought-after beachside suburbs will have to be abandoned or relocated over the coming decades as climate change leads to rising sea levels, storm surges and floods.
Low-lying settlements from Lakes Entrance in Gippsland to Elwood, Brighton and Werribee on Port Phillip Bay and Apollo Bay and Port Fairy on the western coast have been identified as vulnerable to flood and erosion by senior scientists, coastal experts and researchers working for the State Government.
Through the State Government's Future Coasts project, new digital mapping is being done and modelling for sea level rises finalised. The Government wants to use the information to help planners identify places where development can go ahead.
But other studies including a detailed survey of the Gippsland coast are more advanced and are painting a worrying picture.
Based on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the CSIRO, the researchers are assuming sea levels will rise by somewhere between 0.4 and 0.8 of a metre.
Leading European scientists now argue a rise of 1.4 metres over the next 100 years is more realistic. The Government is under pressure to nominate a figure and looks likely to accept the IPCC's upper limit of 0.8 of a metre.
Superimpose that over the Victorian coast and the consequences are serious for existing and future urban development, as well as marine flora and fauna.
The research is complex and seeks to combine the likely impact of sea level rises through thermal expansion and melting ice caps and glaciers, with the increased storm surges and bursts of high rainfall.
CSIRO climate change scientist Kathy McInnes, who is assisting the Government with its work, said the combination of events could have serious consequences for low-lying areas, including Port Phillip Bay. "It's high rainfall with storm surges that make low-lying suburbs like Elwood, St Kilda and parts of South Melbourne particularly vulnerable," she said.
The experts say Governments now face the choice in coming decades between spending multimillions on sea walls in the - probably vain - hope of holding back swelling seas, or accepting that Victoria's coastline is receding at an ever faster rate.
Detail of the research findings on climate change and the Victorian coast comes in the same week as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called on local councils to start planning for sea level rises.
Gippsland's coast -75% of which consists of highly erodable, low-lying sandy beaches - is especially vulnerable. Research being finalised by the government-appointed Gippsland Coastal Board has identified 30 settlements at risk. They include most of the towns and hamlets through the Gippsland Lakes, including Lakes Entrance, Metung and Paynesville, and those along Ninety Mile Beach from Loch Sport to Seaspray.
Gippsland Coastal Board chairman Duncan Malcolm said it was likely popular holiday spots such as Seaspray and Lakes Entrance would eventually have to be relocated to higher ground. "I think it's a case of when, not if. We might be looking at a 50 to 100 years horizon."
A village like Seaspray on Ninety Mile Beach presents a real dilemma. Now sewered and attracting developer interest, it is nestled behind a single dune near Merriman Creek, with Lake Reeves nearby making it vulnerable to flooding from rising seas and storms.
Wellington Shire, which covers much of the Corner Inlet and lakes area, is also completing a study of the Ninety Mile Beach area.
It has mapped the area, factoring in a 0.8-of-a-metre sea level rise. The study shows that settlements like the Honeysuckles are under threat.
"We asked the council to draw a climate change boundary and asked them 'what's left?', said Mr Malcolm. "The answer is, not much."
He said that at towns like Lakes Entrance, governments would eventually have to decide between spending millions on walls and probably blocking drainage and sewerage pipes to prevent backfill - or moving the town to higher ground.
The small fishing villages of Port Albert, Port Welshpool and Port Franklin on Corner Inlet are also highly vulnerable. Port Albert - one of the oldest ports and towns in Victoria, and built on mangrove swamp, is especially so.
But South Gippsland faces the double whammy of climate change and widespread land subsidence.
Port Albert is at the heart of all this and also faces high tidal ranges. Mr Malcolm doubted that higher sea walls were a long-term solution for Port Albert.
"I suppose it depends whether we think we can hold back nature. Realistically, is there anyway to protect a Port Albert? The short answer would seem to be "not very easily".
Dr McInnes agrees. "You couldn't really say let's migrate to the higher part of town because there isn't really any."
Mr Malcolm said his board was not opposed to all investment on the coast, but that from now on, all development needed to factor in climate change.
"I think we should have our eyes wide open to where we're investing, how long we're investing for, and what we're investing in."
A series of proposed development projects in Gippsland, including a canal housing development at Port Albert, now look questionable. Ditto, major and controversial developments at Point Lonsdale and Port Fairy.
The reality of climate change has started to sink in at State Government level, with Planning Minister Justin Madden this month seizing control in a controversial 28-lot subdivision at East Beach, Port Fairy. Mr Madden also placed an emergency ban on new development between settlements on a stretch of the Ninety Mile Beach.
The Government also faces headaches with major housing developments proposed for sites such as the flood plain at Marengo, which would effectively double the size of Apollo Bay, and the similarly contentious scheme by developer Stockland at Point Lonsdale.
Local government planners, in particular, are keen for the Government to lay down clear guidelines - preferably they say, lines on maps - to mark where development is not appropriate.
That is tough for the Brumby Government, mindful of the property industry's interests. Just as tough, however, is what to do about existing properties.
In the case of Ninety Mile Beach, there is already talk of buying back subdivided lots on vulnerable dunes. What about Port Albert? Lakes Entrance? Or even more troubling, the prized beachside properties at Brighton and Elwood?
In a written statement to The Age, Environment Minister Gavin Jennings said the Government's "cutting edge" Future Coasts project would help with an accurate understanding of how climate change was likely to affect the coastline.
He said that the project was at the halfway stage. "It will provide more certainty to coastal planners and managers in their decisions related to whether or not development has adequately taken a precautionary approach in relation to climate change."
Rising waters threaten Corner Inlet
NO PART of the Victorian coast is more vulnerable to climate change and rising seas than the sandy dunes around Corner Inlet. Researchers for both the State Government and the Gippsland Coastal Board have identified the fishing villages of Port Albert, Welshpool and Franklin as especially susceptible to the potential ravages of high seas, storm and erosion. Coastal experts fear that Port Albert in its current guise may not survive the century. It was built on mangrove swamp and is affected by widespread subsidence. Debate will soon rage over the wisdom of spending big money on new sea walls.
Bizarre scam turns dangerous
FORTY years ago a strip of dunes at Ninety Mile Beach was inappropriately subdivided and sold in one of Victoria's most bizarre development scams. Decades later, state and local governments are still struggling to find a solution to the dilemma of 12,000 housing lots in a totally inappropriate place. But what once looked weird is increasingly looking downright dangerous as the scientists begin to acknowledge the possibility of the sand dunes eroding and homes being caught between swelling seas to one side and rising levels in the Gippsland lakes to the other. The future of popular holiday hamlet Seaspray looks very uncertain. Experts say it may have to be relocated.
Fortification of the flood plain
ONLY two years ago the Great Ocean Green housing project looked an almost certain starter on the flood plain at Marengo. The controversial $300 million housing scheme is consistent with the State Government's Coastal Spaces policy and, after all, some development had to be accepted along the western coast. But the climate change debate is moving so fast, that building on such a site now looks questionable. There is concern that, once complete, taxpayers may be forced to pay for ongoing fortification of a housing estate built at the wrong time in the wrong location.
Sea could decide long-running issue
THE prospect of fast-rising sea levels looks set to resolve the long-running battle between property interests and environmentalists over a proposed 28-lot subdivision on the sand dune at East Beach in Port Fairy. Although mysteriously zoned residential some years ago, the site now looks highly vulnerable to a surging sea. At the request of Environment Minister Gavin Jennings, Planning Minister Justin Madden has intervened, calling in the development application. Some locals fear he is doing the bidding of powerful business forces; it is more likely that he will conclude that building houses on sand dunes at Port Fairy is no longer sensible, if it ever was.
This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/02/15/1202760604418.html
