The Future Coastlines project aims to address key vulnerabilities to climate variability and climate change for communities in coastal Queensland. These communities will come under the influence of accelerating sea level rise and more intense extreme events. The impacts of these influences include extreme shoreline erosion and threats to infrastructure; storm surge inundation beyond existing planning levels with consequent disaster management and strategic land-use planning ramifications as well as long term morphological and ecological regime changes.
Using a case study approach, this project has assessed the impact of climate variability and change on coastal morphology and estuarine dynamics at key sites on the Queensland coastline by:
- Developing a framework for understanding the nature of physical changes that will occur in response to extreme events, long term climate variability (over decades/centuries) and climate change
- Utilizing computational modelling and sound conceptual understanding of coastal processes to develop models that will address: long term open coastline recession and realignment in response to sea level change and shifts in mean wave energy distribution; extreme event storm erosion and coastal inundation due to storm surge; long term stability of tidal entrances and morphological changes in estuaries, and intra-coastal waterways; coastal floodplain inundation and changing estuary salinity distribution due to changing sea level, channel and shoal morphology and hydrology
- Testing local extreme event response strategies, urban planning, infrastructure asset management and legislative frameworks against new assessments of coastline dynamics
The project will provide specific benefits to Queensland including:
- Increasing the capacity of coastal land managers to mitigate climate change risk, especially the impacts of major climate-related events
- Providing emergency management agencies with an enhanced decision making capability which integrates extreme event forecasts with coastal response, and
- Providing a unique opportunity to accurately and reliability model the impacts of climate change in coastal areas to enhance the ability of policy makers, strategists and investment planners to improve future decision making where significant climate impacts may have long term consequences
For more information visit out related publications and conference presentations page.
The Australian Government's Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency has an interesting video for those interested in Coastal Adaptation and the Beach.