The devastating flooding in Southeast Queensland and NSW has tangibly raised awareness of the impacts of extreme weather events, just as the 2019 bushfires did.
There are scientific forecasts that such extreme weather events will happen more frequently as the climate warms and changes, in part due to controllable emissions and, in part, due the downward spiral caused for instance by the emissions of those very fires and further melting of icebergs and glaciers, raising sea levels and changing ocean currents and weather systems.
Governments need to take steps to prepare communities for increasing numbers of extreme weather events.
Acting NSW Premier Paul Toole has announced an independent inquiry into the recent disaster, including reporting on “current and future land use planning and management and building standards in flood prone locations across NSW“.
But more is needed than just changing land use embedded in planning schemes.
There is an urgent need to plan for climate change adaptation. This must be about putting in place policies, action plans and infrastructure to deal with the range of ways properties and people’s lives are likely to be effected in the future, and how this can be addressed in advance, not just waiting for disaster to strike.
Homes, commercial properties, farms, public buildings and infrastructure will need protection and/or upgrade to be ready for extreme impacts. And there needs to be transition planning to reinforce and protect structures and/or to shift dwellings and buildings to safer ground, as flood prone, erosion-prone and fire hazard localities begin to come too frequently under threat or become uninhabitable.
There is already – and will no doubt be more in the future – a need to construct social housing as well as transition housing, to cater for people whose homes are fatally damaged.
As well, like the Queensland government has already begun to do, governments will need to step in with buy-back funding schemes, so people can sell homes and move/rebuild in a safer location.
Noosa Shire Council has gone a long way in mapping flood-prone, inundation-prone, coastal erosion-prone and bushfire-hazard land. But Noosa’s land use planning is not yet fully integrated with holistic adaptation planning.
So far, the focus in Noosa has tended to be along the lines of the previous council’s unsuccessful attempts to stop people from adding to or replacing their already existing homes, an approach which is negative rather than supportive, and does little for future-proofing the whole community and transitioning to living in a less amenable climate.
A holistic integrated planned approach is required.
Ingrid Jackson
