Florence Crick

Improving cross-sectoral climate change adaptation for coastal settlements: insights from South East Queensland, Australia

Climate change impacts affecting coastal areas, such as sea-level rise and storm surge events, are expected to have significant social, economic and environmental consequences worldwide. Ongoing population growth and development in highly urbanised coastal areas will exacerbate the predicted impacts on coastal settlements. Improving the adaptation potential of highly vulnerable coastal communities will require greater levels of planning and policy integration across sectors and scales. However, to date, there is little evidence in the literature which demonstrates how climate policy integration is being achieved. This paper contributes to this gap in knowledge by drawing on the example provided by the process of developing cross-sectoral climate change adaptation policies and programmes generated for three coastal settlement types as part of the South East Queensland Climate Adaptation Research Initiative (SEQCARI), a 3-year multi-sectoral study of climate change adaptation options for human settlements in South East Queensland, Australia. In doing so, we first investigate the benefits and challenges to cross-sectoral adaptation to address climate change broadly and in coastal areas. We then describe how cross-sectoral adaptation policies and programmes were generated and appraised involving the sectors of urban planning and management, coastal management, emergency management, human health and physical infrastructure as part of SEQCARI. The paper concludes by discussing key considerations that can inform the development and assessment of cross-sectoral climate change adaptation policies and programmes in highly urbanised coastal areas.

Learning from cross-border arrangements to support climate change adaptation in Australia

This paper focuses on learning from existing cross-border governance arrangements with a view to strengthening and improving climate change adaptation within the Australian context. Using an institutional learning framework, the research offers a critical analysis of two Australian cross-border cases: (1) the Murray-Darling Basin, and (2) the Australian Alps. The research findings focus on the issues of geographic (place), administrative (space) and political (territory) fragmentation as key concepts that underpin integrated environmental planning and management in practice. There are significant implications for climate change adaptation in evolving cross-border regions at scale that this paper highlights.

A Region at Risk: Policy Determination Through Vulnerability Hotspot Assessment

This chapter presents a ‘first cut’ regional vulnerability assessment that was undertaken for the South East Queensland (SEQ) region of Australia as part of a broader Climate Adaptation Research Initiative investigating adaptation of human settlements to climate change in SEQ. Despite the well-known shortcomings of vulnerability assessments, it is argued that regional vulnerability assessments of this type can be used as a starting point to enable the identification of vulnerability hotspots within a region and thus inform climate change adaptation planning and policy determination. Regional vulnerability assessments and the identification of vulnerability hotspots can provide insights and focus for policymakers across all sectors. They enable the identification of the circumstances that put people and places at risk as well as the factors that reduce people’s ability to respond to changes.

Planning for climate change across borders: insights from the Gold Coast (QLD) – Tweed (NSW) region

Climate change impacts challenge artificially imposed administrative boundaries and expose the need for improved collaboration across borders. However, jurisdictional boundaries represent one of the major obstacles to an integrated response to climate change impacts. Overcoming this barrier is particularly challenging in cases requiring collaboration between institutions operating under different jurisdictions. This paper focuses on the challenges to cross-border institutional arrangements and the subsequent implications for climate change adaptation in the planning sector. Drawing on empirical insights, the paper identifies the key challenges for cross-border arrangements at both local and state levels. It then uses the example provided by the Tweed River Entrance Sand Bypassing Project operative in the Gold Coast (Queensland) and Tweed (New South Wales) border region to discuss the complexity of planning for climate change adaptation across borders.