Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Management Overlay
provides detailed guidance on the way in which bushfire
risks should be considered in development assessment decisions.
However for existing communities in bushfire-prone areas, such planning
reforms offer little comfort and there are limited options for risk mitigation.
Retreat is widely discussed in the context of coastal development but receives
far less attention in relation to bushfire-prone areas, despite a property acqui-
sition scheme having operated in the 1970s following fires in the Dandenong
ranges (VBRC, 2011,
chapter 6
; White, 2011). The VBRC criticized the public
commitment of the State and Federal Governments to rebuild devastated
communities in exactly the same locations and recommended that 'the State
develop and implement a retreat and resettlement strategy for existing devel-
opments in areas of unacceptably high bushfire risk, including a scheme for
non-compulsory acquisition by the State of land in these areas' (VBRC, 2011,
Recommendation 46). While a voluntary buy-back scheme has been introduced,
and has had significant uptake, it has not formed part of a wider retreat and reset-
tlement strategy as recommended by the VBRC.
Heatwaves
The impacts of higher temperatures will be exacerbated in Australian cities
by the urban heat island (UHI) effect (Wang and McAllister, 2011). It can
be up to 7
°C
warmer in Melbourne's CBD, for example, than in surrounding
suburbs (City of Melbourne, 2009). The combined effect of more extreme hot
weather days and the UHI effect is likely to cause major increases in mortality,
Recent heat waves in south-eastern Australia have claimed hundreds of lives
(State of Victoria, 2009) and caused massive business and social disruption
through the failure of critical electricity and public transport infrastructure.
The World Health Organization's guidance on planning for heatwaves lists
long-term urban planning as a core element of any heatwave strategy (WHO,
2009), yet no Australian regime requires planners to address the impacts of
hotter cities. Only Queensland, Victoria and South Australia have any form of
heatwave management or response plan and these documents are all focused
on preparation, warning and response to extreme heat events rather than
prevention through better urban form or building design (Queensland, 2004;
South Australia, undated; Victoria, 2011a).
Individual local authorities are examining the issue and identifying 'hotspots'
within their cities that would benefit from tree planting and other cooling strat-
egies and there are increasing requirements for better insulation in new buildings.
Currently, however, there is no overarching policy guidance or planning instru-
ments on how and when this should be done, although the Sydney Metropolitan
Plan 2036 proposes a review of its building sustainability index, Basix, to address
heat-sensitive building design (State of NSW, 2010c).
There may be a range of reasons for this difference between adaptation
planning for increased coastal hazards, for bushfire hazards and for heatwaves.
