Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Development Plan designates affected areas as a Limited Development
(Constrained Land) Zone, in which new residential development is prohibited.
Houses within this zone that have not participated in the council's land swap
program will become acquisition lands, requiring owners to offer the land to
council prior to any future transfer (QRA, 2011: 48; Lockyer Valley Regional
Council 2011a, 2011b).
Improving adaptation in urban Australia: drivers and barriers
The bolting of adaptation components on to existing planning frameworks will
be the dominant model for most sectors affected by climate change, at least
while the impacts occur slowly enough to be addressed incrementally. The
current range of planning responses to climate change are based on projected
temperature increases of less than 4°C, partly because four degrees of warming is
considered less probable than more conservative projections (IPCC, 2007), and
partly because the increasing uncertainty associated with higher temperatures
makes decision-making even harder. Incremental adjustments are far easier to
make than radical transformations like the relocation or reconstruction of entire
communities. Incremental approaches create links between future changes and
current priorities and involve less disruption to existing rights and expectations.
But incremental change is not appropriate for planning decisions with long
lives, where the possibility of different future climates would necessitate different
planning responses today (Stafford Smith et al., 2011).
A range of analyses are contributing to our understanding of how best to deal
with these uncertainties. Approaches include the selection of 'no-regret' or 'high
value' strategies that are beneficial regardless of climate change; reversible and
flexible options; the incorporation of 'safety margins' in into new investments;
the use of soft or behavioural adaptation strategies and mechanisms by which to
reduce decision time horizons (Desai, 2009; Dobes, 2010; Staffordet al., 2011,
citing Hallegatte, 2009).
The under-resourcing of agencies given the task of developing or imple-
menting adaptation strategies remains a significant barrier to increasing climate
resilience (Australian Government, 2010; Measham et al., 2011). There are
significant gaps in knowledge about local impacts and the social and economic
cost implications of different adaptation options (Australian Government, 2010).
Planning instruments have to strike an appropriate balance between respecting
local government autonomy and providing enough clarity that under-resourced
councils can perform their obligations effectively. Councils with limited resources
are simply overwhelmed by the cost and technical challenges of hazard mapping
and associated planning responses. Recent research in Queensland suggests
that the widely disparate implementation of SPP 1/03, the planning policy for
non-coastal hazards, is due in part to the wide discretion that the policy gives local
decision-makers (Bajracharya et al., 2011). Similarly, the Victoria Bushfires Royal
Commission found that some local authorities with bushfire prone land had not
prepared a bushfire-specific local planning policy or wildlife management overlay,
