Land use planning, coastal inundation and coastal erosion in Tasmania

This study seeks further understanding of how to use land use planning to improve the current Tasmanian practice in mitigating the impacts from coastal hazards and adapt sea level rise resulting from climate change. Coastal hazards include coastal inundation and coastal erosion, which under current climate change scenarios, will increasingly have impact on coastal communities through emergency events including storms or long-term coastal change though coastal retreat. Over long periods of time land use (and risk-based) planning allows people to alter the impact of change, from currently vulnerable settlement patterns to more resilient ones. The study focused on current practice in five Tasmanian local governments identified as those most vulnerable to coastal hazards: Break O'Day, Central Coast, Clarence, Kingborough and Waratah-Wynyard. In particular, and drawing on empirical data from those local governments, the research focuses on the interrelationships among planning, risk and emergency management, making a series of observations about current governance. Four themes emerged from reviewing current planning schemes examining available spatial information and interviewing planning staff in each of the five councils: capacity, integration, communication, and tools. More specifically, analysis of the themes provided an opportunity to examine land use planning in response to coastal hazards, including: council capacity (in skills, resources and finances); integration of schemes and planning controls to ensure that hazards are treated in a common way; use of communication to ensure communities arc consulted and participate in planning and emergency management processes; and the development of common tools for schemes, risk assessment methods and data sets. This study provides insights in to the current failings in planning for coastal hazards, pointing to principles, which can be used in processes of change management from ad hoc to integrated systems of planning with the aim of developing community resilience to coastal inundation and erosion