AUSTRALIA STATE OF PLAY 2024: when repeated warnings are given concerning climate change-induced risk along vulnerable coastal shorelines and on floodplains but few in the three tiers of government appear to take heed

 

Almost two decades ago in 2009 the Australian Government's Dept. of Climate Change in a first pass assessment warned the nation:

"Over the last 6,000–7,000 years sea level around Australia has been relatively stable, which has generally allowed current landforms and ecosystems to persist without large scale modifications.

Since 1788 settlements have been built along our coast in expectation that sea level would remain broadly unchanged. Significant settlement of low-lying areas has occurred, and structures were designed and built to standards defined by a relatively narrow period of experience.

Those conditions are now changing. A new climate era driven by global warming will increase risks to settlements, industries, the delivery of services and natural ecosystems within Australia’s coastal zone."

At least a decade ago it was reported in the media that the Insurance Council of Australia considered that it would not be the high cost of repair to residential properties in the 7-10km wide coastal strip most at risk of inundation and/or land slippage which would make these homes uninsurable – it would be the fact that the land on which such housing was built had become worthless.

By 2011 Australian coastal local governments were acknowledging the issue of land valuation and future liability on residential lot owners.

"A number of respondents highlighted the potential risk to existing private homes and the possibility of future depopulation and disinvestment in exposed locations. Similarly, local planners expressed difficulties in evaluating decisions that may quarantine future development potential on private land.

“There’s a big social dilemma – how do you tell someone their land is worthless and they can’t develop it?” (local government participant, March 2011).

One climate change consultant described a bifurcation whereby site based assessments fail to consider issues of transport and services. This means that individual sites might be approved for development due to their elevation, but lack secure provisions for road access via existing or planned road reservations. It was suggested that servicing these sites may become a future liability for local government areas.

“The house might be safe but the road’s going to be underwater and it’s going to be unsafe for access. If local governments are going to accept development in the areas where this additional service cost to maintain access or service [will arise], they’ll have to have a strategy to suggest that they impose that additional cost on the residents who choose to live in these places, but that’s not yet been resolved” (private sector consultant, March 2011)."

[Syd Uni Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, Gurran, N et al in Report No. 4 for the National Sea Change Taskforce November 2011, "Planning for climate change adaptation in Coastal Australia: State of practice", pp 26-27]

Such warnings with regard to very real climate change risks to coastal urban areas have been repeated again and again in the years since.

In 2022 financial services and analytics firm CoreLogic announced that calculations based on 30 years of tidal & shoreline retreat data indicated $5.3 billion worth of properties were at very high risk within 800 metres of the shoreline, and another $19.5 billion were at high risk. With dramatic changes to vulnerable coastlines within the next 30 years.

By October 2023 the Australian Government National Emergency Management Agency and the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience had put their names to a warning that coastal properties with est. value of $25 billion were at "substantial risk" due to coastal erosion and inundation.

In particular noting: As calls from homeowners for greater protection from coastal erosion increase, the effects of bad decisions (e.g. building seawalls) will become more critical. Local governments needs to address coastal erosion adaptation and the equity between politics, private rights, environmental protections and public amenities of the beachfront.

Further noting: Australian coastal communities will become increasingly vulnerable to rising sea levels and extreme weather events and many beachfront properties will become stranded assets due to loss of property values as well as insurance and banking sectors retracting from the coastal property market. The Reserve Bank of Australia modelled that the number of high-risk properties could grow by over 74,000 due to climate change (Bellrose, Norman & Royters 2021).

Despite these warnings state governments have stubbornly resisted meaningful changes to planning policy and legislation. While both state and local governments generally have further entrenched internal cultures highly resistant to curbing the ambitions of both small and large professional property developers and land speculators - particularly those in the approx.100km wide & 29,900km long mainland coastal zone (including Tasmania) with its est. 49 per cent of soft shore lines and associated coastal rivers, estuaries and flood plains.

Digital Earth Australia, Geoscience Australia-CSIRO mapping of incidence from 1988 onwards showing most pronounced coastal shoreline loss by m/year in gradients of pale pink to red.

When it comes to riverine or sea water inundation this latest warning is quite specific.

The Daily Telegraph, 15 June 2024:

The Going Under Report predicts the seaside holiday village, which was completely cut off during the floods in 2022, has a 56.63 per cent risk of becoming uninsurable by 2030.

The report analysed close to fifteen million addresses in fifteen thousand suburbs across Australia.

According to the report, by 2030 588,857 (or 21 one per cent) of Australian homes will ‘have exposure to some level of riverine flooding’ with NSW by far the most impacted.

An Insurance Council of Australia spokesperson responded to the report findings stating the current risk to 230,000 Australian properties is a five per cent risk “of catastrophic flooding each year”.

“More than half of these (123,475) are in New South Wales, with the bulk of the remainder in Queensland and Victoria,” said the spokesperson.

NSW's most uninsurable towns

In NSW, 206,622 individual homes were identified as being at high risk of becoming uninsurable by 2030. This compares with 382,235 homes in all other states put together.

While the Climate Council’s Nicki Hutley told The Daily Telegraph the report findings were a reflection of updated climate science, the University of NSW (UNSW)’s Climate Research Centre Professor Andrew Pitman disagrees.

“The science behind this report isn’t robust but that doesn’t mean there aren’t risks from climate change and an imperative to act according to climate science risk.” he said.

Grafton’s Clarence Valley Council Councillor Greg Clancy told The Daily Telegraph that options for towns like Grafton, built when the river was used for transport, include relocation....

While these are an option for river towns like Grafton with existing residences, Mr Clancy raised concerns about new developments in flood prone areas such as a controversial application for a $48 million 284 lot subdivision at Mile Street in Yamba.

The Going Under Report predicts the seaside holiday village, which was completely cut off during the floods in 2022, has a 56.63 per cent risk of becoming uninsurable by 2030.

This concerns Mr Clancy who personally opposed the “flood plain development” application which is currently being determined by the Northern Regional Planning Panel, which assesses and determines regionally significant development applications.

“Basically, the developers would be creating islands, so the new houses are going to be on fill but will get cut off,” he said.

A spokesperson from the Insurance Council of Australia said that “in December 2022, National Cabinet tasked planning ministers to develop a national standard for considering disaster and climate risk and declaration that “the days of developing on flood plains need to end”.

“The ICA strongly supports the decision and has long been calling for governments to commit to stopping development in areas of high flood risk and commence work on planning reform with appropriate risk mitigation on flood plains,” the spokesperson said....

Coastal towns and villages on floodplains that empty into oceans are well aware of the triple threat climate change brings into their homes:

• the high volume concentrated rain dumps which create flash flooding, inundate low lying points within town/village boundaries and overwhelm the stormwater system;

• record breaking river flooding which stretches almost to breaking point both the community & local emergency services capacity to respond; and

• the dangers of a twin event where a strong sea storm surge meets a river flood front, forcing more water into the river or estuary at the same time the flood front unable to travel unimpeded out to sea spreads across coastal land increasing flood height and duration there.

Yesterday Northern NSW communities gave evidence at NSW Legislative Council's Portfolio Committee No. 7 – Planning and Environment Inquiry into the Planning system and the impacts of climate change on the environment and communities.

I listened via the live feed to the morning of that hearing day, as representatives of their communities from South West Rocks, Coffs Harbour, Yamba, Maclean and Evans Head spoke with authority and insight about the very real climate change-induced risks they already face, the increased dangers predicted to occur as the climate crisis deepens and, drew attention to the lack of political will within state & local government, absence of detailed strategic planning required to avoid or at least significantly mitigate against destructive changes to flood & stormwater behaviour frequently caused by inappropriate large-scale development and, need to cease further urban development on floodplains and in the immediate vicinity of vulnerable coastlines.

When the 17 June hearing transcript is posted on the NSW Parliament website, a summary containing the principal arguments and observations will be posted on North Coast Voices.

The people of the Northern Rivers, wider New South Wales and the rest of Australia have been warned that the hands of the climate crisis clock are at 30 seconds to midnight, but it's business as usual

 

Australian climate scientist Dr. Joëlle Gergis, ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society and a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, has recently written: 

“The climate disasters unfolding in the northern hemisphere are a sign of what’s in store here, as governments fail to act on the unfolding emergency…..

...the possibility that the Earth might have already breached some kind of global “tipping point”. The term refers to what happens when a system crosses into a different state and stays there for a very long time, sometimes even permanently. We know that once critical thresholds in the Earth system are passed, even small changes can lead to a cascade of significantly larger transformations in other major components of the system. Key indicators of regional tipping points include dieback of major ecological communities….” [my yellow highlighting]

Such observations give pause for thought.

However, the elected Mayor of the third tier governing body for the Clarence Valley Local Government Area (LGA), Cr. Ian Tiley, is apparently comfortable with the idea of personally failing to act when it comes to any proposed phasing out of logging native forests in public hands within this LGA.

At least that is the impression he gives during a photo opportunity with representatives of the state government-dominated NSW logging industry.

Presumably Mayor Tiley is willing to ignore the fact that in 2021 & again in 2022 Australian university researchers warned that logging is not just increasing the risk of severe fires, but also the risk to human lives and safety.

Logging increases the probability of canopy damage by five to 20 per cent and leads to long-term elevated risk of higher severity fires, including canopy fires. Canopy fires are considered the most extreme form of fire behaviour and can be virtually impossible to control. 

It has also been known for the last two decades that intact tree canopies can buffer against rising and increasingly record air/land temperatures due to the thermal insulation of forest canopies which protects biodiversity, allowing native flora and fauna to survive climate change-induced heat extremes better than those living on open land.

Even the NSW Dept. of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources in Land Condition in the Clarence River Catchment: Report 1 - when addressing forestry as a land use - admitted back in 2014 that:

Management of forested areas for bushfire control purposes can threaten adjacent areas, cause habitat loss and encourage erosion. Public debate on this issue has been centred around the in-situ environmental impacts of the process but smoke drift over nearby population centres and the post burning effects on water quality after erosion events also impacts water supply for urban and industrial purposes. [my yellow highlighting]

Commercial logging activity occurs within the Clarence River catchment area and logged state forests do catch fire - as evidenced by Ellis State Forest near Dundurrabin south of Grafton during the 2019-20 bushfire season.

Like many other communities in the Northern Rivers region during the 2019-20 bushfire season, communities in the Clarence Valley can attest to the physical difficulties of living for days and sometimes weeks under smoke palls loaded with gases and particulate matter (including PM2.5) with a potential to affect the health.

According to the Dept. of Health's Bushfire smoke and health: Summary of the current evidence, 6 August 2020:

The Global Burden of Disease Study has shown that outdoor PM2.5 is the most important environmental risk factor in Australia, responsible for 1.6 percent of the total burden of disease in 2017. 

Evidence shows that the likelihood of an individual experiencing health effects as a result of exposure to PM2.5 depends on a number of factors. These include: the concentration of PM2.5 in air, the duration of exposure; the person’s age and whether a person has existing medical conditions (particularly cardiorespiratory disease or asthma).

It is also acknowledged that while this document focusses on the evidence relating to the physical effects that may occur as a result of bushfires smoke, bushfires have much broader mental health and societal impacts.

Clarence Valley Independent, 30 August 2023:

*click on image to enlarge*

“The Mayor also expressed his personal view, describing the timber industry as vital to the Clarence Valley.” 

I wonder if  Mr. Tiley will still be of that opinion over the next high-risk seven to seventeen years......

On Saturday 25 March 2023 are you voting for the Clarence River system and the towns, villages and businesses which depend on its waters? Here are some of the community groups & candidates who think you should

 

Nymboida River, one of the twenty-four tributaries of the Clarence River and the principal source of drinking water for most residents in Clarence Valley and Coffs Harbour City local government areas. IMAGE: Arden E, YouTube 2015

The Clarence Valley’s rich biodiverse landscapes have nurtured and supported generations beyond count and down the years communities — as well as the grass roots organisations they support — across the Clarence River Catchment have worked hard to protect that which gives them life and livelihoods.

Because in places such as the Clarence Valley with its variable river systems; the aesthetic, environmental, social, cultural and economic values of its communities are intertwined. Healthy rivers, clear running creeks, intact temperate & subtropical close & open forests along with ancient remnants of the Gondwanaland forests, arable soils found in smaller valleys and the larger floodplain, as well as a long coastal zone providing tourism opportunities, all combine to provide a population of est. 54,180 men, women and children living in the catchment area with a solid local economy which keeps the local government area vibrant and its over 4,000 businesses productive. Businesses whose products and services make up est. 17 per cent of the wider Northern Rivers regional economy. [Australian Bureau of Statistics 2021, idcommunity 2021]

Make no mistake. The Clarence Valley relies on the fact that its air is fresh, free-flowing waters clean, main primary industries sustainable and its landscapes pleasing to the eye of tourists. For without those four things the Clarence Valley regional economy would not be worth anything like the over $2 billion it is consistently valued at despite the ongoing pressures of war in Ukraine and global pandemic [National Institute of Economic and Industry Research 2021].

It is also not just Clarence Valley residents that rely on good stewardship being applied to land and waters within the Clarence catchment area. An est. 78,738 people and 6,174 businesses in Coffs Harbour City local government area rely on the urban water infrastructure within Clarence Valley local government area to supply them with town water.

However, constantly growing population pressure and the commercial interests of often large-scale and/or state-sponsored industries (particularly construction, mining & forestry) has seen Clarence catchment landscapes being altered in ways that are becoming destructive.

Forestry now covers 20 per cent of Clarence River Catchment land and by 2022 there were a total of 18 existing mineral and gold mining leases, along with more than 41 mining exploration leases, in the catchment area. [NSW Government, Industry NSW, 2022] It should be noted that mining leases are on the traditional lands of three First Nations peoples.

Under threat are the streams, creeks and rivers which feed the longest coastal river on the Australian east coast, the Clarence River. Also under threat are the remaining tracts of native forest, as well as the tree cover on the Clarence Catchment’s steep hills which help anchor rock and soil to the hillsides and prevent it sliding down and choking the waterways that weave their way among them.

Since the 1990s there have been a number of government contracted reports concerning the Clarence Basin and its waterways. All have highlighted concerns still held today and largely unaddressed – the risks that mining activity, large scale forestry, soil erosion and water turbidity pose to the environment and waterways of the Clarence Basin.

Right now in March 2023 Clarence electorate residents have the opportunity to make their voices heard when they cast their votes this coming Saturday at the NSW State Election.

On Friday morning 17 March 2023 the Clarence Catchment Alliance (CCA) — a non-partisan, not-for-profit, community volunteer group established in 2018 as a response to increased mining exploration activity — held a press conference close to Whiting Beach, Yamba.

Clarence Catchment Alliance had invited members of the media, sitting MPs, candidates standing at next week’s state election, representatives from other community & business groups, as well as members of the public as observers, to this event.

The purpose of the press conference was to draw attention to the growing alarm about mineral extraction projects within the Clarence River catchment and any expansion of this activity across its 24 sub-catchments.

The event began with a Welcome to Country by Yaegl emerging elder Diane Randall, the press conference taking place on traditional Yaegl lands.

It was followed by an introduction from Shae Fleming one of the CCA organisers and then went onto comments by various speakers from other groups including the Clarence Environment Centre and the Yamba District Chamber of Commerce. Brief presentations were made by candidates standing in the Clarence electorate as well as candidates standing in Coffs Harbour and Lismore electorates. There was a general consensus that the waters of the Clarence River catchment area needed to be protected.

Unfortunately the Nationals candidate for Clarence, Richie Williamson, did not attend. However, given the strong pro-mining, pro-barely regulated land clearing, pro-native timber harvesting and pro-state and private forestry policies and practices of the Nationals as partner in successive NSW Coalition governments, that is hardly surprising.

What was surprising was the rider added by the Labor candidate for Clarence to his general support of protecting the Clarence catchment area. Leon Ankersmit stated that the Labor Party would not allow him to sign the CCA pledge of support as the party was in favour of mining in Northern New South Wales.

The following is a brief summary of concerns articulated by some of those that spoke at the press conference, in no particular order.

JOHN EDWARDS (Clarence Environment Centre): It’s not coal or iron that worries me – it’s heavy metal mining. Ore get trucked from mine sites but processing minerals begins at the mine. The evaporation ponds produce a toxic sludge which permanently contaminates the soil and remediation is merely covering that soil with more soil. Leaving a time bomb behind when the mining company leaves. (Signed the CCA pledge)

SUE HIGGINSON (Greens MLA): The community here worked hard to shut down the Timbarra Gold Mine after it leaked cyanide into the Clarence River. However mining leases are still being granted in river catchments. Local seafood, dairy, sugar cane, livestock, crops, and tourism, and the industries that serve them, need clean water. (Signed the CCA pledge)

SHAE FLEMING (Clarence Coastal Alliance): We already have healthy water based industries here. They need protecting. (Signed the CCA pledge)

JAMES ALLAN (current President, Yamba Chamber of Commerce): Degradation of our waterways leads to degradation of our businesses. I support No Mines in the Clarence catchment. There are few jobs in mining. Re-opening the Drake mine would only create fifty jobs. (Signed the CCA pledge)

BRETT DUROUX (Indigenous Australia Party candidate for Clarence): I grew up in Cangai, raised in the old ways. The bush is a place of beauty and healing for so many people. Miners needs are not as important as our needs. My response to proposals to mine in the Clarence Valley is “NEVER!” (Signed the CCA pledge)

NICKI LEVI (Independent candidate for Clarence): Water is sacred, water is precious, water is life. Our priorities should be to protect the air in the Richmond Valley and water in the Clarence Valley. (Signed the CCA pledge)

DEBRA NOVAK (Independent candidate for Clarence & current Clarence Valley councillor): If elected I pledge to lobby hard for a moratorium on mineral mining just as we successfully did with coal seam gas mining. Nothing is more important than protecting the water. (Signed the CCA pledge)

GREG CLANCY (Greens candidate for Clarence & current Clarence Valley Council Deputy-Mayor): I have been protesting against threats to the rivers for a long time. Mining in this wonderful environment is “not on”. Parts of the Mann River are already dead zones because of previous mining ventures. (Signed the CCA pledge)

LEON ANKERSMIT (Labor candidate for Clarence): I’m proud of the sustainable industries that rely on a healthy river like prawning and fishing. Our land is precious and its such an important job to protect our river. (Refused to sign CCA pledge)

MARK RAYNOR (Legalise Cannabis Party candidate for Clarence): We need to find new industries and new crops not start new mines. (Signed the CCA pledge)

TIM NOTT (Greens candidate for Coffs Harbour): Mining is being done the wrong way - mining near waterways produces industrial level pollution. (Signed the CCA pledge)

ALISON WATERS (Animal Justice Party candidate for NSW Upper House representing Northern NSW): They are our waterways and our catchments. We need to protect them. (Signed the CCA pledge)

VANESSA ROSAYRO (Animal Justice Party candidate for Lismore): Mining just doesn’t affect our lives. It affects marine and plant life and the lives of local animals. (Signed the CCA pledge)

Background

Topsoil loss during 2020 flooding in the Clarence Valley

The Daily Examiner, 9 March 2020:

Anyone travelling around the recent flood-affected areas of the Valley, including along the Clarence River itself, couldn’t fail to notice the chocolate brown colour of those floodwaters.

The Orara River was particularly bad, and after the floodwaters had receded, council needed to use a front end loader to scrape thick layers of deposited mud off some roadways and bridges. The paddocks alongside creeks were likewise buried beneath a thick layer of mud.

This was always to be expected if torrential rain occurred soon after the bushfires, especially with ash washing off the bare ground into waterways.

But these floods brought more than ash. This was topsoil, something that is in short supply across much of the Australian continent. We are told that globally, some 24 billion tonnes of topsoil are lost annually through erosion, and Australia’s contribution is shameful, given we are a supposedly developed country with sufficient resources to protect this precious commodity.

Wind and water are the two main forms of erosion.

Both can be significantly mitigated simply by maintaining a good vegetation ground cover. Without that cover there is nothing to hold the soil, and this past season has highlighted that fact.

Firstly there was drought, and overgrazing to the point where only bare soil remained, resulting in one huge dust storm after another for months on end.

Then the bushfires destroyed what vegetation the livestock had left. Then came the floods, ripping apart fragile unprotected stream banks, and washing them downstream to the ocean.

Even without bushfires we lose far too much soil to erosion, and again, poor livestock management is largely to blame.

Many Australian rivers and creeks have no adequate vegetation to buffer against erosion and fewer still are fenced to exclude cattle.

As a result, these animals congregate along waterways, trampling banks, and browsing any available vegetation, so their impact is even greater than fire.

Landowners have a responsibility to manage erosion on their properties and to consider what they are leaving for future generations. If we are to solve the erosion problem, livestock management must be a focus point.

JOHN EDWARDS, Clarence Valley Conservation Coalition