No abstract

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 multisectoral 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.

With increasing worldwide recognition of the influence of urban development on the hydrological functions of water, there is growing pressure for urban planning to play a greater role in water resources management in urban regions. Planning for green open spaces in particular can play an important role, as they have the potential to contribute to sustaining ecosystem services that assist flood management. It has been argued that interconnected and strategically planned networks of green open spaces should be planned for early in landuse planning and design processes, with consideration of water-related ecosystem values and landscape functions in concert with land development, growth management and built infrastructure planning. Although there is growing recognition of the importance of green open space planning for water sensitive cities and supportive planning measures, there are few analyses of the actual inclusion of this recognition in plans and strategies, or the presence of related actions and planning mechanisms. This paper addresses this gap by comparatively analysing the approaches taken to regional green open space planning in three Australian capital city-regions. Findings indicate the acknowledgement of relationships between flood regulation and green open space planning and various associated planning mechanisms. However, there is limited explicit integration of flood management and green open spaces planning, and significant on-ground barriers to enabling this integration to occur given the legacy of past planning decisions and the lack of information to support implementation. The paper concludes with recommendations for further research to assist planning for green open spaces as an ally to ecosystem services relating to flood management.