Improving adaptation of coastal communities through bottom-up approaches: a case study of the Conjola District, Shoalhaven, NSW

During the last 50 years there has been a significant development of the coastline leading to substantial population growth in coastal areas worldwide. This trend is also observed in Australia where about half of its population lives within 7 km of the coast. Coastal settlements located in low-lying coastal areas are considered to be vulnerable to climaterelated impacts, including sea-level rise, storm surges and coastal and riverine flooding. While the severity of climate-related events affecting those areas may lead to widespread damage and disasters, they might generate opportunities for change to occur in their socio-ecological systems therefore improving their resilience and adaptation to natural hazards. For example, opportunities might be created to review how those areas are planned and managed as well as to gather lessons from past extreme events. This paper investigates how those opportunities can be optimised by focusing on the Conjola District, Shoalhaven, NSW. The Conjola District and the southern NSW coast has a long history of bushfire threat and recurrent flooding associated with the intermittently closed and open lakes and lagoons, as evidenced by recent bushfires in January 2013 and large flood events in the 1970s involving the Conjola Lake. The paper focuses on a distinctive anticipatory response of the Conjola District to maximise opportunities to improve its socio-ecological system in light of future social and environmental change, including climate-related threats. In particular, the paper describes the collaborative process involved in developing a strategic planning initiative which culminated in the proposition of a long term vision as well as a set of priority actions to improve adaptation and resilience of the Conjola District to future social and environmental change. The paper also discusses how this bottom-up, community initiated and led, visioning and strategic planning initiative, may contribute to informing planning for climate change adaptation in coastal settlements.