Prestigious Waterfront Homes Now in No-Go Zones

Some areas of Queensland are so flood-prone they should never have been built on and should be declared no-go zones, according to an international disaster expert, Professor Ed Blakely, who says extreme weather events are becoming increasingly more frequent and far more devastating. While  the Institute for Sustainable Development’s Professor George Earl says the flooding disaster underlines the need for adequate infrastructure to deal with the effects of climate change. “Areas which were prestigious in previous generations now are those very properties which are at most risk because of climate change and rising tidal waters”.

Karen Kissane in The Age (15 January 2011):

SOME areas of Queensland are so flood-prone they should never have been built on and should be declared no-go zones, with residents bought out and moved out, according to an international disaster expert.

”We shouldn’t regard this [flood] as freakish,” said Professor Ed Blakely, who ran the recovery of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina and was involved in New York’s after 9/11. ”We should assume they are going to occur because of climate change. They are becoming increasingly frequent and far more devastating.”

He warned it was also time to examine the need for Queenslanders to ”retreat from the coast” to escape rising sea levels. ”It will take 60-75 years, so we have got to start now,” he said. ”It’s very important for us to see not just this incident but the long-term trend and learn from it and plan for it.”

Professor Blakely said he had warned a conference of a flood like the current one: ”I warned people in Brisbane before hurricane Katrina that this could happen. I had all the CSIRO data that showed a flood that looked very much like the flood that happened. They scoffed.”

Professor Blakely, nick-named ”the master of disaster”, is professor of urban policy at Sydney University.

Queensland authorities have for some time been examining the state’s future under climate change, with the CSIRO predicting an increased intensity of extreme rainfall events such as the current floods.

A global rise in weather-related disasters such as the Queensland floods was confirmed by Andrew Glikson, an earth and paleoclimate scientist with the Australian National University.

”Cyclones have increased twofold over the past 20 years. Floods have increased threefold,” he said.

He said climate scientists were careful never to point to a single event as evidence of climate change but to examine medium and long-term trends. ”It’s happening now, and it’s happening faster than some of the climate-change scientists have dared to predict,” he said.

Chief executive of the Queensland Local Government Association, Greg Hallam, agreed many people were living in areas that should not have been settled. ”There are councils that certainly would like to remove housing but can’t. It’s such an expensive business, beyond councils’ means.

”Councils don’t build on flood plains now, but where people have got a use right, that’s a legal right to build. Councils can’t stop them. The state has to legislate to take away people’s planning permits, or the Commonwealth has to fund [a buyback]. I think this epoch event will raise all sorts of issues about how we do all sorts of things.”

Given the rising sea levels forecast under climate change, a retreat from Queensland’s coastline was the best thing to do ”because we can’t afford to defend every inch of the coast”, said Catherine Lovelock, professor of biological science at the University of Queensland and a contributor to that state’s Climate Adaptation Initiative.

She said engineering defences such as sea walls and levees were expensive and not always successful. ”If you can’t defend a suburb or town, logically you would say that you should let them go.

”Planned withdrawal is one idea but it has to be thought through very, very carefully …

”Which government is going to stick their neck out and say, ‘I’m sorry, all of you in Graceville, you are going to have to walk away from your properties that are worth around $300,000 each?”’

Source: www.theage.com.au

By Charmaine Kane for ABC (17 January 2011):

An economist on Queensland’s Gold Coast says the Brisbane floods have highlighted the challenges that can confront waterfront property owners.

Riverfront homes were among the thousands of properties inundated in south-east Queensland last week.

Around 180 real estate professionals from around the world are discussing the impact of climate change on property developments at a conference at Bond University this week.

The director of the Institute for Sustainable Development at Bond University, Professor George Earl, says the disaster underlines the need for adequate infrastructure to deal with the effects of climate change.

“Areas which were prestigious in previous generations now are those very properties which are at most risk because of climate change and rising tidal waters etc,” he said.

“I don’t think they will become less desirable or even less valuable – I think what it will do is heighten the emphasis on sustainable infrastructure.

“There are some areas which have gone under in the last few days up in Brisbane which are quite OK to be built on.

“It is just that in fact we have to understand the infrastructure that’s needed not to protect just them, but the city in general has to be upgraded.

“We have to do more significant work in terms of understanding the issues of climate change on real estate.”

However, he says last week’s floods will not cause long-term damage to Brisbane property values.

Professor Earl says the damage will not make south-east Queensland any less desirable to home-buyers or dramatically reduce prices.

“In the short-term, it will probably stagnate them and probably make them go back somewhat,” he said.

“But I think that as we start handling better the issues of climate change and real estate and urban planning, Brisbane and the Gold Coast will still be beautiful places to live.

Source: www.abc.net.au