SHORING UP OUR FUTURE

CYCLONIC storms and surges will combine with climate change to cause major headaches for the Gold Coast.

Warnings from the Gold Coast Waterways 2017 and Beyond conference yesterday are not new, but what is evident is that hard decisions must be made.

Governments will have to think carefully about what can be built, particularly across the city’s north, and what must be done to protect from flooding and to clear water quickly. Consideration also has to be given to protecting existing residential areas.

Among solutions discussed are so-called soft options like protecting mangrove areas, and longer term options such as “hard structures’’ on river banks. There is another option too, although unpalatable in a city where suitable development land is running out. A Coastal Risk Australia map referred to by an expert showed huge areas of “blue’’ north of Helensvale and east of the M1 that indicate inundation if sea levels do rise one metre by 2100.

The city is staking much on new residential, shopping and industrial developments in its “north shore’’. Even now Chinese interests are spending $35 million deciding whether to go ahead with a $1 billion-plus investment in cane land around Norwell. Do governments and developers walk away from new projects or do they find ways to shore up defences in advance?

One observer suggested tongue-incheek to the Bulletin yesterday that perhaps everyone should be given a lifeboat and a can of beans – a reference to conditions imposed on a project earmarked for low-lying land at Carrara.

Conference participants were told of steps taken in Florida, where $200 million has been spent on massive pumps to clear huge volumes of stormwater, and where roads are being built a metre higher in anticipation of rising sea levels. Our city has to consider such options, along with levees and perhaps more canal and lake developments like those of the past 40 years that have been as much about flood mitigation as quality residential estates.

Florida’s pumps and road strategies are paid for largely by levying the rich, who are prepared to contribute to protect their property investments.

Gold Coasters could have little option but to pay now to protect their slice of paradise.