Homeowners – where do you see your property in 10 years time?
Would it still have the same vinyl floor coverings that came with the house 20 years ago, or would you have kept its ‘new home’ feel, including scratch-free floorboards?
Maybe you are the home renovation type, and have already envisioned the installation of a new kitchen, bathroom and converted study in the side shed.
If, like me, you live by the coast, those plans might get washed away, literally, with the rising tide.
Sydney-siders were faced with that oh-too-real threat last week, when storms saw part of their coast eroded by up to 50 meters.
A number of coastal homes were left on the brink of collapse, with residents left watching them get swept away by waves.
Unfortunately, the heartache didn’t end there, as residents had to read through the fine print of their insurance policies to see if they were covered for damages.
Some policies did not cover erosion at all, while others excluded coverage for damage caused by actions of the sea.
This widely reported event made me reconsider my home and contents cover, but more importantly, had me thinking about my little home by the sea.
I am sure I am not alone.
In Australia an estimated 711,000 residential addresses are located within three kilometers of the shore and are less than 6m above sea level.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sea levels are set to rise by 0.74m before 2100, making coastal erosion and flooding of seaside properties a very real, albeit distant, danger.
Want to know what that danger looks like? The Coastal Risk Australia map above, shows what Busselton and surrounding suburbs may look like in 2100 in a high tide situation.
The map is based on findings from the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, which was published in 2013.
The bright blue areas show parts of Busselton and Wonnerup’s coastal waterways under water.
So what does this mean for me, and other owners of coastal properties? Are plans in place to ensure our beloved homes will not go under water or be swept away, or is this supposed risk enough of a reason to run for the hills?
The City of Busselton have proposed long-term plans regarding coastal adaption over the next several decades, and have already committed to several projects to help predict changes to the coast over time.
These projects include Peron-Naturaliste Partnership’s ongoing hazard mapping and aerial photography research, the Busselton-focused Coastal Community Adaptation Awareness Plan project, coastal erosion modelling undertaken for the City by Damara, a historical shoreline movement study and participation in a Coastal Climate Change Legal Risk Mitigation project undertaken for the National Sea Change Taskforce.
It is somewhat comforting to know that motions have been put into place to ensure our town has a forward outlook and that strategies are being developed to maintain the place we call home.
And, at the moment, we seem to be reasonably flood-free.
However, weather patterns, as Sydney has discovered, cannot always be predicted and one question still needs to be raised.
Do you understand the inherent risks of living by the sea?
The main risk is obvious – if you own a property on or within 100m of Geographe Bay Road, or anywhere along the coast for that matter, you are living across the road (or in some cases across the sand) from a natural element affected by a number of things that are mostly uncontrollable and out of your hands.
No matter what planning is in place – whether it be sand bags piled along the shore, the construction of rock walls or the shifting of sand – you can not do much to stop water from rising. Look at Venice.
Is it a risk you are willing to take?
- Lily Yeang
