A UWA coastal oceanography professor has warned that in 30 to 40 years time homes along Busselton's coast will be lost and the town will not look the same as coastal erosion worsens.
Professor Charitha Pattiaratchi said Busselton was not situated in the best location and was on an eroding coastline.
As the mean water levels rise the erosion will get worse and Busselton would be susceptible, he said.
"It is not only the waves, what has happened in the previous last years is interruption to the sand moving back and forth as well," he said.
"In winter we get our storms from the northwest - the tense part and Busselton faces the barrel - you do not have to have big storms to have coastal erosion it is just the timing of them that is important.
"You look at a town that is not geographically in a good area, think of a barrier island where you have a strip of sand between the ocean and a river which is the Vasse, that sand bar is not the place to build.
"We can say this in hindsight when we realise this is what we have, but it is a bit of a problem.
"It is a difficult conversation."
Mr Pattiaratchi said in three to four decades some houses along Busselton's coastline would no longer exist.
"Basically Busselton will not look like it does now," he said.
"When you tell the people they would have a problem if we had a one in 10,000 year storm or a tsunami then they get worried.
"That is the psychology of people, they can deal with certainty to a certain extent but they hate the uncertainty.
"Unfortunately that's what Busselton is and many coastal areas of the southwest."
Mr Pattiaratchi said water levels in the next few years would be high because of an El Nina coming up, which would see the mean water level rise by 0.5 metres, twice as much that has happened in the last 120 years.
"We will actually find lots of erosion is actually only going to get worse. So what is the 20 to 30 year plan to deal with it?" he said.
"It is also an economic type of thing we can do modelling and draw maps and say house A, B, C and D are gone, but nobody has the political will to say to these people your houses are going to go.
"If you publish those maps the price of those houses will go down, the public do not like it.
"Somewhere the conversation has to start."
City of Busselton director of planning and development services Paul Needham said the entire coastline was dynamic and would continue to erode and accrete in different places at different times.
Mr Needham said the long term trend was expected to be towards increased erosion, if steps were not taken to prevent that occurring.
"There are specific erosion hot spots, particularly in the wake of recent storms. These include but are not limited to areas in Siesta Park and Abbey," he said.
"The city has an annual schedule of sand renourishment, coastal stabilisation and protection work, involving the use of re-vegetation, groynes, seawalls and geotextile sandbags.
"The treatments are tailored to the particular contexts.
"The City of Busselton has a strategic Coastal Management Program (2018-2028).
"This Coastal Management Program aims to facilitate strategic, effective and sustainable coastal adaptation by the City of Busselton along the Geographe Bay foreshore over the next 10 years.
"This is a "whole-of-coast" approach that includes coastal monitoring (annual and strategic), coastal investigations, sand nourishment (annual and strategic), maintenance of more than 50 coastal protection structures, and coastal management and adaptation works.
"The City is also developing a longer term plan, referred to as a 'Coastal Hazard Risk Management and Adaptation Plan' (CHRMAP).
"It is expected that a draft CHRMAP will be released for community consultation either late in 2020, or in the first half of 2021.
"Much of Busselton is exceptionally flat and low-lying, and we have a lot of infrastructure and development located very close to the coast.
"As a result, those assets are at potential risk from both coastal erosion and, in the case of storm events, coastal flooding.
"In choosing when, where and how to protect the coast, we need to consider not just the assets on the land, but also the coastal and marine environment and, especially, protecting beach amenity.
"To date, the focus of the city has been on the protection or, in some cases, relocation of public assets. As part of the CHRMAP process, though, the city is also looking at how to manage risks to private assets, including housing."
The Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage were contacted for comment but did not respond in time for publication.