We have 60 kilometres of coastline along the Sunshine Coast, which makes our region a highly desirable place to live, work, and play.

The coastal zone is dynamic. It faces challenges like beach erosion, shifting sands, and storm tides. Permanent tidal inundation of low-lying areas is another concern.

Coastal Hazard Adaptation Precinct Planning explores options to mitigate coastal hazards in priority areas, looking at different ways to make our public places stronger and more resilient against these changes. Investigations will include identifying adaptation options, with a primary focus on long-term solutions for future planning out to the year 2100.

Areas that are currently being investigated include Maroochydore, Mooloolaba and Golden Beach and Caloundra (Bulcock Beach). Council will identify potential options for adapting public coastal spaces and infrastructure to make them more resilient to coastal hazards.

We invited the community to provide input on coastal spaces, how you use them, their value, and how they might be adapted against coastal hazards and flooding.

The community were able to provide feedback via the online survey, by attending a drop-in session or sending an email.

Consultation was open from Monday 28 October to Monday 25 November 2024.

Input will be considered in the development and analysis of options.

Council will review and evaluate all feedback received. We will then develop and assess adaptation options for each investigation area. Community feedback on what you value about the key project locations will be used, along with functionality and viability criteria, to assess the adaptation options.

The project team will update the community in 2025 on the outcomes of the engagement process.

In 2021, in consultation with our community, we prepared the Our Resilient Coast. Our Future, which is the Coastal Hazard Adaptation Strategy (CHAS) for the region. The Coastal Hazard Adaptation Strategy gives locality-specific summaries of coastal hazards. It describes how and when they might affect our community, and ways to adapt to them now and in the future.

In response to the Coastal Hazard Adaptation Strategy, Council is now planning for coastal hazards at key areas – Maroochydore, Mooloolaba and Golden Beach and Caloundra (Bulcock Beach). The first part of this planning includes an investigation of potential adaptation options. This will focus on public areas and assets to reduce the impacts from increasing coastal hazards associated with climate change.

Our community faces challenges from coastal hazards. For example, high tides are flooding some low-lying roads and storms are eroding foreshores.

If nothing is done, our coastal public spaces will suffer. Rising sea levels, stronger storms, intense rain, and more erosion will cause this. They will be damaged more and become less safe. Adaptation can reduce risks to our community and public infrastructure, so we can continue to use these areas.

Funding acknowledgements

The Golden Beach and Caloundra (Bulcock Beach) CHAPP investigation has received funding from the Australian Government’s Coastal and Estuarine Risk Mitigation Program.

The Mooloolaba and Maroochydore CHAPP investigations received grant funding from the Australian Government.