Climate Change Adaptation focuses on coastal and water management, disaster and natural hazard management, urban and regional policy, through planning and development responses.
This theme aligns with United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 to take action to reduce the impacts from climate change, to strengthen adaptive capacity to climate-related disasters; integrate climate change resilience measures into policies and planning; and build capability to meet climate change.
The research is underpinned by considerations of SDGs 16 and 17 for streamlining cooperation across sectors and across jurisdictions for effective decision-making at all levels.
Recent projects
Coastal Governance
Embracing vulnerability and change
The condition of the Australian coast is declining and facing intensifying threats from global environmental change and urbanisation – this is despite almost 50 years of integrated coastal management efforts. We need to urgently change how we think about and manage our coastal environments, exploring new and better ways to protect Australia’s coastal values. This research:
- Identifies social-ecological vulnerabilities in changing coastal contexts
- Critically analyses how vulnerability and change is managed through current coastal governance approaches
- Assesses the implications for coastal governance innovations that embrace vulnerability and change
The research is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects funding scheme (project FT180100652) and contributes to Future Earth Coasts, a Global Research Project of Future Earth.
Contact:
Professor Tim Smith
Email: tsmith5@usc.edu.au
Green Infrastructure
Mitigating heat stress in aged care facilities
This project addresses the critical issue of the role of urban greenery in reducing heat stress for seniors as we experience increasingly longer and hotter heat waves into the future.
Unique aspects of the project involved installing heat sensors and conducting integrated heat, access and safety audits at case study aged care facility sites to determine priority areas for attention.
The project involved consulting with residents and staff about how they use and would like to use the facility’s outdoor environment. It developed cost-effective design options for reducing heat using green infrastructure (greenery) in a range of sites across Queensland.
A key output was Guidelines for Preparing a Heat Adaptation Plan: using green infrastructure for mitigating heat stress in aged care facilities to 2040.This includes the integrated audit tool. Not only is it applicable to aged care facilities located in the tropics and subtropics, the concepts are currently being applied to health care facilities, as well as park and street planning.
The research led by UniSC was supported by the Queensland Department of Environment and Science (DES) through a grant from the Sector Adaptation Plans Plus Co-investment Program, in partnership with UnitingCare Queensland and Griffith University.
Contact:
Professor Claudia Baldwin
Email: cbaldwin@usc.edu.au