Hayden Johnson 23 May 2017, 6 a.m.
WET: New data shows what parts of Launceston will be inundated when sea levels rise across eight decades. Picture: Coastal Risk Mapping
The University of Tasmania Stadium and other parts of Launceston are predicted to be inundated by rising sea levels within 83 years, according to new data.
Using predictions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Coastal Risk Mapping <http://coastalrisk.com.au/> shows many more Australian homes, streets and critical infrastructure could be inundated by the year, 2100.
Scientists are forecasting levels will rise between 0.4 and 1.1m over the remainder of this century, depending on how rapidly the world reduces emissions of greenhouse gases.
The modeling shows a rise of 0.7 metres will put most of Invermay, including UTAS Stadium and the university’s Inveresk campus, underwater.
Launceston businesses on Boland Street, near Glebe Farm Road, are also expected to have soggy floors.
Coastal Risk Mapping website co-creator Nathan Eaton said it was critical for people to appreciate what rising sea levels could mean for their communities.
“Anyone can look at these maps and visualise exactly how sea-level rise, driven by climate change, will permanently alter our coastline and neighbourhoods,” he said.
“We already knew this was going to be bad news for low-lying areas, but the latest science is telling us to brace for even worse.”
University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Centre Professor John Church said a two-metre sea level rise was imminent if climate change was not taken seriously.
“With business as usual emissions, the questions are when, rather than if, we will cross a two-metre sea-level rise,” he said.
Across the globe, sea levels have risen an average of 17cm over the 20th century.
Airports in Hobart, Brisbane and Sydney, the Port of Melbourne and low-lying cities like Byron Bay, the Gold Coast, Cairns and Darwin will be inundated under the updated scenario of a two-metre sea level rise by 2100.
But Insurance Council of Australia communications general manager Campbell Fuller said the predictions were unlikely to affect premiums “when ascribed to perils many decades in the future”.
“Insurers underwrite premiums based on their assessment of risk over the 12 months of the policy,” he said.
But Mr Fuller said the council continued to urge the federal government to increase federal mitigation spending to $200 million each year.
“As the impact of climate change becomes more acute, higher spending on physical mitigation will be essential to protect lives and property, and reduce the vastly higher sums needed to repeatedly rebuild homes, businesses and infrastructure,” he said.
NOTE Apparently this information has been available to Launceston City Council and the Flood Authority for a very long lime. Council for whatever reason has chosen to look the other way albeit in the knowledge that if it were to impact upon Launcestonians sometime down the track they'll most likely (hopefully?!) will be out of office. Concerningly, it seems that the modeling hasn’t been done for Launceston or its catchments by the local flood authority and it does beg the question, why not?
Lismore's [NSW] had a flood event (2017) that demonstrated what can happen when decision makers look the other way for fiscal, aesthetic, whatever reason there's a real chance that there will be diabolic consequences – fiscal, social, planning, environmental, etc.
Now with Launceston’s General Manager leaving Launceston/Tasmania The Examiner suddenly tells its fading cohort of readers the story of climate change and flood risks. As a backdrop to Council and UTas planning to build a 21st C facility it appears as as if there’ll be no ‘climate change’ considerations in the planning.
Quoting the General Manager some time ago the current planning for Utas at Inveresk “is good town planning”. However, his words are quite unlikely to haunt him from wherever he finds himself well away from Tasmania.
