Climate change adaptation through land use planning and disaster management: local government perspectives from Queensland

• Peter Hastings, Iraphne Childs, Bhishna Bajracharya
• Pacific Rim Real Estate Society

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28 July 2011Climate change will manifest in altered regimes of natural hazard occurrence, and therefore can be conceptualised as a disaster management issue. Strategic land use planning is a critical tool to mitigate and adapt to hazardous events. Local governments in Queensland have the responsibility for aspects of disaster management and land use planning as core functions of the council. Together they form part of the Prevention Preparedness, Response and Recovery (PPRR) framework for disaster management. In many local governments, however, there seems to be divergence between land use planning and disaster management due to the lack of integration between different functions of council. Given the growing concerns about impacts of climate change, there are new imperatives for linking land use planning, disaster management and climate change as part of an integrated package to address disaster management issues in a holistic manner.

The objective of this paper is to examine how local government perspectives on disaster management are linked to climate change and land use planning. Do Councils see land use planning, disaster management and climate change as separate? What are the key issues that local councils are grappling with in terms of disaster management? The paper will address some of these questions based on data from an on-line survey of local governments in Queensland and in-depth focus group discussions with six Queensland local governments. The paper will develop a framework for linking climate change with disaster management and land use planning to build community resilience.