{"id":629855,"date":"2026-10-14T01:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T01:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/629855\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T01:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T01:00:13","slug":"gold-coast-needs-room-to-grow-but-climate-risks-could-change-where-people-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/629855\/","title":{"rendered":"Gold Coast needs room to grow but climate risks could change where people live"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost 60 years ago, nature forced some hard decisions on the Gold Coast.<\/p>\n

A series of storms pummelled beaches over several months, climaxing in what media reported as a “cyclonic punch” in 1967 which laid bare the city’s vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n

An estimated 8 million cubic metres of sand was ripped from the beaches, double that of 2025’s Cyclone Alfred, sparking a decades-long effort to build the city’s renowned coastal protection system<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"black<\/p>\n

Images taken after 1967’s Cyclone Dinah showing coastal devastation. (ABC Archives)<\/p>\n

The underground ‘A-line’, a 5-metre-thick seawall made from boulders, shields high-rises and homes, sand pumps replenish beaches, while groynes, dunes and artificial reefs buffer tidal surges.<\/p>\n

But rising seas have created a new set of hard decisions: how to build more homes in areas facing growing risks from climate change.<\/p>\n

Hazard maps and housing<\/p>\n

The Gold Coast City Council published updated maps this month highlighting areas at risk of natural hazards like landslides and storm tides.<\/p>\n

That is on top of flood maps released in 2022 which put an additional 88,000 properties at risk<\/a> of extreme floods.<\/p>\n

\"two<\/p>\n

Gold Coast City Council mapping shows coastal hazards (left) and landslide risks (right). (Supplied: City of Gold Coast)<\/p>\n

A separate council report noted that climate modelling, including flooding and coastal storm-tide data, had not been consistently used to inform decisions on infrastructure and investment.<\/p>\n

“Climate change is gradually increasing sea levels globally,” the report stated, and was “expected to increase slow-onset coastal erosion”.<\/p>\n

Mayor Tom Tate said the report showed “some things the city has missed” but that climate risks would be factored into the council’s new planning scheme “within 12 months”.<\/p>\n

“We don’t want people to develop and build on an area that in 20 years time will get flooded,” the mayor said.<\/p>\n

Flooding at Norwell’s canefields on the northern Gold Coast during March 2021. (ABC Gold Coast: Dominic Cansdale)<\/p>\n

But Cr Tate said proposed housing estates in the city’s north<\/a>, like Norwell, remained viable despite being mapped at “very high risk” of flooding, provided they include man-made water bodies.<\/p>\n

“When it rains the water elements swell, but it doesn’t swell to the extent that it floods houses,” he said.<\/p>\n

But Aysin Dedekorkut-Howes, Griffith University’s program director of urban and environmental planning, said those northern suburbs were “basically estuarine”.<\/p>\n

“We keep building in those areas and we are putting people at risk,” she said.<\/p>\n

Changing perceptions of risk<\/p>\n

Dr Dedekorkut-Howes said multiple studies identified the Gold Coast<\/a> as “Australia’s most vulnerable city in terms of economic cost from sea level rise”.<\/p>\n

“The A-line [is] the first and last line of defence,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Engineering can only help us so much. It can postpone some of the inevitable risks for 20, 30 years.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Damage at Narrowneck Beach on the Gold Coast three months after Cyclone Alfred. (ABC News: Nicholas McElroy)<\/p>\n

The Queensland government has projected an 0.8-metre sea level rise by 2100.<\/p>\n

But Dr Aysin Dedekorkut-Howes said “that level is quite old”, with other climate risk models projecting a 1.5-metre to 2-metre sea level rise.<\/p>\n

“So if it’s a one metre [rise] we are 20 centimetres short and more places will start getting nuisance flooding,” she said.<\/p>\n

“When it’s rare, people feel it’s an acceptable risk. But the way it’s increasing with climate change means the events we used to think were rare are becoming more frequent.”<\/p>\n

Insurance woes on the horizon<\/p>\n

Bond University’s assistant professor of sustainable development, Ned Wales, said adapting to climate risks would add further pressure to the cost of housing.<\/p>\n

“It’s an economic risk. What really concerns me is the construction of properties in areas where the mapping, the flood risk and fire mapping has changed,” he said.<\/p>\n

“[There are] implications of damage to property, particularly for approvals that have happened in the last 20 years where older data may have been used rather than forecasting.”<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Storm clouds loom over a building in Gold Coast’s more inland suburb, Robina. (ABC Gold Coast: Dominic Cansdale)<\/p>\n

Dr Dedekorkut-Howes said canal housing estates were “highly vulnerable” because flooding during storms became more frequent as sea levels rose.<\/p>\n

“It’s very expensive and difficult to move them now, so there’s entrenched development,” she said<\/p>\n

“There might come a point where insurance becomes unaffordable or not offered at all.”<\/p>\n

Can millions spent on Gold Coast beaches beat La Ni\u00f1a?<\/a><\/p>\n

Sea walls, artificial reefs and pipelines have been built to prevent beach erosion on the Gold Coast. But with climate change biting, is it enough?<\/p>\n

Climate and cost<\/p>\n

Councillor Glenn Tozer said last week the council’s new maps were designed to inform residents about the natural disaster risks their properties may face.<\/p>\n

“Any insurance company that says council mapping has changed premiums is lying to you,” he said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Insurance Council of Australia said: “Insurers use a range of data sources to assess risk at an individual property level, including council flood and hazard mapping.”<\/p>\n

“Whether updated mapping has any impact on premiums will depend on whether it shows a material change in risk and whether that information is available to insurers,” they said.<\/p>\n

A man looks at looming storms clouds over Gold Coast’s Mermaid Beach. (ABC Gold Coast: Dominic Cansdale)<\/p>\n

Cr Tozer also said the hazard mapping would have a “negligible, if none, effect on property values”.<\/p>\n

“Property values in our city are driven by supply and demand of housing stock, quality of life, proximity to schools, proximity to other infrastructure,” he said.<\/p>\n

But Dr Dedekorkut-Howes said the housing crisis was putting pressure on planners to build in areas facing growing climate risks.<\/p>\n

“There are going to be areas in the future we need to move away from and that’s not something that can be done overnight,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We need to plan so we don’t build anything in really high risk areas.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost 60 years ago, nature forced some hard decisions on the Gold Coast. A series of storms pummelled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[7972,390,273,52151,308925,62739,111,139,69,7192,1519,147],"class_list":["post-629855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-beach","tag-climate-change","tag-environment","tag-erosion","tag-flood-maps","tag-gold-coast","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-risk","tag-risks","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}