COORDINATION

The South Australian coastline stretches over 5,000 km including several offshore islands. It is home to approximately 90% of SA’s population providing significant environmental, social, and economic benefits to coastal communities, businesses and industries.

 

Although coastal management in South Australia is a shared responsibility between state and local governments, coastal adaptation and protection work, maintenance of coastal infrastructure and planning and development on the coast have been increasingly carried out by local governments. Half (Thirty-four) of all councils in the state have responsibility to manage the coastline and the majority are challenged with increasing impacts from storm events, associated flooding and erosion and an upward trend in the cost and resourcing for coastal management. All coastal Councils have the additional responsibility to provide, manage and maintain a wide range of coastal assets that not only benefit residents and ratepayers, but a much wider visiting and tourist population.

 

Over the last ten years expenditure by Local Government on coast protection, management and infrastructure has nearly doubled, however the level of funding from other tiers of government to support this has remained relatively static.

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It is estimated that there is currently over $212M of coastal management and protection works required over the next 10 years (based on 2019/20 data) to address the backlog of unfunded coastal infrastructure projects.  Adapting to a changing climate and sea level rise is essential for coastal Councils to minimise both the risks and financial costs in the future.

 

To support coastal Councils to address the growing challenge of managing the SA coast line the South Australia Coastal Councils Alliance (SACCA) was formed in 2019 as an informal network of coastal Councils that come together to advance shared objectives in the coastal zone.