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Coastal vulnerability: Scale dependence of estuary response to sea-level rise: towards a framework for vulnerability assessment


Coastal ecosystems have a long history of development, which is tightly coupled with sea-level rise over the past 7000 years. Perturbations of short duration, such as storms, may also have a significant affect on their morphology and ecology.

The current morphology of the east coast NRM reflects a history of rapid sea-level rise over the past 7-5kpa. This was followed by a period of relatively stable sea level condition. Perturbations of short duration, such as storms, may also have a significant affect on their morphology and ecology.

Coastal vulnerability assessments that are sensitive to the planning, engineering and management timescale need to account for both long-term processes and short-term perturbations. They also need to be sensitive to resource limitations. Scaled approaches may be useful.

•As the scale of the assessment decreases from first to third order, the vulnerability assessment should integrate more of the long-term behaviour and short-term processes influencing coastal geomorphology.
•First order assessments are broad in spatial scale and utilize readily available datasets with large spatial coverage
•Second order assessments may be system focused and utilize higher resolution data
•Third order assessments require fine resolution data, that is derived from empirical datasets, and are typically small in spatial scale.

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Metadata

Detailed Descriptions
Report
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060205 - Marine and Estuarine Ecology (incl. Marine Ichthyology)
Geographic and Temporal Extents
South East Queensland, Greater Sydney, Fitzroy, Burnett Mary, Northern Coast, Hunter
Brigalow Belt South, NSW North Coast, South Eastern Highlands, Sydney Basin, Central Mackay Coast, South Eastern Queensland, Brigalow Belt North
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Attributions and Constraints
All rights reserved
The University of Queensland, The University of Wollongong
Dr Kerrylee Rogers, Professor Cath Lovelock
Kerrylee Rogers and Cath Lovelock (2014) Scale dependence of estuary response to sea-level rise: towards a framework for vulnerability assessment, University of Queensland and University of Wollongong.
Dr Kerrylee Rogers, kerrylee@uow.edu.au
2015/06/09