The Eastern Seaboard Climate Change Initiative –East Coast Low (ESCCI-ECL) project is an innovative research program aimed at improving the knowledge of past, current and future projected ECL events along the eastern seaboard of Australia. Importantly it was designed to use these different time scales to provide better information on how ECLs influence coastal zone dynamics and water security.

As ECLs are major drivers of ecosystem processes in this region it is imperative that we gain an understanding of them, including their impacts and their variability, and how they will change in the future. This is a necessary step in determining the impacts of climate change on natural and human systems and the implementation of effective adaptation strategies.

The ESCCI-ECL project was jointly developed by the NSW Government, the Bureau of Meteorology, and three universities: University of New South Wales, Macquarie University and the University of Newcastle. The vision for the project included four principal themes:
- an understanding of the historical and prehistorical (palaeo) climate variability of ECLs
- an understanding of how their long-term multidecadal variability influences coastal processes and streamflows
- high resolution modelling of projected ECL frequency and intensity in response to climate change
- Integration of findings from the above themes into an understanding of the impacts of ECLs on coastal and water resources, and guidance on potential changes to these impacts in response to climate change.