2021-01-18 GC - Item 3 - Attachment 1 - Coastal Hazards Adaptation Plan for Community Consultation

           Appendices
Appendix 1: Glossary
Accept: An adaptation outcome that recognises the validity of climate science and the
intensifying threats of climate change, subsequently acknowledging there is a need to implement
adaptive strategies.

Accommodate23: An adaptation approach which involves seeks to allow the continued or
extended use of vulnerable areas by reducing the sensitivity and/or exposure to sea level rise and
other coastal hazards. For example, elevated floor requirements, increased setback
requirements, hazard insurance, improved drainage and the preparation of emergency
evacuation plans.


Adaptation pathways: A series of adaptation choices involving trade-offs between short-term and
long-term goals and values. These are processes of deliberation to identify solutions that are
meaningful to people in the context of their daily lives and to avoid potential maladaptation.

Avoid: Planned actions taken to avoid the impacts of climate change and coastal hazards on
assets. For example, to avoid the impacts of coastal and estuarine flooding and inundation,
building codes and regulations can be implemented.

Defend: Actions taken to physically protect assets. See protect.


Maladaptation: Actions that may, as an unintended consequence, lead to increased risk of
adverse climate-related outcomes, including via increased GHG emissions, increased vulnerability
to climate change, or diminished social welfare, now or in the future.

Protect15: An adaptation approach which involves the continuation of use of vulnerable areas and
assets that are affected by erosion, inundation, and sea level rise by using hard or soft defensive
measures. Hard defensive measures include sea walls, breakwaters, storm tide barriers; and
‘soft’ defensive measures include beach nourishment, dune management and restoration.

Retreat15: An adaptation approach which involves the planned or managed withdrawal of assets
from hazard-prone areas of the coast. This may involve relocating or abandoning assets in high
risk areas, preventing development in coastal areas, and allowing development to take place on
the condition that it will be abandoned if necessary. Planned or managed retreat involves the
implementation of thresholds or triggers (e.g. seas encroach within predetermined distance of
infrastructure) which activate the policy.

Trigger point: A decision-point which initiates adaptive actions before coastal hazards reach an
adaptation-threshold beyond which undue harm occurs and costs of adaptation increase. Triggers
can be preceded by signals that provide an early warning of the emergence of the trigger.




23   Fletcher et al 2013 NCARRF
Noosa Council – Coastal Hazards Adaptation Plan 2020 - 2030 (community consultation version)   Page 61