SA Climate Ready Coasts

New Coastal Hazard Adaptation Planning Guidelines for SA (PDF 7.8 MB) were developed by the program between 2023 and 2024. These guidelines were jointly adopted by the LGA Board and SA Coast Protection Board in December 2024.

The guidelines are also available in LGA’s Climate Change Resources Hub, see coastal management.

The guidelines provide step-by-step guidance on how to prepare a Coastal Hazard Adaptation Plan in South Australia.

The guidelines will help create a more standardised approach to coastal hazard adaptation planning. This enables robust and consistent decision-making and resource allocation. They also aim to provide flexibility in application to suit different coastal contexts.

The guidelines have been co-created with coastal practitioners and decision-makers from local and state government. They use best practice and similar frameworks from around Australia and overseas.

You can read about this in our:

• Benchmarking Review (March 2024) (PDF 2.2 MB)
• Stakeholder Engagement Report (March 2024) (PDF 651.6 KB)
• Stakeholder Engagement Report (October 2024) (PDF 936.0 KB)

A series of technical compendiums and templates have also been developed to help and support practitioners deliver specific components of work. These are also available through the LGA’s Climate Change Resources Hub, see coastal management.

This project consolidated our understanding of the coastal datasets to inform data improvement priorities, coastal hazard adaptation standards and local planning.

Edge Environments were appointed to lead the coastal data stocktake. They engaged with users and custodians of coastal data in late 2023. Outcomes from the coastal data stocktake report (PDF 964.0 KB) are already being used to shape the Department for Environment’s coastal data projects.

New wave monitoring buoys and tide gauges have been deployed along key spots on the coast.

These new buoys provide information about wave heights, direction and surface temperature, to help us better understand coastal hazards, especially erosion.

The tide gauges are important in tracking long term changes in sea levels, as well as better understanding the impacts of storm tide events.

The Department for Environment and Water led this project and worked with organisations who have an interest in coastal monitoring infrastructure. This includes Flinders University, SARDI, Flinders Ports, and Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System.

This work was funded through Climate Ready Coasts as well as through a separate grant from the Coast Protection Board.

Find out more by reading the coastal monitoring infrastructure project fact sheet (PDF 1.5 MB).

The Department for Environment and Water (DEW) are leading work to improve coastal hazard datasets to help South Australian councils better plan along our coastlines.

The department currently maintain datasets relating to coastal flooding, sand drift and acid sulfate soils. Until recently, there was a critical data gap relating to coastal erosion and long-term coastal recession.

A statewide coastal erosion hazard assessment for South Australia was completed in 2025 to address this gap. The assessment maps the potential extent of coastal erosion and recession over different planning time horizons.

This dataset is being used to identify priority areas for data acquisition and assist with informing DEW’s current coastal monitoring and evaluation program.

Access to the assessment results is being provided to councils who wish to review the erosion assessment to help them develop their Coastal Hazard Adaptation Plan.

Find out more in the statewide coastal erosion hazard assessment fact sheet (PDF 2.0 MB).

The Climate Ready Coasts program brought the nationally regarded Coastal Resilience Short Course to South Australia between 30 March and 1 April 2026.

Over three days, over 30 participants from state and local government built a shared understanding of:

• how coasts work
• what's driving change along South Australian shorelines
• how to translate technical information into practical outcomes.

The successes and learnings from the delivery of this course will inform future professional development opportunities. These will be delivered in future phases of Climate Ready Coasts.

In 2024, $1.45 million of Climate Ready Costs funding was awarded to 15 projects around the state. This funding was for councils to deliver short projects that progress work on Coastal Hazard Adaptation Plans.

These projects support councils with:

• new coastal hazard adaptation planning work that progresses work in one or more of the planning stages in the new Coastal Hazard Adaptation Planning Guidelines
• review of coastal hazard adaptation planning already completed, and/or update of this work where the benefits outweigh the costs
• undertaking actions identified in a coastal hazard adaptation plan (excluding physical works), for example, coastal monitoring, research and data acquisition and/or additional community engagement.

The LGA and the CRC program partners are supporting councils to deliver these projects and share their learnings from progressing coastal hazard adaptation planning.

View the:

• list of successful projects (PDF 162.5 KB)
• funding guidlines (PDF 634.6 KB).

SA Climate Ready Coasts has established an Expert Panel on Coastal Adaptation with grant funding from the SA Coast Protection Board. The panel will support the quality and consistency of coastal hazard adaptation planning across South Australia.

The Expert Panel is a team of independent, qualified experts with a range of specialist skills. They can offer objective and constructive peer review at key stages of coastal hazard adaptation planning.

The panel will help councils and, where relevant, state government agencies, achieve the maximum long term value from the time and resources invested in Coastal Hazard Adaptation Plans (CHAPs).

The guidelines for the Expert Panel (PDF 338.0 KB) detail how the panel operates, including its purpose, scope, authority, operational arrangements and reporting.

Purpose of the panel

The purpose of the Expert Panel is to:

• support consistent application of the minimum standards set out in the Coastal Hazard Adaptation Planning Guidelines
• strengthen the quality, robustness and credibility of coastal hazard adaptation work
• provide pragmatic and constructive advice that can be reasonably actioned by councils of different sizes, capabilities and coastal contexts (and, where relevant, state government agencies)
• foster shared learning and continuous improvement across the SA coastal management sector.

Advice provided by the panel is independent, advisory and non binding.

Councils (or state government agencies leading CHAP work) are still responsible for decision making. The intent of the panel is to complement, not replace, existing council, consultant and agency roles.

Panel members

Martijn Gough, Alea Advisory

Martijn is an economist and public policy expert with over 18 years’ experience delivering natural resource management and climate change policy and reform.

Martijn has significant experience undertaking and assessing economic analysis in a coastal adaptation context at the local government, state government and international level.

Martijn is currently Deputy Chair of the Victorian Marine and Coastal Council. He's previously served on the NSW Coastal Council and was engaged as the peer reviewer of the SA CHAP Guidelines in 2024.

Liz Patterson, Alluvium

Liz brings 25 years of experience in guiding and supporting State government teams in best-practice marine and coastal planning and management.

Liz was integral leading the development of the Marine and Coastal Act 2018 (Vic), Marine and Coastal Policy, Marine and Coastal Strategy and Victoria’s Resilient Coast framework and guidelines.

Steve Charlton Henderson, Alluvium

Steve is a resource economist, specialising in economic modelling and cost benefit analysis for agriculture, water supply, and natural hazards.

Steve regularly develops economic models and risk assessments, contributes to desktop analysis, consultation with industry, and incorporating social and environmental considerations into decision-making (both quantitatively and qualitatively).

He's played a key role in coastal hazard adaptation projects in Queensland and Victoria and helped develop the Victoria’s Resilient Coast guidelines applied in the Cape to Cape Resilience Project.

Matt Eliot, Damara

Dr Matt Eliot is a civil engineer with thirty years’ experience specialising in coastal engineering, geomorphology, hazard assessment and active coastal management.

Based in Western Australia, Matt has undertaken projects from small scale coastal protection works through to national scale coastal investigations. This knowledge base is supported by a detailed appreciation of coastal processes and applied understanding of analytical and numerical models.

Matt continues to distribute his practical knowledge through the Coastal Learning Blog, established in 2021.

Emeritus Professor Rodger Tomlinson, Griffith University

Rodger brings nationally recognised expertise in coastal processes and adaptation, with extensive experience reviewing coastal plans across Australia. He has over 45 years of experience in applied research and specialist consultancy in the fields of coastal and water engineering.

From 1992 he was at Griffith University initially as Head of School of Environmental Engineering and from February 2000 to December 2020 was the City of Gold Coast Professor of Coastal Management and Foundation Director of the Griffith Centre for Coastal Management.

Dr Philip Haines, Rhelm

Philip is a widely recognised coastal and estuary management expert with over 35 years of industry experience spanning multiple states in Australia as well as overseas.

Philip was one of Australia’s pioneers in applying ISO 31000 compliant risk based methods to coastal hazards. He is a former Chair of the NSW Coastal Council and brings strong governance and strategic decision making experience to the panel.

Joanna Garcia Webb, Water Technology

Joanna is a coastal engineer with more than 20 years' experience in both the private and public sectors. Joanna has been central to the delivery of 160+ projects in the coastal, marine and sustainability environment.

Joanna has more recently applied her knowledge in the climate policy space integrating environmental and social risk into business (ESG), as well as available and emerging possible risk mitigation solutions.

DEW Representative: Annabel Sandery, Principal Advisor – Coastal Resilience

Annabel is an adaptation planning specialist with over 20 years’ experience supporting all levels of government in adaptation planning projects across Australia.

Annabel has a coastal engineering background, significant experience in leading stakeholder and community engagement and was the lead author of the SA CHAP Guidelines.

Annabel will be acting as the DEW representative on the expert panel, providing a point of consistency across all review activities and connecting the work of the panel with DEW’s day-to-day involvement in coastal adaptation projects across South Australia.

Ex-officio: Michael Arman, Climate Ready Coasts Program Manager

Climate Ready Coasts has established an online Community of Practice for coastal practitioners. It provides an informal forum for those working on coastal adaptation and related projects to share information and learn from each other.

The Community of Practice meets quarterly via Ms Teams, and is open to all state and local government staff interested in coastal matters.

Join the Community of Practice

Email us at ClimateReadyCoasts@lga.sa.gov.au to be added to the invitation list.

The current focus of the Data Workstream is acquiring data for locations that are at high risk of coastal hazards. This will support data driven decision making.

Prioritisation framework

Water Technology developed a prioritisation framework to identify coastal areas most at risk from hazards. This was achieved by analysing geographic information system (GIS) hazard layer extends. This process was able to pinpoint high-risk zones based on the CRC statewide erosion hazard results and the coastal flood viewer data.

Results were then interrogated against Coastal Hazard Adaptation Plan (CHAP) maturity across the state to identify areas with the greatest potential for effective data use. Existing CHAP’s were also reviewed to identify data gaps and understand how these gaps impacted CHAP development.

Opportunities to further support the SA Coastal Monitoring Infrastructure Project, with additional wave buoys and tide gauges, were considered.

Priority data sets

Priority data sets identified through this process include:

• Tide gauges and wave buoys to support the SA Coastal Monitoring Infrastructure Project.
• Cross shore profiles for areas across the state that have been identified as at risk of erosion however there is currently on cross shore profile.
• Wave hindcast data, providing statistical wave information across the whole state.
• 3D models and geological profiling of cliffed back beaches identified areas of erosion.
• Satellite derived bathymetry for a number of bay coastal systems.

Read the coastal data investment framework fact sheet (PDF 1.4 MB) for more information.