Matthew Moore in the Age (Australia): Rising sea levels make it inevitable the North Coast town of Ballina will eventually need levees and pumps to keep the sea at bay, says one of Australia's leading climate change experts. On a tour of the town on the Richmond River this week, Professor Bruce Thom said Ballina and other low-lying coastal centres, including Swansea near Newcastle, and Batemans Bay, would need dykes to keep the sea out, but they would not stop salt entering the groundwater.While inspecting homes built on the riverbanks and canal estates, the former chairman of the NSW Coastal Council and member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists was stunned at the number built on concrete slabs without even a mound to keep rising waters away.
''There's no appreciation the sea level is going to be half a metre higher … We are seeing within our lifetime a rate of [sea level] change which is taking us outside the comfort zone we have defined for ourselves which says you can put slab on ground houses next to the water.'' Professor Thom would not say when levees might be needed but predicted residents would notice sea level rise ''within 10 years''.
A city the size of Ballina, with a population of more than 50,000, could not easily be moved and would require ''a full protective solution'' to keep the town ''liveable''. ''You'll have to pump out the water table and you'll need tidal gates on the drains; it's a Dutch-type solution,'' he said….
Who can worry about sea level rise and flooding where there's a monster prawn lurking atop a restaurant in Ballina, New South Wales. Shot by Stuart Edwards, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License
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