Building walls around flood problems: The place of levees in australian flood management

Recent Australian floods have resulted in many changes to levee provisions in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales. It is therefore timely to review levee issues and current state arrangements. This paper investigates the use of levees as an adaptation measure to address climate change. It also looks at the performance and reliability of Australian levees, environmental impacts, and the relationship between levees and the development of flood prone land. Despite recent changes, there continues to be much scope for improving floodplain development planning and the assessment and management of levees. Development controls continue to be inadequate and this will fuel future demand for levee protection, while lack of development controls behind levees is likely to lead to greater consequences when levees fail, a scenario more likely due to loss of climate stationarity. While levees provide incremental adaptation, they do not offer a long-term solution. However, transformational adaptation measures used in many places overseas are poorly supported by Australian funding programs. Long-term adjustments need to be planned and funded and appropriate incentives and decision-making structures need to be put in place.