The floods that have covered about two thirds of Queensland earlier in the year did at least five billion dollars in damage. And the fear and anguish experienced by those who lost their homes and businesses – or loved ones – is unmeasurable.
It’s alarming to think that this might be just our first taste of dangerous climate change across the state, but that’s exactly what the evidence suggests.
While Premier Anna Bligh has had huge jump in the polls, largely attributed to her response to the immediate disaster situations we experienced earlier this year, the real work in responding to the floods has barely begun.
A Commission of Inquiry has been set up to look at every aspect of the floods, ranging from assessment of the immediate response to much further-out issues like land use planning.
They are also looking at the way dams were managed. Wivenhoe dam was at 148 per cent when the floods started, so this is bound to turn up some interesting answers.
The other major government action we’ve seen is the development of the Queensland Reconstruction Authority, a whole new department — led by the Premier herself – devoted to coordinating the state’s huge recovery and rebuilding effort.
Six sub-groups have been formed, each working on a specific issue – Transport, Economics, the Environment, Communication, Human and Social Recovery and Building Recovery. Each of these is developing a ‘roadmap’ of actions to be provided to the Reconstruction Authority for incorporation into their plan, ‘Operation Queenslander’.
Some are well-advanced, like the environment roadmap, but there’s a lot of work ahead and a lot hinges on how well it’s delivered.
Queensland Conservation has picked up a whole lot of new work even as Brisbane locals picked up the pieces after the devastation. Its team has put together a submission to the flood inquiry, as well as being one of the only NGO groups in the premier’s ‘environment’ subgroup.
We’re working hard to ensure that as our state rebuilds, it does it right. As the organisation that represents Queensland’s environment groups, including SCEC, ‘doing it right’, means many things.
Here are the three ideas we’re advocating most strongly.
Planning for a new climate
Firstly, we need to be much more careful where we put our homes, roads and public infrastructure. It doesn’t make sense to put homes in places that will flood up to the rafters more and more frequently as our climate spins out of control. Nor does it make sense to have sewage facilities on river banks, or industrial sites on floodplains. When these sites flood, they not only bring contamination to local waters but also the marine waters downstream, ruining reefs and silting up seagrass beds. Not good news if you’re a dugong.
Building to reduce emissions
Secondly, it’s crucial that we rebuild with the new generation of green buildings that’s emerging across the globe. Queensland Conservation’s executive director, Toby Hutcheon, calls this “[…] a great opportunity to transition Queensland away from climate-harming designs and practices”.
Modern designs are affordable highly energy-efficient homes that produce enough electricity to cover their own needs, and harvest enough rainwater to be almost self-sufficient. Queensland Conservation is working hard to get this opportunity recognised – it’d be a terrible waste to rebuild houses from the seventies as if it’s still the seventies.
Building Environmental resilience
People aren’t the only victims of extreme weather – animals, plants and entire landscapes have been left vulnerable after the floods and storms.
Thus, our third point focuses on restoring natural areas to a state of resilience. ‘Resilience’, in this context, is the ability of the environment, and all that depend upon the environment – individuals, communities and businesses – to withstand and readily recover from severe weather events after having implemented practices that establish a stable climate and sustainable environment to the greatest extent possible.
Building a resilient environment means restoring vegetation and repairing riparian zones so that they can fulfil their natural functions. It means implementing innovative ideas such as restoring natural features and protecting coastal wetlands. This assists environmental resilience and provides a buffer between ocean and coastal settlements. The bigger picture is that the entire reconstruction effort must be about both recovery and resilience.
Toby Hutcheon sums it up like this: “In an age of increasingly dangerous climate change, it is the resilience we build to future impacts that will ultimately be the most important achievement of the flood recovery.”
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