The seachange phenomenon began as a trend with urban dwellers moving to sleepy coastal towns to get away from the rat race. Now, it has gained so much momentum that many coastal regions are facing economic, social and environmental pressures as they cope with these big population shifts.

What began as a nice way to retire, or a downshifting strategy for individuals and families, has resulted in some towns grappling with development issues as they face questions about their own sustainability.

Dr Gail Kelly, CSIRO’s Research Scientist – Resilient Regions & Communities Theme, has been working on helping communities develop tools and techniques to manage the complex factors associated with regional sustainability. “There are huge population shifts that are the result of what is affectionately called the seachange phenomenon,” says Kelly. “There are people who are downsizing, getting out of capital cities and moving to coastal areas; there is a huge retirement population, many of whom will move to the coast; and there are also a lot of absentee owners – those with an investment in second or third homes. All of these factors are driving a lot of the change in coastal areas.”

Kelly says that these development pressures have enormous flow-on implications on the environment, society and local economy. “In many cases, the natural environment is being reshaped to accommodate the development,” says Kelly. “Social issues arise, such as affordable housing, fluctuating populations and how to manage and cater for them. Another big pressure is that of tourism – those who live in capital cities often have an expectation that coastal areas will be kept pristine by locals so city people can recreate in it when they drop in. This can be difficult if the region isn’t geared to cope with huge population fluctuations.”

Whole of government approach

According to Kelly, while small communities have often managed to adapt to change in the past, the multiple pressures now mounted by seachange trends may require collaboration at all levels of government if sustainability can truly be achieved.

“There is a greater recognition that the natural environment isn’t divided based on an administrative boundary,” says Kelly. “Social problems also occur across local government and state boundaries. With the bigger issues, we’re starting to see instances where the different state governments are actually beginning to collaborate with local governments. In some cases, such as water use management, there is a need for local, state and federal governments to be involved.

“This is one area where new partnerships are being forged. The other area is industry and the inclusion of research organisations – like CSIRO –or local universities working together with local government to find solutions.”

Kelly points out that neighbouring local governments are increasingly trying to tackle solutions in tandem, instead of in isolation. “Often, a decision one local government makes can have quite a big impact on an adjacent local government area,” she says. 

“The Central Coast in New South Wales has two local government areas – Gosford and Wyong – who are beginning to collaborate together strongly and see themselves as a region.”

CSIRO’s four phase approach to regional sustainability

 A four phase approach called the Regional Development Futures Framework has been developed by a multidisciplinary team at CSIRO. It used this framework in a research partnership with the local community in the Augusta-Margaret River region, an area experiencing the pressures of seachange.

Phase 1: Developing partnerships

Kelly says that setting the expectations of all partners is important to establish at the start.“If a research organisation is working in partnership with a region or community, it’s essential to manage expectations because you can be talking two different languages,” says Kelly. 

With the Augusta-Margaret River region, CSIRO began dialogue with the community at least 12 months before any formal agreement was signed. “We held workshops to discuss the whole concept of partnering, what role each organisation would play and what the expectations were. We discussed the inputs required, the risks – every element of the partnership was nutted out.”

Kelly emphasises this initial period of discussion avoids potential problems if issues are not communicated early.  Failed partnerships in the past have reinforced this as the first step of the process.

Phase 2: Creating the foundation

A thorough understanding of the region – its history, its values and the drivers for sustainability – needs to be reached. “This is all about understanding the region, how it arrived at its current state, and the trends it is now facing,” says Kelly. “With Augusta-Margaret River, we put together a very comprehensive profile of the region.  That became a living document for the two years of the project, which we completed in September 2005. 

“We looked at the written history, and we also undertook an oral history component and talked to 55 of the older residents of the community. This process helped us to uncover the values of the region. For real sustainability into the future, it’s important to get a feel for people’s values – to look at how they consider the past, where they are now and how that compares to the future.

Phase 3: Opportunities for change

Every community and region will face, or can develop, different opportunities for the future depending on a range of factors. In the Augusta-Margaret River project, CSIRO held workshops with about 300 local people to uncover potential opportunities based on different scenarios.

“We used systems thinking,” says Kelly. “We chosecritical issues the region would face in the future andgrouped people into different workshops on topics suchas ‘what happens when the vines die, the milk dries up andthe surf goes flat’. We had workshops on employment,rural value, water and environmental issues. Participants developed qualitative scenarios where we considered what the future would look like in 30 years time.”

Phase 4: Building resilient futures

Planning for a sustainable community in the future means developing appropriate tools that will enable the community to evaluate and make the right decisions. “We developed a system dynamics model which enabled the local government to explore what different scenarios would look like,” says Kelly about the Augusta-Margaret River project. “For example, what if they went down the tourism path versus an intensive agricultural path? We also helped develop community indicators so they could measure where they were at on an ongoing basis.”

CSIRO also helped the community compile relevant data that would help in making decisions. For example, prior to the project, there was no accurate data for absentee owners.  “We did a comprehensive survey and found that absentee owners own 45% of homes,” says Kelly. “The region knew nothing about these people – how committed they were to the area, if they ultimately planned to move permanently or just visit on regular holidays.”

CSIRO’s approach is transferable to other regions. However, each region will face its own unique pressures. The Central Coast was a sister project to Augusta-Margaret River. “We used the Regional Development Futures Framework in the Central Coast and came up with a different set of issues,” says Kelly. “In this region, there is an overflow population from Sydney where thousands of people commute up to four hours a day to get to and from the city. Quality of life becomes a priority and a second project is looking at links between quality of life and sustainability.”

Kelly says there are many challenges facing the development of sustainable communities in coastal regions.  Unsurprisingly, one factor is the competing interests of different groups. “There are people with power, who may have a link to government,” she says. “And there are people who don’t necessarily have a voice. So the question becomes one of how we can get some sort of equity and social justice through regional sustainability.”

Apart from the balance of power in these communities, Kelly notes that sustainability is still an abstract concept so there is a process of education and understanding. “The other challenge is there is a systemic tendency to isolate social planning from economic planning. We need to integrate them more effectively.”

Kelly believes that the first steps toward regional sustainability have been taken in both Augusta-Margaret River and the Central Coast. “What I like about the framework is that it is a participatory process with quantitative tools,” she says. “That’s a powerful combination.”

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