Can you imagine Indented Head and St Leonards in the future?

We’re interested in your vision of a sustainable future for the Indented Head and St Leonards coastline, so we’re talking to the community to help develop a coastal adaptation plan.

Coastal communities like Indented Head and St Leonards are at the forefront of climate change in Australia. No-one knows exactly what this might mean but there are strong indications that future changes could include:

Extreme weather events
Rising sea levels
Hotter, drier summers
Warmer, wetter winters.

The Our Coast Project has recently released the Bellarine Peninsula - Corio Bay Local Coastal Hazard Assessment identifying areas that may experience sea level rise. The research involved a technical assessment by consultants from Cardno, looking at issues including catchment inundation, storm surge and erosion. The assessment includes maps of the Edwards Point, St Leonards, Salt Lagoon and Indented Head locations showing the potential impact of sea level rise scenarios and severe weather events.

Get involved

A workshop involving the communities of St Leonards and Indented Head was held on Thursday the 16th of February 2017 at the Indented Head Hall. Also in attendance were members of the Port Fairy Coastal Group and staff from a number of agencies. At this workshop approximately 30 participants were involved in:

Documenting changes to the coastline between Edwards Point and Indented Head
Identifying appropriate solutions to current and future problems
Finding out how people want to be kept involved and informed

Proceedings of the workshop are available here.

A follow up meeting was held on Thursday the 6th of April at the Indented Head Hall proceedings from this meeting are available here. On the 17th of May 2017 the meeting between community members resolved to become involved in existing monitoring programs and as such would not continue to forming a group at this stage. Proceedings from that meeting are available here .