Project 9.4: Forget the crystal ball: Applying spatial scenarios to conservation planning for the GBR coast

Coastal zones around the world have been under high and increasing sporadic development pressures on land and at sea. Functioning coastal ecosystems require healthy cohesively-managed terrestrial and marine areas. The combination and complexity of these two issues for coastal management generate the wicked problem of coastal syndromes. In this talk, I will start by showing why coastal management is such a great challenge for conservation planning and why we need a novel approach that requires forgetting the crystal ball most commonly used. Qualitative scenarios have been used in the past to facilitate coastal management; however, spatially-explicit scenario planning can be applied to coastal zones and has flexibility advantages that should allow conservation planning to include the uncertainty in future coastal development. The Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA) is a typical example of a coastal marine protected area with a fast and unpredictably changing coast and where the terrestrial part has not been considered. This talk will end with the presentation of the progress and intents of an on-going project aimed at developing a new methodology to incorporate the field of scenarios in systematic conservation planning using land use change modelling and impact and goal assessments with spatial analyses to draw strategic priorities for conservation along the GBRWHA coast in the light of plausible coastal development in the next 25 years. Listen to more