Supported by the Victoria’s Resilient Coast grants program, the project focusses on strategically managing hazard risks and long-term adaptation for our coastal communities.

Previous phase: Part A

Late 2024, we completed Part A of the Our Coast Our Future Coastal Strategy, following the Victoria’s Resilient Coast – Adapting for 2100+ state guidance.

We encourage you to read Factsheet #6 Stage 1 to 4 Summary which provides a detailed overview. Accompanying technical reports are also available if you wish to take a deeper dive.

Our work focussed on understanding:

  • what our communities value about our coast
  • how coastal hazards may impact these values now and into the future
  • quantifying these hazard impacts through risk assessment and economic studies.

Without further intervention, coastal hazards will potentially incur significant costs for our coastal areas. "Average annual costs" reflect potential monetary damage or loss based on hazard probabilities (i.e. the likelihood of a hazard event occurring in any given year).

Projected average annual costs without adaptation action:

  • Short-term (now–2040): $8.6M
  • Medium-term (2040–2070): $22.0M
  • Long-term (2070–2100): $67.3M

Storm-tide inundation is the Peninsula’s main driver of increasing potential damages over time, with largest damages from exposed public and private buildings and facilities. Erosion and increasing tidal areas due to sea level rise also poses risks in some areas.

These findings show the importance of taking action now to reduce long-term impacts.

Current phase: Part B

We’re now developing the Our Coast Our Future Coastal Strategy, our strategic approach to coastal hazard adaptation planning, for now and into the future.

All our coastal communities will require some adaptation planning. In response to our earlier technical work, 11 townships were identified as priorities for our hazard planning:

  • Subarea 1: Mount Eliza, Mornington and Mount Martha
  • Subarea 2: Rosebud and Safety Beach
  • Subarea 3: Sorrento and Portsea
  • Subarea 4: Somers, Flinders, Balnarring Beach
  • Subarea 5: Hastings

Managing coastal risk across the Shire requires a broad range of actions, especially in the longer-term. This includes a mix of strategic decisions and planning through to on-ground actions and engineering initiatives.

We will use adaptation pathways to examine various actions for the priority townships. This will be based on understanding of local coastal hazards and risk, along with input from stakeholders and the community.

Our upcoming work involves community consultation in 2025 and early 2026. Keep an eye out for upcoming activities and events.

Through the Our Coast Our Future Strategy, we’re developing a long-term plan to manage coastal hazard impacts on the Mornington Peninsula.

We were awarded funding through the State Government’s Victoria’s Resilient Coast grants program. This initiative aims to assist coastal land managers to deliver strategic coastal hazard risk management and adaptation.

This project includes all coastal areas along the Peninsula. We have grouped these communities into five areas. This allows us to explore community values, coastal processes and coastal hazards at a more localised scale:

Coastal hazards under study include:

  • Storm-tide inundation: temporary flooding of low-lying coastal land from elevated sea levels, often due to storm events;
  • Coastal erosion: winds, waves, and coastal currents shift sediment (sand) away from the shoreline
  • Permanent inundation: long-term inundation due to sea level rise (such as regular flooding from tides)
  • Groundwater changes: groundwater (water table) rising nearer to the ground surface due climate change (including sea level rise). Shallow groundwater (<2m below the ground surface), is considered a hazard.

The project uses models and data to map these hazards and examine their impact on the region. Hazard maps are available in the document library for reference.

See our fact sheet series to find out more about coastal hazards.

We have been using range of existing coastal models, data sets and studies to estimate coastal hazards for the region. The estimated hazards are shown on the Our Coast Our Future hazard maps (see these maps in our document library).