What is it?

In 2011, the City of Melbourne offered the Arden Macaulay area as a case study for new research into the economic benefits of infrastructure to combat flooding.

The research was instigated by the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV), the Association of Bayside Municipalities (ABM) and the Central Coastal Board (CCB) who wanted to develop economic modelling to help future decision-making.

The Port Phillip Bay Coastal Adaptation Pathways project was conducted to develop ways of testing the benefits of various "adaptations" to the effects of climate change against the costs involved.

Methodologies were developed and tested to give decision-makers a better sense of the return on their investment across a range of options. But not only were decision-makers seeking knowledge about which options were more cost-effective, they were also interested in knowing the best times to invest.

As a member of the ABM, the City of Melbourne joined the project as one of four case study municipalities (the others being the Shire of Mornington Peninsula, the City of Port Phillip and the City of Kingston).

The City of Melbourne was keen to participate at the forefront of this research because of the opportunity to learn and develop best practice in this area. In fact, Melbourne offered Southbank as a case study area as well.

Arden Macaulay is one of numerous places in greater Melbourne which is already subject to flooding. This flooding is expected to get worse in the future with predicted greater rainfall intensities and higher sea levels.

The council has already taken measures to protect the municipality from flooding and the opportunity to participate in the research could only enhance its knowledge in this area.

Melbourne's participation gave the researchers much-needed actual data to test and develop the economic modelling against. Without real data, the research would have been only hypothetical and far less valuable to the community.

The lessons learned from the project not only help Melbourne's residents but they also help the Victorian community in general as decision-makers at all levels of government come together to plan for the future.

The research was conducted by consultant engineers and economists AECOM and the work was funded by the Federal Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency and the Victorian Department of Planning and Community Development (DPCD).

Other participants in the project were: Melbourne Water, the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) and the Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research (VCCCAR).