Hazard mapping

Two major hazard mapping projects are currently underway across the entire state of South Australia.

The Flood Hazard Mapping and Assessment Project and the Bushfire Hazard Mapping Update both aim to highlight the risk of potential hazards, while delivering more consistent and contemporary mapping for areas at risk of bushfires and flooding.

Flood hazard mapping and assessment project

The Department and the State Planning Commission are undertaking a flood hazard mapping and assessment project funded by a $3 million COVID-19 stimulus grant.

The project is split into two key areas, procurement of new and enhanced flood mapping and two Code Amendments to reflect this mapping in the Code and potentially introduce new land use policy into the Code.

The new and enhanced flood mapping will deliver more consistent and contemporary mapping of riverine and surface water flood hazards for the state. Regional-scale flood mapping will be informed by new digital elevation modelling across key regional areas.

Flood mapping has multiple uses: in addition to the land use planning benefits of greater certainty in development assessment and more informed strategic planning it also benefits emergency response agencies with drawing up flood-risk management plans.

As part of the Project, preparation of the flood mapping is now underway. Digital Elevation Models and other products derived from the LiDAR are available.

Regional scale flood hazard mapping has been purchased from two vendors and is currently being processed to be reflected in the Code and for delivery through SAPPA.

Nine new flood studies have been prepared predominantly by South Australian suppliers, with 21 existing flood studies being enhanced to build on existing work by councils and SA Water. Both the new and enhanced flood hazard studies are being developed to address the impact of climate change and future development growth to 2050.

Procurement of the flood hazard mapping products was completed at the end of 2022.

As part of the project, two code amendments are proposed.

The first, the Flooding Hazards Mapping Update Code Amendment, sought to update the spatial application of the current ‘Hazards (Flooding - Evidence Required) Overlay’ in the Planning and Design Code for 13 local government areas and several townships within Outback Areas of the state.

Public consultation on this Code Amendment was held from 22 February to 21 April 2023 and it was adopted by the Minister for Planning on 20 December 2023.

The second, the State-wide Flooding Hazards Code Amendment, was initiated by the State Planning Commission on 12 December 2023. This Code Amendment will continue the work of the Flooding Hazards Mapping Update Code Amendment by further improving spatial application of the Code’s flood hazard overlays in targeted areas of the State. It also has scope to update the policies of the Code’s flood hazard overlays.

Public consultation on the State-wide Flooding Hazards Code Amendment is expected to commence in late 2024.

Bushfire hazard mapping

Recognising the importance of understanding hazard risk in South Australia, the Commonwealth National Disaster Resilience Grant Scheme 2015-18 has provided part funding to revise the Bushfire Protection Area spatial mapping framework for South Australia. This represents a joint initiative by the State and Commonwealth, through the State Strategic Plan (SSP) and the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience.

This funding has been used to refine bushfire hazard mapping by utilising new and improved evidence-based spatial data:

  • incorporating more current vegetation (2015) data into the hazard modelling
  • using more recent Grassfire fuel modelling to that used in creating the previous Bushfire Protection Area spatial layers with fuel load variation data now based on farming cropping, grazing and potential grass fuel
  • amending forest modelling to identify small scale spatial data including patch sizes, patch shape and contiguous/disparate vegetation to allow for a more accurate reflection of the bushfire hazard.

The updated bushfire mapping is intended to inform amendments to bushfire overlays in the Planning and Design Code (the Code). The Code provides the planning rules for development in South Australia.

The State Planning Commission initiated the Statewide Bushfire Hazards Overlay Code Amendment on 4 February 2021. The Code Amendment seeks to:

  • review the policy framework of the six Hazard (Bushfire Risk) Overlays in the Planning and Design Code (the Code)
  • review policy content contained in each of the Overlays
  • consider updates to the spatial layers (the Overlays) as informed by the mapping project for the purpose of development assessment
  • consider other instruments under the Act, referral mechanisms, guides, reference layers within SAPPA that may also assist identifying and mitigating bushfire hazard impacts, providing a holistic approach to mitigate bushfire hazard impacts.

Public consultation on the draft State-wide Bushfire Hazards Code Amendment took place between 23 November 2023 and 5 April 2024.

Feedback is currently being reviewed and considered in updating the draft Code Amendment and preparing the engagement report, which will include a summary of written submissions and feedback received, how these were considered and proposed updates to the draft Code Amendment that was released for consultation.

The engagement report, along with the updated draft Code Amendment will be provided to Minister for Planning for consideration in making his decision to either adopt the Code Amendment, with or without recommended changes, or not adopt the amendment.

Further information about the consultation is available on the YourSAy website.

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