Building a case for resilient roads in southern Adelaide

CSIRO, Value Advisory Partners, the University of Adelaide and the Monash Sustainable Development Institute are collaborating with Holdfast Bay Council, one of the Resilient South group of councils in South Australia, to enhance their decision-making and governance practices regarding resilient asset management and investment. It is anticipated that the Holdfast Bay pilot will provide insights that are applicable to the Resilient South partnership, including the cities of Marion, Mitcham, and Onkaparinga. The collaboration takes place through the Resilient Asset Management Program (RAMP), which aims to reduce the exposure of council assets and infrastructure to climate-induced hazards at a regional level.  

The occurrence of hazards and the associated risks to these four cities are escalating due to increasingly extreme weather events caused by climate change.  The physical and economic impacts from bushfire losses, heatwave-related deaths and damage, coastal erosion, sea level rise, storm surge damage, flooding, storms and drought are becoming more frequent and intense, significantly affecting the assets and infrastructure maintained by the local governments of the four cities.  

This project is part of the broader Enabling Resilience Investment initiative led by CSIRO, along with its partners, which includes system-based approaches to enhance resilient planning at the regional level. This entails considering not only the maintenance and performance of individual assets but also emphasising the interdependence of these assets within the context of the locality, city, and region.   

 

Enhanced Resilient Asset Delivery program (ERAD) 2025-2026 

The ERAD project is aligned with, and builds on, the Resilient South’s RAMP program, which seeks to assist the Resilient South councils in strategically shifting their existing risk and finance capabilities towards climate-induced hazards. The ERAD will also enable more anticipatory and adaptive governance and financing to manage the physical and transition risks associated with climate change, focusing on the road network and interconnected assets.  

As part of the ERAD project, the project team conducted a workshop in March 2025 with the four Resilient South councils—Marion, Mitcham, Holdfast Bay, and Onkaparinga. Through this process, the City of Holdfast Bay was identified as a suitable pilot site, to apply the ERAD project’s tools and approaches in practice. 

Holdfast Bay is facing several urgent environmental challenges, including rising sea levels and increasing temperatures, which significantly elevate climate-related risks for road corridors and other essential infrastructure. These conditions create a meaningful context in which to examine adaptive governance, resilient asset management, and the enhancement of road corridors to ensure long-term functionality and safety under changing climate conditions. 

Findings from the pilot activities conducted in Holdfast Bay will also be shared more broadly with the Resilience South group of councils. It is anticipated that our collaborative approach with local councils will lay the foundation for the practical application of the ERAD tools and processes, leading to local government creating a more climate-resilient future for the region.