The future of coastal development in Victoria is facing many challenges, from a booming population growth and influx of tourists, to the impacts from changes in the climate resulting in extreme weather events and rising sea levels.

These challenges are putting pressure on a current land use planning system that is not equipped for dealing with these issues. The current trend in land use planning in the region is to favour suburban sprawl and tourism developments along the coast, which increases the negative impact and also the risks of damage to built assets and the environment due to coastal erosion and flooding.

In identifying opportunities for precautionary adaptation planning and risk management plans, this paper reflects on a recent research project that examines the movement coastlines from 1820 through to 2012 and forecasts that movement out to 2100 of various small coastal towns along the Victorian Coast.

The paper summarizes the outcomes of the process of visualization land use patterns using the Community Viz software tool that showed the impact of proposed development on the coastal landscape, identifying the challenges that needed to be dealt with.