Sprawl Patterns and Change Dynamics in Sea Change Communities across Australia

Abstract

This paper explores the spatial patterns and dynamics of changing landscapes in Sea Change Communities in Australia. The study of sprawl patterns in changing suburban, periurban and exurban landscapes is gaining significant ground among scientists and researchers internationally. Sea Change represents a special case of these phenomena that is spatially confined to coastal areas and urbanization. The paper examines the spatial distribution and relationship of land use change patterns and a group of demographic, social and economic factors that exhibit a high degree of systems’ integration across time and space. The analysis is performed at the administrative unit of Local Government Areas (LGAs). We analyze changes in demographic profiles of those LGA’s that form the national SEA Change Task Force and portray land use changes and emerging spatial patterns across these 73 local government areas. We use a sprawl index to identify patterns and drivers of change and provide distributions of ranked sprawled communities to explore them in terms of their temporal and spatial dynamics. Sea change directions and hierarchical relationships are identified by region and State. We discuss implications of rural urbanization processes for resource use and sustainability and finally, the paper challenges the traditional simplified inference of change dynamics, and addresses the issues of complexity and the need for in-depth analysis of changes.