Abstract
Coastal research and management often has an issue-specific focus, with little attention paid to the interdependencies between them. Climate variability is one such issue that is impacted by, and impacts on, several other areas (eg. coastal processes, infrastructure, health, and regional economies). These interdependencies create challenges for local councils to scale-up so as to tackle these issues at a regional scale. Critical to this process of scaling-up is the adaptive capacity of local councils. In order to support local councils in the Sydney region to deal with the impacts of climate variability and change, the Sydney Coastal Councils Group and CSIRO have begun a project through the Australian Greenhouse Office National Climate Change Adaptation Program ("Systems Approach to Regional Climate Change Adaptation Strategies in Metropolises"), which will run over the next 2 years. The goal of this project is to work with local councils to determine key vulnerabilities and their capacity to adapt in order to manage these risks at a regional scale. The project approach will be tested to allow transfer to other regions throughout Australia.