The Future Population of Australia's Coastal Lands

In 1986 about 26 per cent of the Australian population lived in the country's coastal fringe. In recent decades coastal fringe population has increased at the same rate as the population elsewhere and, if this proportion holds as total population grows towards a projected level of 27 million by 2051, plausibly there could be another three million people living in the coastal fringe by then. This paper examines, in synoptic fashion, and within the limits of available data, the capacity of the coastal fringe to absorb such population increments.