How New Zealand will manage the “retreat of last resort” and potential abandonment of some areas of the country due to the impacts of climate change will be addressed in new legislation planned to be introduced by the end of 2023.
The Government released its National Adaptation Plan on Wednesday morning, which outlines the strategies, policies and proposals it says will help New Zealanders adapt to the changing climate and its effects.
Climate Change Minister James Shaw says the plan is NZ's first national adaptation plan, bringing together in one place the Government’s current efforts to help to build climate resilience. It sets out priorities for the next six years.
"The actions in this plan are intended to drive a significant, long-term shift in our policy and institutional frameworks. They will ensure climate-resilient development in the right places and support communities in considering a range of adaptation options. And they will result in better information about what our future climate will look like, enabling better decisions about our response," Shaw says.
The plan places proposed actions into future work programmes with an emphasis on quality guidance for all decision makers - including members of the public and business - by ensuring wide access to up-to-date climate data projections and climate information on LIM reports, reforming how and where infrastructure is built and funded, and tackling the thorny issue of how communities will adapt to climate change, which in some cases could mean walking away from high risk areas.
The Government will develop legislation it hopes will address the complex issues associated with managed retreat and will be included in development of the Climate Adaptation Act.
Managed retreat aims to reduce or eliminate exposure to intolerable risk and enables the relocation of assets, activities and sites of cultural significance away from areas at risk from climate change and natural hazards.
The plan says the legislation will consider how to minimise risks to social cohesion which can fray when communities need to relocate. Low-income groups and people with mobility issues and the disabled have unique challenges when faced with being forced to move, and the legislation will need to consider those challenges, the plan says.
How current tools and mechanisms can support managed retreat will also be considered before the new law comes into force with councils and communities having a role in this process.
The plan outlines how local government has a range of planning options that can avoid or delay the need for relocation including restricting further development and particular uses of land through planning rules like zoning rules. Zoning can signal an area may not be viable for development in the longer term and standards can be set – through rules and consent conditions – to improve the resilience of development in areas exposed to risk. It gives examples of minimum floor heights and flood-proofing requirements.
Risks 'may become intolerable'
But, in some highly exposed areas, the risk from natural hazard and climate impacts “may become intolerable”.
“Inundation of buildings and infrastructure will start to occur, leading to direct damage and loss of some facilities like roads or other lifeline services, and public open space. In some cases, the risks may reach a threshold where relocation will need to be considered.”
Flooding is singled out as a major area of concern.
About 675,000, or one-in-seven, people across NZ live in areas that are prone to flooding, which amounts to nearly $100 billion worth of residential buildings. the Ministry for the Environment says. A further 72,065 people live in areas projected to be subject to extreme sea-level rise, and the number of people exposed to these hazards will increase as the climate changes.
Many of New Zealand’s urban centres are located on the coast or on floodplains of major rivers and the economic costs of climate change related flooding over the last 10 years are an estimated $120 million just for privately insured damages.
The plan proposes that options for home flood insurance be developed by Treasury with the Government agreeing on the next steps by the end of the year.
It says insurance supports New Zealand’s resilience to extreme weather events and reduces the need for the government to intervene after the event to help communities recover.
“Home insurance could also bring other benefits including signalling risk through underwriting and pricing and giving homeowners peace of mind.”
In the UK such insurance is already available for homes at the highest risk of flooding built before January 2009. It’s funded through compulsory levies and reinsurance premiums for flood-prone homes. Houses built after January 2009 instead face paying whatever the market prices the risk at to discourage building in flood-prone areas. The scheme has a finite date so homeowners can manage risk on the longer term without more government intervention.
The importance of data
Data has been identified as a critical area where work is needed.
NIWA, and other government agencies, are tasked under the plan with ensuring relevant data is collected and made available for anyone grappling with climate decisions. For example NIWA has been given a deadline of January 2023 for national climate projection datasets.
The Ministry for the Environment and Toka Tū Ake EQC (EQC) will develop risk and resilience and climate adaptation information portals to give the public natural hazard risk information, and provide access to climate data and information. Eventually, the plan envisages one portal as a national self-service information site. EQC has been given a deadline of the end of this year to deliver the first phase of the risk and resilience portal.
It says detailed 3D coastal mapping and use of global satellite systems will help to assess the impacts of sea-level rise and help us understand how storm surges and tsunamis will affect communities, infrastructure and biodiversity.
Better data to understand risks for public buildings and cultural sites is also needed.
A methodology for risk assessment for public buildings is proposed as is a guidance for disaster risk management for cultural heritage.
A forestry planning and advisory service will help to reduce climate risks by providing data-informed advice and planning tools for the industry while farmers get an Integrated Farm Planning Programme.
The farm programme will give the rural sector a framework to incorporate all data including greenhouse gasses into farm planning with an overarching goal of having farmers and growers meeting all regulatory and business needs within this single framework.
Again, data is a key component of on-farm work. The plan calls for the design and implementation of a Farm Monitoring Programme that will collect information from up to 2,000 dairy, sheep and beef, deer, arable and horticulture farms/orchards.
“Quality data will inform decision-making to enable improved farm management decisions and profitability, while considering compliance and regulations to assist greenhouse gas reductions.”
Māori, who face infrastructure challenges in rural and remote areas, and are vulnerable to climate-related road closures, power cuts and impacts, will have a specific platform for climate action that will develop adaptation responses in partnership with Māori. An Interim Ministerial Committee will be established by the end of 2022.
The public will also be encouraged to think about climate change as part of being prepared for emergencies, and by the end of March 2024 a public education strategy will be developed for natural hazards.
Shaw says it will always be more cost effective to invest early in climate resilience than to live with the costs of inaction.
“The National Adaptation Plan brings together more than 120 actions that together provide a blueprint for more resilient communities, where everything from our homes to the way we grow our food is protected from the worst effects of climate change."
“New Zealand has a history of solving challenges through innovation, resourcefulness and determination – and adapting to climate change is no different. The sooner we act, the more effective that action will be," says Shaw.
43 Comments
https://i.redd.it/2b727s2v37f91.jpg
Theres a link to a 1912 news article about coal burning and global warming on the front page of r/nz at the moment.
No one should be able to plead ignorance about it.
Don't panic, I have brought my engineering skills to bear on the problem of house flooding in flood-prone areas... as long as the house is founded on wooden piles.
I have been developing a blueprint for a system that will 'go with the flow' so to speak. I have envisaged a system of attaching the house bearers to the house piles by means of retractable galvanized pins all linked to a central control system within the house whereby these bolts can be hydraulically withdrawn simultaneously with the flick of a switch.
At the same time, pre-fitted strong rubber bags installed in all the spaces between the bearers, will inflate in concert by means of an air compressor also located within the house conveniently next to the hydraulic control station. This 'twin' system can be set in operation when the rising floodwaters reach a predetermined level below the floor.
As the flood-waters reach the now inflated rubber pouches, the house will float gently upwards above the piles effectively preventing water from ingressing the house. There would be external guides set into the ground at each exterior corner of the house to prevent any lateral movement of the house while it is floating above the piles and enabling the house to resettle perfectly back on the piles as the floodwaters recede. At this point the pins can be hydraulically re-inserted into their pile holes, thus locking the house back in place.
Both the hydraulic system and the air compressor would be powered by batteries fed by solar panels located on the roof and/or, in rural areas, by one or more windmills hard-wired to the house by an aerial cable.
I've deliberately over-simplified my description realizing that most posters know absolutely nothing about engineering, their minds being exclusively focused on all things commercial. But, on the other hand, they may be interested in making a little investment in this cutting-edge project. If so, please register your interest below.
Did that, bought the T-shirt. The report rather ignores the known tectonic history of the East Coast of the SI.....which shows that Property always goes Ooopards....
Ditto Wellington on the fault line, ditto Napier, where the airport is on land reclaimed overnight by the 1931 earthquake.
"The plan proposes that options for home flood insurance be developed by Treasury with the Government agreeing on the next steps by the end of the year."
For a second I was worried, that coastal property owners might be left to insure their own properties like the rest of us have to. I'm glad John Q. Taxpayer is there for them to fall back on, given that they are a notoriously impoverished bunch.
Leaving anything up to councils to implement is a serious flaw in all of this. While local democracy is important, councils have proven themselves to be beholden to residents associations in their zoning and urban development plans, which is partly the reason our housing crisis is as bad as it is.
I really do not want to see essential adaptation and preparation for climate changes stymied by rich folk who want to get bailed out of a pickle they got themselves into. Moral hazard is very real.
I've noticed, even in supposedly green groups at the supposedly pointy end of the debate (and it is more than Climate; that is merely the entropic exhaust of our bigger problem) that people tend to denigrate the messenger, en route to avoiding the message.
Almost always, that will mean that the avoider cannot achieve their desired avoidance via logic/fact. As corroborated......
;)
A good start from the government. Setting the scene. I wonder like others how waterfront homeowners on the south coast of Wellington will cope. Pressuring the council and ratepayers to build and maintain a higher and higher seawall? Assistance with insurance premiums from the taxpayer? Then eventually who pays for rehousing them in the ‘managed retreat’ scenario? There has to be an element of buyer beware for a couple of decades. Or should there?
Chch red zone being abandoned (and Matata) were sudden and not reasonably foreseeable events, so it's not really a precedent.
It needs to be made clear now that councils are under no legal obligation to defend their infrastructure against rising tides from say 2050. There will then be a gradual loss of value on affected properties over the next 30 years which gives current owners time to sell out. Or they may choose to stay and take their chances.
'Did' and 'will do' are different.
The Dutch may not be able to solve this, ultimately. It requires ever-more width of base, the higher you build a levee/berm/sea-wall. Ultimately, the energy return (farmland, when you nail it down) doesn't outflank the energy requirement. As it is, we've been plugging the energy deficit with fossilised sunlight. The question is: how long can that be kept up?
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-08-03/the-status-of-global-oil-…
Those graphs indicate that we'll be curtailed in our ability to apply effort in the years to come.
Māori, who face infrastructure challenges in rural and remote areas, and are vulnerable to climate-related road closures, power cuts and impacts, will have a specific platform for climate action that will develop adaptation responses in partnership with Māori.
So what about non maori who face infrastructure challenges in rural and remote areas, and are vulnerable to climate-related road closures, power cuts and impacts. Rural challenges are the same for every one in the same community.
Perhaps there's a need to change how Councils look at sea level rise/ land subsidence and delineate at what elevation services will be cut off to different areas. No time scale needed.
Floods from rivers is a different scenario since flooding is not that frequent and services can usually be re-instated fairly easily without costing an arm and a leg. There is probably the odd exception to this.
I suspect there's an overreaction to rivers flooding.
Anecdote: I have some friends right on the water front at Paekakariki, north of Wellington. They are of the view that the ocean is probably coming up to get them, but have decided to take their chances. They are retirement age with no kids, so they don't care about the property value, and assuming the place avoids being swept away in the next couple of decades their managed retreat plan is to go out in a box.
Most of the people around them are fairly well off and oldish. Some interesting calculations people will be making. I wonder how many of them are hoping for a 'bailout' when the bottom floor floods.
This is the exact reason to reinstate a ministry of works type organization or the tax payer is going to get absolutely slaughtered when it comes time to roll out $100s of billions worth of construction contracts.
How about any infrastructure projects currently in design phase have a 200 year lifespan requirement applied to them?
Let's also spend the next 25 years training up our trade and manufacturing base while we're at it too yeah? So there's a local resource to actually make all this stuff?
However we all know this won't happen and it will be another fustercluck.
Theres big trouble brewing and property owners will be expecting councils to mitigate what could potentially be classed as 'Acts of God'. Why is it that the masses are so inherently thick when it comes to purchasing properties or indeed building properties in locales that are prone to flooding ,slips,earthquakes and whatever else 'nature' throws. Are they so taken by the views that they dont comprehend the risk until after they have purchased? Where is the 'Caveat Emptor' in such decisions...When will councils and governments stop being held liable for what privateers engineer? Is it realistic and sane to hold an organisation accountable for what may or may not 'naturally occur' over any given period of time. How many times have you witnessed trucks filling in what used to be farm swampland or similar so houses can be erected. Are we to build enormous sea walls around the entire coastline of NZ and initiate inland pump stations to negate the effect of nature. Are we to expect a society where all 'natural' risk is removed under the guise of 'climate change'? If folk are willing to buy apartments that need remedial work for a reduced price then why shouldnt the same apply to those that have overlooked the obvious in many cases? 'Caveat Emptor', I say..... feel that you might be in the wrong location...move to a better location.....make smarter choices , on sell to someone that is prepared to accept/mitigate the risk.
Why is it that the masses are so inherently thick when it comes to purchasing properties or indeed building properties in locales that are prone to flooding ,slips,earthquakes and whatever else 'nature' throws.
A lot of really good points in there.
Were it not for flood protection (i.e., infrastructure built and upgraded over many decades), nearly the whole of Palmerston North city would flood each time the sluice gates have needed to be opened on the Manawatū;
Moutoa Sluice Gates | Engineering NZ
Were it not for the seawall built at Eastbourne in Lower Hutt - those hills behind the photo at the below link would never have had houses built all over them as they do now;
And there are thousands of other examples all around Aotearoa/NZ.
That's not to imply your questions aren't valid - it's just that it's a bit more complicated than blaming homeowners for poor choices.
We are an island nation blessed with some of the most outstanding geomorphology in the world when considering the small size of our land mass. Anyone who has driven the repaired SH1 north of Kaikōura should be very proud of the amazing feat of engineering and works done there. But, did we really think about whether that was a good idea in the longer term before diving into the expense? On the other side of that island, we have Karamea which you can only access from the south. Should we have thought about coastal shipping as a means to provide the heavy transport link from North to South islands - and left Kaikōura to be accessed only from the south?
These are the kinds of adaptation questions that we will need to answer in the future - or as pdk has taught me - we're going to need to apply a triage lens to much of our existing infrastructure - not necessarily due to climate change - but due to energy (and hence materials) scarcity.
And I agree with you, private individuals need to assess their own risk tolerance. But governments (local and central) haven't told anyone what the trigger points (and these can be defined in many ways) are to withdraw public infrastructure and services. Only then can people plan to manage their own risk.
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