By Chris Trotter*
On that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth.
Genesis 6:11-12
The Torrential downpours that dumped a record-breaking amount of rain on Auckland this anniversary weekend will reoccur with ever-increasing frequency. The planet’s atmosphere is warming, and since warm air carries more moisture, the likelihood of such extreme weather events is also increased. New Zealanders are no longer entitled to write-off the sort of deluge that flooded much of Auckland on 27-28 January 2023 as a one-in-500-year event.
Not that New Zealanders are particularly receptive to the dire warnings of climatologists and meteorologists. With considerable justification, they demand to know what they are supposed to do about it. How, precisely, are the human-beings at the end of “atmospheric rivers” carrying mind-boggling quantities of water supposed to prevent them from dropping it on their heads? The air and ocean currents which determine New Zealand’s climate are not subject to the will of its human population – or their leaders.
Indeed, for those Aucklanders who lived through the events of Friday and Saturday, the power and indifference of the natural world was terrifyingly reiterated. Ours is a proud and headstrong species, but in the face of what one Aucklander described as “apocalyptic” precipitation, our arrogance was swiftly beaten down. The images of men and women wading through floodwaters chest deep, their faces frozen in a rictus of fear and uncertainty were biblical in their eloquence.
On Friday and Saturday the natural world also plunged Auckland into a fast-moving political crisis. In extremis, people turn towards those in authority for guidance and reassurance. Sadly, “Authority’s” response left much to be desired.
Auckland’s Mayor, Wayne Brown, who should have been all over the mainstream and social media, dispensing such information as he possessed, publicly ordering all the relevant Auckland Council bodies into action, and gathering what intelligence he could concerning the intensity and destructiveness of the weather “bomb” that was devastating his city, instead maintained a frustrating radio silence.
Hour after hour of torrential rain went by. Streets became rivers. Homes were flooded. Parks became lakes. Cars were abandoned. People drowned. It was not until 10:00pm, however, that Mayor Brown declared a local state of emergency – thereby allowing the Central Government to swing into action on behalf of Auckland’s citizens.
Those who were following the unfolding tragedy on Twitter were soon made aware of the rising fury of those Auckland City Councillors struggling to assist the flood’s victims. Members of Parliament, too, some of them Ministers of the Crown, were similarly aghast. The equivalent of cheers went up on Twitter when the Minister of Transport and MP for Mt Roskill, Michael Wood, peremptorily ordered Waka Kotahi to get its shut-down website up-and-running and to post transport-related up-dates every half-hour.
The Minister’s rage was entirely justified as first the state highways in and out of Auckland, and then the domestic and international terminals of Auckland Airport, succumbed to the floodwaters. The city’s bus fleet struggled to carry its passengers out of the rising waters. In some of them the murky-brown flood-water sloshed back and forth along the access-aisle as alarmed passengers willed the vehicle forward. Private motor cars were quickly overwhelmed and abandoned. Citizen journalists captured eerie images of cars floating: their lights still glowing in the failing light; their windscreen wipers still thrashing ineffectually against the unceasing rain.
Mayor Brown insists that he was guided by the advice of his “professionals”, and that the moment they asked him to declare a state of emergency, a state of emergency was declared. He has further avowed that, as the person responsible for organising the city-wide response to what was fast-becoming a full-scale disaster, he did not have the luxury of delivering hands-on assistance at the ward and community-board level. Someone had to remain at the calm centre of the crisis.
All true, but a leader must also be seen to lead. He must be there – or, at least, his voice and image must be there – consoling, inspiring, thanking and guiding his city’s people. But, on that frightening Friday night, Brown wasn’t there. Very few Aucklanders will be prepared to swear – hand-on-heart – that, in the Great Flood of 2023, their Mayor did all that was expected of him. The response of Christchurch’s Mayor, Bob Parker, when Mother Nature shook his city to ruins in 2011, offers the people of New Zealand a particularly telling contrast.
Certainly, the country’s new Prime Minister, Chris Hipkins, did not need to be told that his place was in front of the electorally crucial voters of the nation’s largest city. Hitching a ride on an RNZAF Hercules transport, and then on an air-force helicopter, Hipkins was given a birds-eye view of the damage. But, even as he said all the right things and made all the right promises, the Labour Leader must have been asking himself whether the New Zealand state was up to a challenge of this magnitude.
New Zealand’s cities were founded and grew to their present size in the bounteous years before global warming was recognised as a problem. Their waste and stormwater infrastructure simply wasn’t built to cope with the sort of deluge that descended on Auckland.
“Flooding happens when stormwater can’t drain away fast enough”, writes James Fenwick in an opinion piece posted on the Newsroom website. “So what we need are bigger drains, larger stormwater pipes and stormwater systems that can deal with such extremes.” Except, as Fenwick notes: “The country’s stormwater drain system was designed for the climate we used to have – 50 or more years ago. What we need is a stormwater system designed for the climate we have now, and the one we’ll have in 50 years from now.”
Hipkins despair at being forced to confront even bigger challenges in managing New Zealand’s three waters (drinking, waste and storm) than the ones already on his plate is readily imagined. Also gnawing away at his confidence – as well, no doubt, as Christopher Luxon’s – will be the frightening conclusion that the highly-urbanised nation that is New Zealand is going to have to be rebuilt from top to bottom. Or, failing that, left to simply decline and decay for want of the billions-upon-billions of dollars needed to re-fit it.
After the deluge, the questions around climate change become even starker. This country’s contribution to global warming is infinitesimal – barely two-tenths of one percent. We could revert to the Stone Age tomorrow and not only would the rest of the world fail to notice or appreciate New Zealand’s sacrifice, but also – and much more ominously – those devastating atmospheric rivers would not stop turning warm air into disasters.
It would appear that the choice between rolling-back global warming, and seeking to mitigate its worst effects, is being made for us.
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
200 Comments
“The country’s stormwater drain system was designed for the climate we used to have – 50 or more years ago. What we need is a stormwater system designed for the climate we have now, and the one we’ll have in 50 years from now.”
I would argue it is not the climactic changes that were the issue over 50 years. Auckland's population has almost tripled over that time, and to cater for that it has concreted over, built above, and ignored much of the natural features it once had.
There is no doubt that climate change impacts will be multiplied in years to come, but why are so few people aware that the massive volcano that went off in the pacific a year or so ago spewed most of that excess water into the sky river, and it has slowly(or fast if you live in the most affected areas) been emptying it over the past 12 months.
"In a recent paper published in Communications Earth & Environment, a team of scientists showed the unprecedented increase in the global stratospheric water mass by 13% (relative to climatological levels) and a five-fold increase of stratospheric aerosol load—the highest in the last three decades." - https://phys.org/news/2023-01-eruption-shook-world.html - https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00652-x
Something for the knowledge bugs...https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/that-time-it-rained-for-two-million-years-d885f1af850a
That volcano increased atmospherice water content by 13%... It has also change the weather patterns to the extent that the souther buffer of cold air has been pushed back over Antarctica - This has allowed more tropical airflows from the equator to venture south, bring with them monsoon like rainfall. I don't think this is in anyway a permanent issue, but rather a temporary blip (albeit a substantial blip!)
This is also going to have a big impact on food prices - Pukekohe is one of the blig market garden areas of the region, and all of their crops have been wiped out... Thats going to leave a mark in the inflation sphere, at a time wehen we are heading for feeling the full effects of the global grain and fertilizer schedules.
On to it bro ... A ground area of 500 SqM has a "plan surface area" of 500 sqM if you put any flat roof building on it!
If you pitch the roof the area increases by 30 - 50 % but ..
When rain hits the walls of the building the of a building thr collection surface area increased by 100+ % per storey.
A building with a foot print of 500SqM could have a total surface area of 100,000 SqM if 10 stories high.
and no body allows for this in road drainage design
That's a key issue that has been largely ignored for so long when it comes to land development.
My rural property gets storm water runoff from a number of hills across the road. There's been a lot of development on those hills over the past few years, yet very little effort put into storm water management. Where previously many hectares of land would have absorbed the rainfall, now there are large roofs concentrating rainfall into a single outflow pipe for each house, into a road gutter, to mingle with water from other houses, to overwhelm drains that cannot handle it. Then we get ponding on the road, and cars ending up in the ditch outside my property every now and then.
I've widened and deepened my own drains to cater for the increased water, but I'm also reliant on council-owned drains downstream to take that same water. I'm not allowed to clear out the council-owned drain between the hills and my property though, so they slowly keep filling with silt during every heavy rainfall, becoming less and less effective.
I'm in constant communication with the council about this, and they are trying to be helpful, but they're under-resourced and time-poor. Their big mistake was signing off on the land development without allowing for downstream impacts and making the developer cough up a significant amount of money to do the necessary work before the first property was built. Ideally the water should be better dispersed on the hill rather than just turned into someone else's problem.
It's crazy that you/residents are prevented from clearing/maintaining drains in their own neighbourhoods. I know in Kāpiti, the regional council decided to classify drains over a certain size to be 'waterways' under the RMA - meaning even the local council had to get resource consent to clear drains. Madness.
I should clarify. I'm allowed to clear out leaves and debris, as long as I'm using something like a shovel. I'm not allowed to use my digger to clear the drain back down to its original level. But if the drain ever starts overflowing directly onto my property all bets are off, and I'll seek forgiveness, not permission.
Rule number one in my life is I don't follow the rules when they are plain stupid. I have already been out clearing street drain grates and inspecting the bottoms of them and over half have no water at the bottom which means they are full of dirt to the level of the overflow outlets. Without the capacity for catchment of sediment it means that its all now going down the pipework, this has the potential to reduce the flow rate significantly over time. If the council doesn't come and clean them out over summer then I will be out there with a wheelbarrow and post hole borer and a bucket on a rope to pull all the crap out of them myself.
Agree Carlos, I do the same on our road frontage which is something like 8km, in heavy rain I check culverts and divert water on our gravel road. It is surprising what a bit of shovel work can achieve as in preventing road damage.
When we travel around our district the damage from water is obvious and so simple to minimize. But most just sit there and expect the council to fix everything.
Most farmers are lazy Tight ARSES
The amount of overgrown,/ sediment blocked open drains on farms is huge...
The drains capacity is reduced!
Thus the flooding
Thus the ruined crops
Thus the increased prices for crop...
And all preventable if the lazy farmers had cleared thier drains....
But maybe it's a cunning plan to make more money for less work by reducing supply to increase demand!?
👀👀👀👀🤙👀👀👀🤙👀👀🤙
I agree, we are going backwards as a country everyday. We are giving free money to businesses and everyone else for no good reason just because it buys votes for winning elections.
What we would done is to put they money into infrastructure building for services, health and education.
Services help us keep going in case of natural events and don't bring the cities to a stand still.
Health, dare i say is important for a nation to feel good.
Education is the primary reason which keeps us growing to be a better person and be innovative.
But nope, we want to give free money and kill what ever motivation people would have to work hard towards their goals.
The NZ Dollar is a fiat currency and so there no fixed amount of it. Money can be created in limitless quantities but what is limited are the available resources such as staff and materials that can be applied to a particular issue. The banks have created $330 billion of money as mortgages which has just inflated the price of housing and this is hardly a good use of money. The government has a central bank which will finance anything that parliament authorises through its annual budget or by the finance minister.
That's a very logical comment. Unfortunately, logic neither drives business interests in NZ nor gets factored into policies.
Employers and Manufacturers Association CE Brett O’Riley said immigration rules may need to be relaxed to allow people into the country to help with the remediation.
How on earth would deregulating help bring in the very specific skills needed for remediation? Are cooks, waiters and shelve stockers going to help with the flood remediation?
If this is the quality of output one can expect from NZ's largest business association in times of crises, no one should be surprised that Estonia and Latvia surpassed us in economic productivity in 2022.
I agree. Somebody should have asked years ago how on earth spending loads of money on cycleways and gender-neutral toilets and other pet projects was ever going to prepare the city for such an event, when everyone knew the state of Auckland infrastructure.
Blocked drains broken infrastructure, half-finished repairs that have been going on for years, and not letting residents clear drains was surely a recipe for disaster, and now it has happened.....and what do we do, blame climate change of course.
I cannot understand how on earth Auckland airport become flooded. Their airport and runways sit right next to the sea. Did the sea come up and flood the airport...no, the floodwaters could not flow to the sea even though the airport is right next to it. Does the airport (which is a strategic asset) have crappy drainage, or just blocked or badly maintained drainage. I say blame climate change as much as you want, but please ask questions why a property next to the sea gets flooded, and it is not by the sea water rising.
No idea, but it is the most visible waste of money and the tip of the iceberg when it comes to wasteful useless spending managed by Goff and co over the last ten years. These guys (whoever is in council) need to get back to basics and prepare the necessary infrastructure that is fit for purpose rather than pandering to different subsets of society for the sole purpose of getting re-elected.
In ChCh we have a councillor a strident campaigner for the climate change lobby, who declares that building a cycleway to the airport will affect climate change sufficiently to address the flooding in her catchment 20kms away even though that flooding only occurred because the council fiddled around changing the road levels and then did not provide sufficient stormwater outflow therefrom. But this same councillor signs off on all the concrete, steel,plastic, diesel, metals, glass on and on for the construction and operation of a new wide bodied jet airport 4 hours drive away in Central Otago.mNeed a hell of a lot of cycleways to compensate then. It’s that sort of daft convoluted thinking and ignoring of basic priorities that is creating this widespread mess with the essential infrastructure.
My thoughts exactly on the airport. My pick is that its a very large area covered by a lot of concrete and clearly has poor drainage. The low height above sea level is not great because the slope on the drain pipes is insufficient to get the water velocity. The existing drainage has probably never been cleaned in its life. I get told the Councils are supposed to do this every year but I have never seen a truck doing this in my whole life. When I rang them years ago, you can get them to turn up if the drain is completely blocked otherwise they tell you to bugger off, there is no maintenance schedule.
In Christchurch there used to be standalone the CDB , the Christchurch Drainage Board. They offered a great service, they had dedicated knowledgeable experts on hand, all aspects of the Christchurch’s water controls. After they were dismantled a few of them would pop in the paper pointing out how the weed control in the rivers, streams, races was being neglected, how they were narrowing and losing depth. Of course that sort of work is just not sexy enough is it and those experts have replaced by academics with geography degrees.
Are you sure that's entirely fair FG? As a boy growing up in SE ChCh I recall the regular large floods in along the Heathcote river, great fun for we lads but devastating for the residents. St Albans and other areas used to similarly flood regularly. Under the CCCs watch significant drainage works have hugely reduced the incidence of this flooding. The large areas of cleverly engineered and effective swales and drainage systems around Halswell/Worsely are wonders to behold.
Carlos. ChCh airport is 37m above sea level. It's situated on gravelled permeable subsoils. The Waimakiriri river could potentially inundate if its substantial flood banks were overwhelmed but this would most likely be from a monstrous nor west event on the southern alps rather than drainage pipe overload from a localised weather bomb such as AKL has just endured and under discussion here.
The simple answer is move more people and industry to the South Island. As the world heats up the SI will be cheaper and easier to fix for the next 100 years of global warming. Imagine putting in roads, drains and all other infrastructure for a fraction of what it would cost in Auckland. Freeze all Auckland growth and come south young man. (people)
And there you just highlighted why you know nothing. Climate change presents itself in the form of more extreme weather events - 2 year droughts followed by an atmospheric river is exactly that.
Auckland’s water supply will still be under pressure after this because of silt in the dams and possible damage to the water transmission system. Let alone the wastewater system, which has significant I&I (look it up) and will likely be stuffed for weeks after this rain event.
This new term has been well known for a long time.
https://www.noaa.gov/stories/what-are-atmospheric-rivers
They're suddenly being used because there are a lot more of them. Why? The climate has changed.
Well 'atmospheric river' does sound more impressive than 'heavy rain.'
But I'm just waiting for the PM to segway from his present 'inflation pandemic' to using the term 'atmospheric river pandemic.'
My favourite term is 'pyroclastic flow', which I'm sure we will get to use in Auckland at some stage, but already has a link to the Tongan volcano which is meant to be the cause of this extra water, I meant atmospheric river pandemic.
Climate change has been here kicking the door down in various parts of NZ for some time. Especially in regard to these so called “Atmospheric Rivers”. No-one really knows where they will land next. Mostly northern and eastern parts of the North Island with honourable mentions for Wellington and Nelson areas. Just like Eastern Australia. The early warnings seem too be these flooding events that may make certain low lying and difficult to drain areas uninhabitable. Let alone farmable.
Nailed it.
Already in Australia places are being abandoned:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/29/everythings-gone…
Kiwis moving to Australia are literally jumping from the frying pan into the fire when it come to climate change.
We will not be unable to adapt if the changes are too extreme. Plenty of places on earth already facing sudden population reduction because of climate change and/or migration to be able to cope with those changes. The outlook long term is not good but we will just continue to bumble along.
Right on solardb. I drove through several large puddles/lakes on the road in my Model 3 on Friday. On Saturday it was all dead ICE I saw on the roads with flooded engine blocks etc.
In future, VTH should make EVs invaluable on a crisis with people supplying their own power from their car.
Offroading in a Prius
Yeah,I'll give you the weight is up there , but i would change the ground clearance for rural areas.
Here's a video of the type of roads I use to take the Prius on , I don't think this is the Prius in the video , but i haven't taken it down this road.
That's one of the reasons I keep a big 4x4 on the fleet (albeit doing very few miles). It was invaluable last year when some bad rain caused the subdivision I live in to flood; normal cars couldn't get in or out, but the water was only up to the door sills on the truck. Was the hero of the street doing the groceries for the old ladies etc. Also is great with potholed roads, plus does a mean thrash up the skifield access road.
I like EVs and will get one for my next 'daily driver' (if/when I get sick of biking) but don't sleep on having an old Landcruiser, Pajero or something like that if you can.
I've been researching the flood capabilities of EV's the last couple of days, there's no truth that they're more susceptible to water damage than ICE's - that idea seems to have taken hold from an article Stuff wrote about someone who wrecked their EV trying to ford a river. The battery and motor are completely sealed.
EVs pull through better in touch water than ICE. Teslas motors are fully insulated within the vehicle, you'd need flooding in the cabin by the time the motor has an issue, ICE on the other hand, straight through the breathing space at the front, flood the engine and kill it.
Highly recommend searching Rufford ford on Youtube, it's a sales pitch for tesla lol
My antipathy to EVs related to the moment you are faced with numerous slips and uncertainty as to road closures while in the coromandel. I never said there wasn’t a place for them; some are deeply impressive
As for write offs as a % of all vehicles. I’m not running a T Test for you. I would wager it’s was certainly significant when compared to 4wds.
In what hypothetical world would 3waters have prevented this? This is a city planning issue. How how much bigger do you think the pipes would have to have been and how many more catchments of larger sizes would be required?
Is there a city anywhere that upgraded it's storm water system to cope with a storm they have never had before? and then this storm turns up and it worked?
I'm not saying 3 Waters prevents it, rather that the infrastructure investment required is larger than local rate payers can fund. The standard anti 3 Waters rhetoric is that locals should fund and control their own water infrastructure. So let's stay with that model, you're on your own as far as I'm concerned - you finance it.
Yes, local government is pretty useless and a lot of us are on our own but I still don't see how an an almost unaccountable and technocratic bureaucracy is going to help. What could or would a 3waters board do to prevent the flooding assuming the next storm is exactly the same? Sure you can spend earlier and collect it back a little slower but that's about it and they would be restricted to just infrastructure. They would need to take over from council entire city planning, I would think.
I don't think this is a wastewater problem at all, this was too much water for any ww drainage to anything but make sure the levels go down afterwards. This is either too many houses built in the wrong places or the people who build, bough and live those houses took an unknowable risk and lucked out. The professor is just pushing his disciple when he got the opportunity unless he produces some scrutinised numbers.
Do go on... Are there problems reasonable amounts of money can fix? I already said (somewhat vaguely) this was all they could do better. Are we still talking about flooding?
If your "waters" are currently working (most of the country) why do we need someone to take over? Rate payers still have to pay almost the same amount back eventually.
Part of the reasoning is that the scale will bring economy of scale. Each council having a set of engineers has a high cost, you will be amazed how many work for your council, before you add in consultants.
Then there is duplication between what was
Catchment boards, now regional council, and district councils. They probably spend 1/2 their time getting consents off each other.
Having said that, I do think 4 entities is too few, and the logical first step was to base the areas on regional council boundaries.
And then you have the 67 different water authorities each insisting on their own product specifications.
What pipe is it? uPVC, mPVC, oPVC, Series 1, Series 2? GRP? Concrete? Polyethylene? Ductile Iron? Concrete Lined Steel?
Then you have regions insisting on their own style of valve/hydrant surface boxes (Refer page 20) which come at a premium. https://www.hynds.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/HyndsStreetwareProductCatalo…
It doesn't end there either.....
I can't understand why the American model of Municipal Bonds has never been discussed-much less implemented by knowing officials in NZ. What they allow is for "Cities" to raise proper amount of money for not only Development Infrastructure but also through their "Panuku" agencies to buy up residential neighbourhoods subject to repeated floods and redevelop them for other uses. These City based agencies are "deep" with financial resources. Very capitalist solution in that the money to fund the bonds is not raised from banks but from citizens who put their savings into "Munis" as they are called because no tax is paid on the interest earned, and the city pays less than market rates because of the great take up in this type of saving vehicle. Perhaps the Socialistic mind set would rather pay Aussie banks market rate interest for Infrastructure bonds, than allow Mom & Pop New Zealander's to receive tax free interest income?
Firstly, he didn’t have a great attendance record in terms of council meetings.
Secondly, and less scientifically, he came across to me as another person of the left who was more style over substance (just like our recently departed PM). I have met him before too and that’s certainly the impression I got.
To be fair people elected Brown to force the CCOs to stop working for themselves and to star working for the people of Auckland.
I think he has done extremely well there. I dont think he will be around for more than one term anyway, and I dont really care how he handles this crisis on TV as he just a figurehead - just as Bob Parker and Jacinda Adern were.
Those who criticise him looking bad at a press conference should actually be bemoaning the poor decision making at lower levels. Where have the common sense, take charge and make a decision people gone??? We have dumbed down our society to the point where it is dangerous. Local decision making is critical when something unprecedented occurs.
The way he was stabbing his finger to try and get the emergency personnel to front up during the press conference on the weekend was terrible.
I can't really speak as I didn't myself together to vote. But I don't think he'll resign - it'll be like Foster in Wellington, he'll hang on being a moron. I reckon Simon Bridges will stand next time around. Not a fan of the guy, but he would have shown more empathy, and organisation than this guy.
A bit too soon to judge - his public presentation was not polished but if I was in temp accomodation waiting for my flooded house to drain then the support in getting life back to some normality is critical and if the Mayor was responsible for this happening quickly and efficiently I will not care about his presentation.
Its hard to imagine any drainage system coping with this deluge when even the rivers and creeks are raging. This is indeed the adaption point we all fear. If we do achieve some co-operation in limiting the warming globally , it will probably be in hundreds of years. This is where you need professional planning input, where you listen to the science.
And the government have introduced planning laws mandating that a city such as Auckland must zone for medium to high density almost everywhere. Allowing high levels of hard and paved surfaces on sites (which incrementally really add up in terms of stormwater issues)
really clever - not!!!
Yes, although we could provide more than enough housing for even high levels of population growth by planning for *focussed* ( as opposed to ad hoc) high density housing near train stations, and in and around major centres.
But yes, more balanced population policy would be good too.
You are such an idealogue, Jimbo. For you and your ilk, there could never possibly be enough land zoned for high density housing.
with the current plan change Auckland will have something like more than 5x the amount of development capacity we will ever need.
When we have so much development capacity, there’s no reason to get rid of large areas of special character which so many people, including myself, value and appreciate.
In your world, is compromise not possible? Is balancing a range of values, and community perspectives, not possible?
what’s more, do you really really think high density housing built in Auckland’s inner leafy suburbs would be remotely affordable? If so, you are incredibly ill informed.
No need for a car so that makes it a lot more affordable. And Central city appartments are fairly “cheap” even the freehold ones despite much higher land costs.
Maybe the outer suburbs that are currently getting all the new houses liked their character too. They don’t have all the amenities for density like ponsonby does.
Also, your view is a very CBD-centric one. Employment is distributed all around Auckland’s urban area.
Also for many of us for who work in ‘white collar’ jobs in the CBD, remote working for at least 2 or 3 days per week is becoming the norm. That makes it much less inconvenient to live quite far from the CBD.
Yes, it would be, if the price is reflecting the fact that you can keep high density houses out of those areas with sufficient arm-twisting and lobbying.
Meanwhile, all the flat areas in outer suburbs in West Auckland get built on, the drainage profiles for multiple suburbs change at a time and over a period of a few years or so, the water table gets artificially lifted by not having any soakable ground left in the area. So, not only do the outer communities go through place-changing intensification that inner suburbs lawyer up to avoid, but they end up in the firing line for run-off and all the other headaches that come with it.
Special character areas are a con job, and a way of protecting places like Devonport and Ponsonby against the thing they fear the most; not diversity of buildings, but diversity of people, and it's time we stopped letting the well-off inner city areas with gold-plated transport services dictate who should take on more housing because they don't want to. Or, alternatively, let them opt out, but just increase their rates so that the areas where the houses do go can get the same services they do. Fair is fair.
Hipkins despair at being forced to confront even bigger challenges in managing New Zealand’s three waters (drinking, waste and storm) than the ones already on his plate is readily imagined. Also gnawing away at his confidence – as well, no doubt, as Christopher Luxon’s – will be the frightening conclusion that the highly-urbanised nation that is New Zealand is going to have to be rebuilt from top to bottom. Or, failing that, left to simply decline and decay for want of the billions-upon-billions of dollars needed to re-fit it.
An urgent review of the financial factors underpinning our dire current account deficit situation would be a good start. Domestic productive enterprise employment producing goods and income to finance the rebuild over the long term is a necessity.
Auckland Council has a civil defence committee which is a statutory committee appointed under s12 of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act. That committee appoints an individual to declare an emergency. It doesn’t appear to have met since Brown appointed it in early Nov.
It appears that bureaucratic heads should probably roll. The Mayor appears to have delegated accordingly.
"The planet’s atmosphere is warming, and since warm air carries more moisture, the likelihood of such extreme weather events is also increased." Yeah, nah Chris - overall the atmosphere is carrying less moisture since you were a pup.
https://www.climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20ESRL%20AtmospericRelativeHumi…
Perhaps the local volcano might be throwing spanner in the work?
"Advancing Earth and Space Science (AGU), cited a research report by Schoeberl et al. (10.1029/2022GL100248). There, too, it appears that the amount of water vapor was the largest ever measured during a volcanic eruption. They write that up to 150 teragrams, or 150 000 000 000 kilograms, were shot up into the Earth’s stratosphere during the eruption."
https://freewestmedia.com/2023/01/05/volcanic-eruption-in-tonga-will-co…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-11/sydney-in-longest-spell-below-30…
Holy crap - this deserves it's own interest article...
...scale of the disaster would be obvious to all. In the same vein, the news also disappeared from the world’s mainstream media.
This is based on the latest data from NIWA at the end of May, when reporting ceased. Since then it has expanded further. The solar radiation has decreased by a dramatic 1-2 W/m2 within the blue frame...
According to NASA, we entered a new solar minimum in December 2019, shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic was declared, and this solar cycle (number 25) will continue for about eleven years, until 2030.
profile,
According to NOAA's 2021 Annual Climate Report the combined land and ocean temperature has increased at an average rate of 0.14 degrees Fahrenheit ( 0.08 degrees Celsius) per decade since 1880; however, the average rate of increase since 1981 has been more than twice as fast: 0.32 °F (0.18 °C) per decade.18/01/2023
Gosh. But how can that be? Since AGW isn't a real 'thing', I wonder what is causing glaciers to melt all across the world, or for sea levels to rise? I know, it's all some dastardly left-wing plot to secure world dominance. The Keeling Curve is obviously a hoax as are all these supposed satellite measurements.
Has anyone ever claimed the Keeling curve is a hoax? As for "all these supposed satellite measurements" - they haven't shown any warming since 2016 s not the best avenue for the runaway theory. Surely if the runaway global warming theory is so solid we should have see a little bit of warming with the increase of another 15% CO2 since 2016?
https://images.remss.com/msu/graphics/TLT_v40/time_series/RSS_TS_channe…
https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Decemb…
Down 0.7 degrees since 2016 - wiping out four decades of warming at 0.18C/decade - all the while global coal and oil use is at record highs. Must be Cindy's climate leadership/homeopathy doing the trick? Cindy's prime ministership would fit a lot better with the last few years cooling than the poor old keeling curve.
Hmm, that first link shows Relative humidity....which could fall if temperature increased...
This graph shows the SPECIFIC humidity increasing
https://www.climate.gov/media/14311
and to 2019
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/figures/chapter-2/figure-2-13
Specific humidity.
https://www.climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20ESRL%20AtmospericSpecificHumi…
Falling at 300 and 600. Have a closer look look at the 600. I love your typical runaway global warming bedwetter "which could fall if temperature increased...", Nothing like a "could" to have a have a foot in both camps eh chap? At the surface we have the not predicted global greening.
I love your typical runaway global warming bedwetter
No need for the childish personal insults.
The reason for the "could" is that it is possible that the relative humidity could decrease even if the temp decreased (less moisture in atmopshere). That's why showing RH is not a good indication of whether there is more moisture in the atmosphere.
As for greening, that was expected in some places and one of the biggest contributors to that is China thanks to the increases in agriculture there
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146296/global-green-up-slows-warming
(Interesting that you think I'm a "chap"...)
Yes flood-prone properties shouldn't be built on, which is why I bought a house outside a 1-in-100-year flood zone. The new flood maps put out last year have moved it into a flood zone. What can you do?
Many Aucklanders are probably not in flood zones, but got flooded anyway. The new flood maps will put paid to that for htem too.
Yes, this fact that flooding characteristics change with time is what makes the Mayor's comment about 'shouldn't have built there' totally inappropriate (and stupid).
Often the reason a property previously not subject to flooding, later becomes subject to flooding, is to do with new subdivisions and developments that have gone in since the surrounding neighbourhood was developed/settled.
You cannot blame, ignore or discount people who are affected - which seemed to be what the Mayor was heading toward. His Deputy Mayor actually took him by the arm and dragged him off stage/away from the podium to avoid a continuance of his blame 'others' attitude.
He looked like a drunk being dragged away from a fight. Honestly what a stupid thing to say, and pretty insensitive too considering those people just lost their house.
“My council shouldn’t have let you build there 40 years ago when global warming didn’t exist, so tell your insurance company to sue us as it’s all our fault, but not my fault as I wasn’t there then. You wanna fight about it?”
The Auckland Domain lake model was spot on in the council website
https://data-aucklandcouncil.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/aucklandcounc…
In previous discussions we had already identified and discussed that Auckland had outgrown the capacity of the land to support it, so CTs comments are no surprise, other than being somewhat superficial. What he hasn't mentioned is that this will just provide more evidence of the rip off that insurance companies have become as they seek to preserve their profits.
Does anyone know what this event will mean, if anything, for those of us who own property well away from flood plains or flood prone land?
I don’t expect our insurance premiums will go down, but presumably just a small lift in them ( as no doubt everyone’s premiums will rise). While those in or close to hazard areas will see big rises???
Some time back, after the big floods in Queenstown, insurance premiums didn't rise for those properties affected. They went to $0. They just plain couldn't get insurance for flood damage.
Perhaps something similar is coming to properties in severe flood prone zones across the country? And in which case, what does the price of an uninsurable property do?
EQC levies will go up https://www.eqc.govt.nz/what-we-do/what-youre-covered-for/storm-or-floo…
After the deluge, we need to seriously review our approach to climate change - I'd recommend drop all the initiatives which follow the UN prescriptions and instead adopt a climate pragamtism approach. All the monies and planning and fuss associated with implementing the Zero Carbon Act does nothing to address the real problems we are now faced with.
An alternate, and perhaps less punitive approach, to lowering our GHG emissions is called climate pragmatism. It has three regulatory objectives:
- accelerate energy innovation,
- build resilience to extreme weather, and
- pursue no regrets pollution reduction measures.
Kate - we are 0.2% of Global climate emissions, This impact is coming from the global output, Take a look at the numbers from China, India and USA, let alone coming out of Africa. What we do here will change nothing. Eliminate all humans in NZ = no difference to NZs weather. Happy to play our part but at the moment nothing will change we have to learn to live defensively, ie on hills, not flood planes.
Right now due to energy costs, China is building more coal powered power plants. I cannot see how this Global issue can be solved. I actually see that climate change will cause a huge famine with failing crops for a few years decimating countries that are poor and net food importers. Countries like Pakistan cannot even afford enough oil for power, these countries have massive populations. I can see some very ugly conflicts breaking out. I am very happy to be down here in the South Pacific.
PowerDownKiwi is going to be proved right, the price of energy will continue to rise, and the era of low priced energy is over.
Yes, unfortunately our best option is to expend our efforts to adapt.
Every last drop of oil is going to be brought to the surface and turned into CO2. The economic and military advantage of using oil v going fossil free guarantees that. How long would any of the superpowers stay on that list if they turned away from fossil fuels.
Good point but hills aren't safe either with the many slips that occur during heavy downpours.
In general, New Zealand is relatively slip-prone. This is because of its "tectonically active" setting and temperature climate, combined with a highly dynamic landscape, according to Niwa.
It is human arrogance to think we can design and build our way out of extreme weather events.
I am with you Kate. Climate pragmatism is the go here in NZ. Direct as much of the public purse as possible into flood mitigation measures. Re-locate where necessary. Re-establishment of wetlands where appropriate. A multi-decade approach. Mind boggling challenge. Resurrecting the old Ministry of Works would be a good start. Train up and resource our own citizens for the massive infrastructure projects required. Another “Think Big” moment for our country methinks.
Yes. The government downplayed the billions of foregone economic activity and thousands of high-paying jobs at-risk due to the O&G exploration ban. For reference, at its peak the NZ oil sector's output was less than 1% of what the Permian Basin pumps.
One consultant reported that just construction and maintenance of a single offshore gas production site off Otago could have created 5.7k jobs and added $7.1 billion to the national GDP.
It's the end of January and Auckland has received 38% of its average annual rainfall, 50-60mm more to come this Wed.
Re Brown, sure I voted for him but he has to go, Simon please step up next election. The Mayor of tiny little Waitomo fronts up on radio and speaks so well, sorry Brown just has to go. Its true Auckland voted against JA (Which will be telling on Oct 14th....).
The outcome of Oct's election will be determined by how well Labor party manages the clean up and providing long term support for flooded victims.
Myself living in inner city suburb of Brisbane, we were flooded 3 times; 2 minor and 1 severe flood in Feb 2022. I am still battling insurance and it will be a long road of recovering. Best wishes for everyone in Auckland.
It's first about capturing and slowing down any hard surface water so it equals the equivalent holding capacity of what would have been natural vegetation.
Then to the equivalent of whatever would have been natural retention ponds in the form of wetlands, specifically designed retention ponds, and sports grounds that can act as these in an emergency etc.
And then, for historical excesses beyond this, safe pathways to rivers/harbours.
In Pegasus Town north of Canterbury, most of the sections are built with a 1m x1m x 17m underground soakpits on each section to take all the hard runoff water from the roof and driveway. The streets have swales that then overflow into their own underground soak pits.
Any excess above this, and for the few sections that don't have the holding capacity, flow into the 17 ha man-made lake which then overflows into the vast wetland reserve.
This is a gift to hte government. They have a perfect case study, home to 1/4 of the country, of how obsolete 3 waters infrastructure is a problem and will be expensive to fix.
Now the question is, will the government realise this, or will they roll over and ignore the real problems like successive governments have done since 1990?
Perhaps the government could contemplate the massive upgrade job they've just forced the need for all over the city by allowing intensification everywhere, instead of just around key transport corridors and central suburbs where it's more concentrated and easy to service?
The unusual level of water vapour in the atmosphere this year is the result of the 2021–22 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai volcanic eruption. Heavy rain events have subsequently occured in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, Tasmania etc. so it shouldn't have been too much of a surprise that New Zealand also had such events.
If Auckland services where caught by surprise it's because they where asleep at the wheel.
Not at all, climate change is a very important subject and well worthy of discussion as it is having and will have a profound and lasting influence on the planet.
However this happens to be the result of the Southern Annular Mode hanging further south than usual since the eruption. It seems that until the levels of moisture in the atmosphere stabilises we will continue to suffer increased rainfall but climate patterns will stabilise again. It's more severe than global warming but less serious.
BREAKING NEWS 1-
PM announces that the failure of not building all those Kiwibuild homes as promised lessened the risk of flooding.
BREAKING NEWS 2 -
PM takes credit for flooding in reducing the number of ram raids - 'It's harder to ram raid when the shops are full of water.'
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