Preparing New Zealand for rising seas

Certainy or Uncertainty?

The main issues are coastal flooding, coastal erosion, and coastal groundwater. In this extensive report you will learn what the recommendations are to government as created by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

We have concerns that the Commission still seems fairly stuck on IPCC projections as a base for making policy decisions. It is fine to have these projections in the background pointing to a possible problem but it has to be acknowledged that a great deal of uncertainty surrounds them. It is possible that we will get to 2050 and only have 10cm SLR not 30cm, or worse 50cm.

There is talk of “adaptive management” but it is not clear that they support using actual sea level rise as a trigger for action (mitigation, development restrictions, retreat etc). This is something we would like continued discussion and even clarification on.

Download links:

Media release Nov 19, 2015 (one page pdf)

Preparing New Zealand for rising seas Nov 2015 (93 pages pdf)