Rising seas set to hit Kiwi homes
<p>Swathes of Dunedin and Napier have just 50 years before the encroaching seas invade, according to new maps.</p>
<p>Around the country, more than 5500 homes are likely to be affected by sea level rise by 2065, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright said. These are all less than 50cm above the spring tide mark today.</p>
<p>"As long as it's not protected by a wall or big dunes from the sea, it's going to be in some difficulty."</p>
<p>South Dunedin has nearly 2700 homes less than 50cm above today's seas, according to laser elevation scans compiled by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.</p>
<p><img width="497" height="280" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/11165/nationaltides_497x280.jpg" alt="National Tides" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"/></p>
<p><em>Image credit: Stuff.co.nz</em></p>
<p>"The flooding [will] push up from underneath, because it's a high water table. Most of the houses there, about 1500, are below 25cm," Wright said.</p>
<p>Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull described his town as "probably the worst and most extensively affected of any of the main centres".</p>
<p>The council had spent several years assessing and preparing for how the seas would affect Dunedin in future, he said. "We have an exceptionally large number of homes at risk, as well as infrastructure."</p>
<p>Napier also had 1300 homes within 50cm of high tides.</p>
<p>Mayor Bill Dalton said the report "highlights beyond any doubt that we have an issue with sea level rise" and that councils needed to plan accordingly.</p>
<p>"But it's certainly not something we need to panic about."</p>
<p>Dalton said Napier was "ahead of the eight-ball" because it had combined with other local councils and was close to releasing a strategy that assessed coastal hazards and risk management options for the Hawke's Bay coast between Tangoio and Clifton to the year 2120.</p>
<p>The new maps, released on Thursday as part of Wright's report into sea level rise, also showed more than 32,500 homes nationwide were within 1.5m above the seas.</p>
<p>Melting of glaciers and ice sheets, warming and expanding seas and the natural subsidence of the land was predicted to lift New Zealand's oceans up to one metre higher than today by the end of the century.</p>
<p>"You could easily get 20 centimetres of storm surges on top of that, or more," Wright said.</p>
<p>In this 150cm window were nearly 10,000 homes in Christchurch, 8000 in Napier and more than 5000 in Wellington.</p>
<p>In the Hutt Valley suburb of Petone, thousands of houses were at risk of flooding from the Hutt River during intense rainfall events, which would come more frequently as the climate warms, Wright said.</p>
<p>Major infrastructure including Napier Airport and sections of state highways were also highlighted in the low-lying areas threatened by coming sea level rise.</p>
<p>Wright said the most urgent action New Zealand could take to prepare for sea level rise was to significantly curb its carbon emissions. This month, Government and opposition MPs would travel to Paris to take part in an international agreement on reducing carbon emissions.</p>
<p>If the world made stringent greenhouse gas cuts over the coming years, sea level rise would occur at a slower rate, but any action now would make little difference to the rate for several decades, Wright said.</p>
<p>She hoped these maps, which lacked local details such as protective barriers and storm surge susceptibility, would start a conversation with the community.</p>
<p>"[Once local] maps are accurately done, we have to think about what we're going to do about this. It may involve raising some houses up, who knows," she said.</p>
<p>Wright also made a number of recommendations, including that central government crunch the numbers on the financial cost of sea level rise including monetary assistance for affected homeowners.</p>
<p>"It's going to be a big deal quite soon in some places. The current government advice and direction is not up to it."</p>
<p><span>First appeared on </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/" target="_blank">Stuff.co.nz</a></strong></span><span>.</span></p>
