Author: Alex

This workshop aims to support and develop a community of “climate ambassadors,” who can champion an informed and proactive climate adaptation agenda in research, policy, the public and private sectors and within local communities.

In order to “adapt, manage risk and thrive in a changing climate,” which is the mission of the Deep South Challenge, we need to better understand climate change impacts and implications, and we also need to raise our collective expertise in navigating the science–policy–business landscape.

Participants will learn from real-world adaptation case studies, with a focus on local government, policy and business. You will have opportunities for cross-sector conversations, to share your own expertise and experience, and to learn from other practitioners in climate science, local government and business.

This workshop will also build on participants’ existing knowledge and needs. We’ll take time to identify practical pathways and policy levers, as well as opportunities for you to build new networks and action plans.

Who is this event for?

This first workshop, held in Wellington, will focus specifically on the connection between research and decision-making in local and regional government. If you’re a local government professional, a consultant to local government, or a community member interested in the way government can set its climate adaptation agenda, this workshop is for you. We encourage researchers to participate, especially emerging voices in climate change impacts and implications. The workshop will help you build new connections and gain confidence in enabling knowledge transfer from research to policy and action.

The future

We’ll be holding similar workshops in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin throughout 2018. Feedback from these events will inform a second capacity-building phase in 2019. In this way we hope to build a community of influential ambassadors who can support local and national communities to adapt safely and smoothly to our changing climate.

Speakers and panelists

Stephen Daysh

Stephen is a director of the environmental consultancy Mitchell Daysh. He’s a Commissioner Chair under the Ministry for the Environment’s “Making Good Decisions” programme and has been a key participant in the Hawkes Bay “Clifton to Tangoio Coastal Hazard Strategy 2120”.

Judy Lawrence

Judy is a Senior Research Fellow at the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute at Victoria University of Wellington and leads two projects in the Deep South Challenge. Judy is co-chair of the Climate Change Adaptation Technical Working Group and was a co-author of the recently released Ministry for the Environment guidance for local government, Coastal Hazards and Climate Change.

Iain Dawe

Iain is a Senior Policy Advisor (Coasts and Hazards) at the Greater Wellington Regional Council. He investigates coastal hazard management, research, policy development, analysis, implementation and advice and in the course of his work is also a science communicator.

Andrew Tait

Andrew is a Principal Climate Scientist with NIWA. He works with internal and external climate modellers to assess climate data and related impacts. He also works closely with non-science partners to communicate climate science effectively.

Wendy Saunders

Wendy is a GNS social scientist specialising in land use planning and natural hazards – including hazards that are exacerbated by climate change. A core part of Wendy’s work is engaging with communities, councils and others, to improve the way natural hazards are incorporated into planning. Wendy also leads the Deep South Challenge’s Engagement Programme.

Teanau Tuiono (facilitator)

Teanau works at the intersection of indigenous peoples’ issues and the environment. He has a diverse range of experience managing, facilitating and working on projects at the national, regional and international level, including at a number of UN processes. He was previously based at the Indigenous Knowledge and Small Islands section at UNESCO and currently produces educational resources for Māori Medium audiences.

Register

Registrations close 20 April and places are limited. Register using this link here. 

Price:

Price: $175+GST (If cost is a barrier, please email us)

Programme and workshop flyer

A new report released by the Deep South National Science Challenge, Communities and climate change: Vulnerability to rising seas and more frequent flooding, highlights key gaps in our collective understanding about how climate change will impact Aotearoa New Zealand’s diverse communities.

In the coming decades, more and more New Zealand communities will be exposed to flooding and coastal erosion made worse by climate change. Some communities will be resilient but others may find the physical, social, financial or emotional consequences difficult to recover from. These climate change impacts are unlike other natural hazards because they will incrementally worsen over time – the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment called sea level rise a “slowly unfolding red zone.” This is new territory for New Zealand, and we don’t yet know how communities will respond, nor is it clear what steps will reduce vulnerability and build community resilience to climate change impacts in the long term.

“Climate adaptation processes need to be carefully designed and delivered, especially for the more vulnerable,” says Janet Stephenson, lead author on the report and Director of the Centre for Sustainability at the University of Otago. “Decision-making institutions such as councils will need to be proactive in working with exposed communities,” Janet continues. “They will need to anticipate the support that communities will require, and will need to offer equitable solutions. Iwi and community members will need to be involved in climate change adaptation processes, and be in a position to make informed decisions about their future.”

The report outlines our current knowledge and identifies priority areas of research needed to prepare alongside communities for a changing climate. “For example,” says Janet, “law and policy need to be fit-for-purpose for the new challenges of climate change. This includes the role of government agencies, limiting exposure to hazards, and how we will finance adaptation.”

The report emerged out of a Deep South Challenge Dialogue, in which participants ranged from academics and scientists working in health, sustainability, hazard management and climate and environmental science, to representatives of iwi, migrant and local communities, and particular groups such as older New Zealanders.

“The dialogue process creates conditions in which participants learn from one another, come to a common understanding, and innovate together,” says Dr Suzi Kerr, Senior Fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research and the leader of the Deep South Challenge’s Impacts and Implications programme. “The small number of participants means the issues are discussed honestly and in depth. Group discussion and thinking can progress and converge, rather than be subject to a polarised debate that solidifies existing views and positions.”

The report identified that we need to know much more about the extent to which flood mitigation schemes will or won’t help to protect communities under climate change and how information about climate change impacts can be more effectively communicated.

Janet says, “I hope that this report will continue to underpin further research on exposure, vulnerability and resilience for coastal and flood-prone settlements facing a climate-impacted future.”

New research announced

From the knowledge gaps identified in the report, the Deep South Challenge has recently funded two projects that go some way to addressing these questions.

The first project, Climate adaptation, vulnerability and community well-being, led by Janet Stephenson herself, is using case studies in the Hutt Valley and South Dunedin to investigate how councils already engage with exposed communities, whether any engagement is influencing adaptation, and options for improvement.

“We will explore how community groups, iwi, businesses and NGOs are involved in self-motivated adaptation actions, and the intersection with councils’ mandated roles and responsibilities.” Janet says. “Our project also focusses on more vulnerable community members to consider whether additional actions – not just engagement – are needed to ensure they are not further marginalised by adaptation processes.”

We are also surveying councils around New Zealand to see how they are engaging with their communities on adaptation processes. We will be drawing from all of this work to develop a suite of recommendations for policy, process and adaptation practice.”

A second project will look closely at flood mitigation schemes. “Floods are the most frequent economically damaging natural hazard in New Zealand,” says lead researcher Patrick Walsh of Manaaki Whenua, “and climate change and sea level rise are projected to increase their intensity and frequency. People are increasingly moving into populated places with elevated flood risk, where floods damage both dwellings and primary income sources.”

Economic losses from flooding are substantial in New Zealand and are projected to increase. Floods have caused almost $300 million in damages since only 2014 (not including the New Year floods of 2017/18 or more recent flooding), with particularly disruptive impacts on homes and farming.

The most common method of managing flood risk in New Zealand is through flood mitigation schemes, in which flood-related infrastructure is funded via targeted property rates and government budget. “However,” says Patrick, “many of these schemes were implemented last century, with mounting evidence that land use and population changes mean they’re insufficient for future risk.” There is also a surprising lack of research on these schemes.

This research will explore whether or not all flood-prone settlements have schemes in place – and will catalogue and map flood mitigation scheme locations using regional council data. “We’ll investigate whether flood mitigation scheme funding is adequate, and we’ll try to understand whether flood mitigation schemes are sufficient to protect exposed communities from increased flooding due to climate change.”

Both the newly released report and this new funding are an attempt by the Deep South Challenge to ensure that people, and communities, are at the heart of the conversation we need to have nationally about climate adaptation.

Climate change is already making day-to-day life more precarious and more expensive, both for ordinary New Zealanders and for our local and central governments. New Zealanders are increasingly interested in climate adaptation strategies. Conversations about the cost of early adaptation versus the risk of delayed action are growing in volume.

Researchers from the Deep South National Science Challenge are working on a huge range of climate adaptation issues. They are addressing urgent questions about the climate resilience of our infrastructure. They are asking who will pay for climate adaptation, and how. And they’re developing important solutions to the problem of decision-making in an uncertain future.

This seminar is an abridged version of the Treasury Guest Lecture delivered by Dave, Belinda and David in early-March. The seminar was well-attended and enjoyed, and is now “back by popular demand”.

About the presenters

Professor Dave Frame, NZ Climate Change Research Institute (NZCCRI)

Dave Frame has many years’ research experience in climate research, publishing in the world’s leading scientific journals as well as in specialist climate literature. Dave also has real world policy experience in the New Zealand Treasury’s Policy Coordination and Development group. Prior to joining the NZ CCRI as Director and Professor of Climate Change, Dave was Deputy Director and Senior Research fellow at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, where he also lectured in the Department of Physics. Dave was the first Director of the Deep South Challenge and is a Principal Investigator on the project Improving predictions and understanding deep south drivers of New Zealand’s climate. He will talk about work commissioned by The Treasury looking at the costs of weather events that are attributable to climate change.

Belinda Storey, Climate Sigma

Belinda Storey is a Principal Investigator with the Deep South National Science Challenge and Managing Director of Climate Sigma. Her research project Slow and sudden onset thresholds for private insurance retreat under climate change is examining where climate change is likely to cause insurance retreat in New Zealand’s coastal cities and towns over the next two decades.

David Fleming, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

David Fleming will present his Deep South Challenge project Extreme weather, climate change & the EQC. By looking at EQC claims data across the country, this work provides a detailed overview of locations facing high rate of weather-related disaster claims and explore if these data can provide better insights in terms of disaster occurrence, intensity and recovery. The project also aims to establish possible future financial liabilities for the EQC given different climate change scenarios.

Physical hubs: 

• Victoria University of Wellington: AMLT105*
• NIWA Wellington: Conference Room
• NIWA Auckland: Boardroom
• NIWA Lauder: Computer Room
• NIWA Hamilton: Reception meeting room
• NIWA Christchurch: Hautere Room
• University of Canterbury: James Logie 105 
• University of Otago: Room 312 (Physics), Science III building

*Our speakers will be presenting from this hub.

We encourage you to set up your own hub and bring friends and colleagues together to participate in the seminar. Please let us know if you do set up your own hub.

Email: [email protected]

Remember our September symposium at Te Wharewaka ō Pōneke? Well, results are in from the surveys of participants we carried out to find out how well our aims for the symposium had been met.

We intended that the symposium would inform both end-user and researcher communities about Deep South Challenge progress, and that it would create an opportunity for sharing knowledge and ideas between end-users and researchers. We also hoped to strengthen connections among our researchers, in order to enhance integration across the challenge.

We carried out two surveys: the first, for our end-user and stakeholder participants (including government, industry and community organisations); and the second, for our researchers.

All end-users said that they knew more about the challenge after attending (with 65% indicating they knew “a lot more”), and 84% said they’d had useful discussions with our researchers at the conference. Of our researchers, 93% said they had developed new research connections with other researchers, and all of these planned to put their new connections to use in the course of their research.

Many attendees described the symposium in glowing terms, for example:

• “Great to have so many people actively working on climate science together in one place! Exciting conversations”
• “Better conversations with the Kāhui Māori and industry were enabled through this symposium”
• “Fabulous content and organisation”
• “Very well run and exceptionally useful”

Participants also challenged us to include more opportunities for researchers to hear directly from end-users: “Future symposiums need to have much more input from user groups, so the researchers are better informed about users’ needs”. And we were urged to avoid parallel sessions in the future: participants felt these hindered interaction and integration between our five research programmes.

We will certainly integrate this feedback to improve our next symposium, tentatively planned for May 2019. Stay tuned for more information.

An interview with our new Science Lead in the Engagement Programme, GNS social scientist Wendy Saunders

Wendy Saunders is a social scientist specialising in land use planning and natural hazards – whether geological or weather-related, and including hazards that are exacerbated by climate change. Wendy has worked for many years at GNS Science, where a core part of her work is engaging with communities, councils and others, to improve the way natural hazards are incorporated into planning for land use.

In 2013, Wendy was a World Social Science Fellow in Risk Interpretation and Action, and in 2017 she won a New Zealand Planning Institute award for best practice, in relation to an online natural hazard planning toolkit she developed for councils.

She is member of the Mātauranga Māori and Governance programmes in the Resilience to Nature’s Challenges National Science Challenge. More recently, Wendy has come on board the Deep South Challenge as the Science Lead in our Engagement Programme. It’s a great fit for many reasons, some of which we explored in this interview.

Kia ora Wendy. Can you talk about where your interest in natural hazards might have sprung from?

When I was growing up, if there was ever a flood, Dad would put us all in the car and drive us out to have a look. Which you shouldn’t do! Totally not what you’re supposed to do!

Hamilton is considered to be the safest place in the country. But you know, when the Waikato river flooded, up round Ngāruawāhia, and along the wetlands there, it was amazing. Dad always got pretty excited when something happened.

So I guess I’ve always been interested in hazards. When I finished school, I worked for an insurance broker for a number of years. I became interested in the insurance side of hazard management. And when I finally went to university, I carried that interest in natural hazards over.

Can you tell us a bit about your family?

There are very strong women in my family. It’s really humbling to see my grandmother’s photo, and my aunt’s, on the back wall of our marae. We come from a line of such awesome women!

I’m Ngāti Raukawa, from the north. Our marae is at Pikitū, near Waotu, by Lake Arapuni. My grandmother was brought up at Waotu. She spoke te reo fluently, though I never heard her speak it. We are keen as a family to strengthen our ties to Pikitū, and I’d really like to organise a trip back there. 

What about your work in the Resilience to Nature’s Hazards challenge?

Under the Resilience challenge, I’m looking at the role of iwi management plans in natural hazard management. Once they’re lodged with a council, iwi management plans become legislative documents. They can be quite powerful. I’m looking at the Bay of Plenty as a pilot case study area, because the Bay of Plenty has every single hazard that we have in New Zealand. They also have a lot of iwi management plans, and the council helps to fund those plans. So, if they have every hazard, how are those hazards represented in the plans? My findings are, they’re not represented very well.

Partly that might be because of other priorities in the short term, such as water quality. But I’m also hoping to tease out whether the issue is the accessibility of science, or whether it’s that there’s not a good sharing of knowledge and information between council, iwi and scientists. How is the information exchange going? How can it be improved?

As a hazards researcher, if I’m going to work anywhere around New Zealand, the first thing I should do is look at the iwi management plan if it exists, and see how my research aligns with the priorities of that iwi. It may align well, and that gives you a good conversation starter. Research of course is two-way, and iwi have a lot to offer. They know the land.

So the next part of our research is looking at the relationship – how can we better share our hazard information? Are councils sharing the information they get from us, and passing it on in a way that’s meaningful? It’s not enough to put hazard information up on a website. It’s talking to researchers, to find out what steps they take to ensure their information is getting through. And it’s talking to iwi, about their experiences, opportunities, and the expectations they have of these iwi management plans in relation to hazard management.

It seems like there’s a huge amount of crossover between the Resilience challenge and ours, the Deep South Challenge: Changing with our Climate. Can you talk about that?

Yes. My research has also considered how these plans have included climate change and sea level rise, for example, in hazard planning. Because when I’m looking at natural hazards, I don’t differentiate.

You can’t have a conversation about hazards without also talking about climate change. I don’t think you can separate them at all. They have to be combined. Even tsunami. A tsunami is triggered by an earthquake, generally. People say, that’s got nothing to do with climate change. But the impacts of the tsunami are influenced by climate change. If you’re experiencing increased sea level rise, increased chop, increased storminess, increased erosion, and if you’re losing metres of your shoreline, then your tsunami inundation zone could potentially go much further inland.

It’s the same with landslides, which increase with the amount of heavy rainfall. Or flooding. If we want to take a holistic view, we need to be incorporating climate change into everything.

We have an opportunity to strengthen the links and integrate our research between the national science challenges, especially the Resilience challenge (but I’m biased!). What information is the Deep South producing that could be fed into the Resilience challenge, and vice versa?

How do your values drive your work?

For me it’s about building trust, and doing really good work that’s useful, usable and used. I’m a very action-based person. I like to do stuff that’s useful. That’s where I’ve had my best career highlights, actually seeing my work being picked up.

The online toolbox I’ve developed, for example, is not only a framework to work out levels of risk. The toolbox supports councils to engage with communities, and within councils themselves.

I guess it’s around having integrity being trusted. Not compromising myself to fit in with other values that others may have. A lesson I’ve learned is to hold your own values close, and don’t succumb to other people’s. A friend gave me a good quote: “Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.” It reminds me not to stoop, to hold to my own values, to hold my head high.

We’re lucky to have you as Engagement Lead. What are your priorities? What would success look like to you?

First I want to fully recognise the awesome job that Rhian Salmon has done does to build up the Engagement Programme, starting from scratch. Engagement is now embedded throughout each of the Deep South Challenge’s five programmes, which is quite an accomplishment.

The key opportunities I see are around engaging with some of the other National Science Challenges, creating better linkages, and leveraging efficiencies, so we can create greater value out of our research.

I’m excited about being able to contribute to the strategic direction of the Challenge as we move into the rebid phase, and about reviewing our current engagement strategy.

The funding period is quite short. But in 10 years’ time, success would be seeing Deep South Challenge science being incorporated into decision making – and having really strong evidence of that. Success would also be that all New Zealanders understanding how climate change effects them, and what they can do to adapt. That’s not just a Deep South Challenge issue but we are a key part of that. Only when you really understand climate change can you actually meaningfully do something about it.

But the Deep South Challenge is really well-regarded outside of the Challenge. And, I’m really excited to be a part of it moving forward.

Rescuing historic weather to understand New Zealand’s future climate

In this seminar, off the back of the highly successful ACRE: Antarctica conference, NIWA climate scientists Andrew Lorrey and Petra Pearce will take you back to the days when weather observations about Antarctica and the Southern Ocean were recorded in black ink on parchment.

Drew and Petra are part of a Deep South Challenge project which is testing the ability of the NZ Earth System Model (NZESM) to simulate reality, by comparing its results against modern and historical observations.

The NZESM is designed to simulate how our climate will change over the coming decades. It’s highly complex, modelling everything from weather systems to changes in Antarctic sea ice, ocean temperatures to stratospheric chemistry.

If, in comparison with past climate and atmospheric data, the model accurately replicates the past, we’ll have increased confidence that the model can accurately simulate future changes in climate.

To gather comprehensive historical climate data, the project sees scientists and historians working together to recover meteorological observations over the southern hemisphere made as far back as 1850. Rescued data are being archived and made publicly available through the International Surface Pressure Databank and NIWA’s database.

Physical hubs:

• NIWA Wellington: Conference Room
• NIWA Auckland: River Room
• NIWA Lauder: VC Computer Room
• Victoria University: CO118 
• University of Canterbury: Law411
• University of Otago: Physics 312
• Metservice Wellington – Contact: James Lunny

We encourage you to set up your own hub and bring friends and colleagues together to participate in the seminar.

Email: [email protected]

2018 may well be the year New Zealand gets serious about adapting to our changing climate. Last year, and the start of this one, gave all of us plenty of opportunities to experience a future in which creeping sea level rise and extreme weather – from drought to flood to surprise storm surges – make day-to-day life more precarious and more expensive.

Last year’s various high-level climate change reports also made us increasingly aware of the roadblocks to effective decision-making around climate adaptation (the Adapting to climate change in New Zealand: Stocktake report, from the Climate Change Adaptation Technical Working Group; the Coastal hazards and climate change guidance published by the Ministry for the Environment; and the Human health impacts of climate change for New Zealand report produced by Royal Society Te Apārangi are three examples).

At the Deep South Challenge, we are often asked, “which cities are doing climate adaptation well?” People are looking for examples and for leaders to show how these roadblocks can be systematically dismantled.

And now, a community-driven initiative in South Dunedin may just get the ball rolling. “Our City, Our Climate,” led by the Blueskin Resilient Communities Trust and supported by the Deep South Challenge, is calling in the big guns – key climate scientists, local and central government decision makers, iwi with cultural and financial assets at stake, and property and business owners with livelihoods on the line, to find ways to break through the red tape that currently hinders progress on climate adaptation.

The urgency of adapting to our changing climate is, in the words of Scott Willis, organiser of the initiative, a “no brainer. We know what’s coming,” he says, “even if we don’t quite know when. We have to adapt.”

The event, being staged as three workshops over February and March, will bring together climate and engagement researchers, city and regional councillors and senior staff, the Otago Chamber of Commerce, the University of Otago, Otago Polytechnic, the Southern District Health Board, local NGOs and residents.

The event aims to bring climate science to the general public and to local decision-makers, to enable a more coordinated, participatory approach to tackling the challenge of climate change in the city of Dunedin.

“This isn’t just about hard materials, or about managed retreat,” Scott says. “It’s about how we think, what our processes look like. It’s about being more open to change, and about becoming more resilient.”

Given all the news lately on the importance of climate adaptation and the fact that New Zealand, like the rest of the world, is lagging well behind where we need to be, the event might open up some ways forward for different communities facing various climate adaptation challenges.

“The real challenge,” Scott continues, “is that we move so damn slowly, or we can’t actually find ways to move. People have got to feel that they have the ability to be more creative, to find different pathways to change and adapt.”

So this event is about decision-making at the local and regional level – where most climate adaptation decisions need to be made. “I don’t know the answer,” he says, “but I’m intimate with the questions. The process of developing district plans – the documents that control what we can do in the environment – is slow and cumbersome. It’s not suited to rapidly evolving climate science and the increased pace of climate change. We need a simpler, more flexible process. So how can we adapt our decision making process to our up-to-date science? How can we make local government more friendly for decision-making on climate action? How can the community participate in decision making and action more effectively? We need to work through these questions and challenges together.”

The event has been in the pipeline for a long time, but resourcing from the Deep South Challenge, and the support of the challenge to provide climate and social science expertise, has finally made it possible. The first two workshops will be held on February 8 and 9, with a third workshop in early March. For more information check out http://climatesafehouse.nz/event/our-city-our-climate/

For more information about the Deep South Challenge (and particularly our Engagement and Impacts & Implications programmes), check out our website: www.deepsouthchallenge.co.nz

The whānau of Omaio in the Bay of Plenty have joined forces with NIWA researchers to explore the viability of climate-resilient, high-value crops for the rohe.

The group has won a $250,000 research grant under the Vision Mātauranga programme of the Deep South National Science Challenge to better understand Omaio’s changing climate and how it might support the community to create a local economy based around a high-value product like kiwi fruit.

Omaio whānau have for many generations been sustained by ancestral lands, forests, rivers and the moana, all of which bear ancestral names. But climate change is already impacting the community, with more frequent storms resulting in increased river and sea bed sedimentation as well as damage to roading and other infrastructure.

A range of future climate change impacts may also affect growing conditions, including increasing temperatures, less rainfall, sea-level rise resulting in salt-water intrusion, and the likelihood of insufficient winter chilling. The availability of water to support crop irrigation will affect the viability of particular crops as well.

Nevertheless, Omaio’s coastal lands of hold some of the most productive soils – the deep, loamy Te Kaha soils – in New Zealand. Chris Karamea Insley, Chair of Te Rau Aroha Trust (which represents Omaio whānau), says, “We have these sheltered hills, we have these highly fertile soils. Scientists have been telling us for a number of years now that our environment creates the best growing climate for high-value crops, like kiwi fruit. Currently,” Chris continues, “these lands are utilised for low-value maize. Maize growers provide no employment for whānau and contribute nothing to growing the local economy.”

Research has already established that shifting from low- to high-value crops like kiwi fruit could generate significant income, create 100 local jobs for whānau and 500 jobs across the wider district. Chris adds, “We’ve formed a relationship with the head of Zespri, who’s been encouraging of us. He’s said to us, ‘I think what you guys are doing is hugely exciting. Get started.’ And that’s what we’re doing.”

Nevertheless, recent extreme weather events and longer, dryer summers mean that the whānau of Omaio need to better understand their future climate, before investing in climate-dependent crops.

This project therefore aims to provide the community of Omaio with the tools and training to monitor essential climate and hydrology data, as well as irrigation management tools, so they can better consider and respond to changing climatic conditions. “Our project,” Chris continues, “will also run individual and group workshops to inform decision making around the use of water both for community purposes and for both commercial applications.”

“This is one of three priority projects identified by the Iwi Leaders Forum. We’re also engaging closely with regional council and large horticultural companies to ensure our project is viable and that our research findings are broadly shared. Our project seeks to integrate the best science and research about climate, climate change and land-use planning, in order to grow a local economy in Omaio that is environmentally, economically and culturally sustainable.”

Vision Mātauranga science projects are built around four research themes: Understanding climate change; exploring adaptation options for Māori communities; assisting Māori businesses to aid decision-making and long-term sustainability; and exploring products, services and systems derived from mātauranga Māori.For more information about the Deep South Challenge and our Vision Mātauranga programme and projects, check out our website: www.deepsouthchallenge.co.nz/programmes/vision-matauranga

In October 2017, the Deep South Challenge released a report into the state of the nation’s storm and waste water infrastructure, in the face of a changing climate. The report garnered significant media attention – not surprising given the infrastructure is currently valued at well over $20 billion.

The report gathered together what we already know about how climate change is likely to affect our stormwater and wastewater systems:

• Sea level rise will affect all coastal infrastructure and will likely result in increasing sewage overflows, pipes corroded by salt water, and exposure to liquefaction.
• More severe and more frequent coastal storms will affect infrastructure, causing increasing inundation, physical damage and electrical failure at treatment plants.
• Changes in extreme rainfall will overwhelm the networks, restricting opportunities for maintenance, and increasing the infiltration of wastewater into stormwater (with concerning flow on effects for health, ecology, cultural and recreational spaces, and water supply for drinking).
• Drought will also affect networks, disrupting gravity systems by slowing flow and leading to blocked pipes.

The report also highlighted significant gaps in our knowledge about how climate change might impact our stormwater and wastewater infrastructure, as well as in our understandings about the extent to which damage to this infrastructure might impact our economy, environment, culture and society.

The Deep South Challenge, through our Impacts and Implications programme, is now investing in research that seeks to fill these knowledge gaps.

We’ve just funded a new research project lead by consultants Tonkin + Taylor, called “Stormwater, wastewater, climate change: Impacts on our economy, environment, culture and society”. Over one year, this project aims to explore these potential impacts and to develop a detailed “theory of change”. The project is based on the idea that only once we have determined the performance we require of our storm and wastewater network in a changed climate, as well as the full range of likely impacts, can we design an efficient and effective solutions pathway.

Project leader James Hughes says, “Aside from the obvious impacts we are aware of, and those we are beginning to understand, there is so much that we actually don’t know. For someone working in this field this can be both very worrying and intriguing at the same time!”

This project will involve a comprehensive review of New Zealand and international literature, including local and regional case studies, as well as a detailed process to gather end user needs and requirements, via a panel of a key experts, including iwi representatives. 

Those key experts include Blair Dickie (Environment Waikato), Gavin Palmer (Otago Regional Council), Iain White (Waikato University), Jackie Colliar (NIWA, Waikato Tainui), Mark Bishop (Watercare), Noel Roberts (Water NZ), Sue Ellen Fenelon (Ministry for the Environment), Tumanako Faaui (Ngāti Whakahemo), and Tom Cochrane (Canterbury University).

The research intends to produce a summary of the physical impacts of climate change on storm water and waste water systems, and related outcomes across social, environmental, cultural and economic domains; a summary of how these outcomes may vary across New Zealand and where these may be more likely to occur; and some guiding principles for practitioners and decision-makers in the planning and engineering sectors.

James Hughes continues: “The outcomes of research like this can have potential to offer some really practical outcomes for New Zealand towns and cities, which is what we will be aiming to achieve.”

The research team combines excellence in engineering, economics and physical science – and comprises experts from Tonkin + Taylor, NIWA and Infometrics. For more information about the Deep South Challenge (and particularly our Engagement and Impacts & Implications programmes), check out our website: www.deepsouthchallenge.co.nz

What can Weather@Home ANZ tell us about changing climate and weather extremes?

One of the most reliable ways of understanding future climate extremes is through distributed computing.

weather@home, based in the United Kingdom, is a highly successful citizen science project, in which volunteers from around the world donate their PCs’ spare processing power, running state-of-the-art climate models and returning the results. The enormous amount of computing power harnessed in this way enables these models to be run many more times than usually possible, enough for scientists to investigate how climate and weather extremes might be changing with the human influence on climate.

In weather@home ANZ we’ve examined recent extreme rainfall events that have caused significant flooding, and been able to quantify the degree to which human influence altered the risk of such events. Matching this information with estimates of the insured losses from these events, it’s also possible to estimate the financial cost of the human influence on climate.

Dr Suzanne Rosier is a climate scientist at NIWA in Wellington. She played a key part in helping launch weather@home ANZ to the public, and has subsequently analysed the large NZ datasets with a particular focus on extreme rainfall. Her new weather@home ANZ experiments are looking into how weather and climate extremes might be different a few decades from now.

Physical hubs:

• Victoria University: Room AM103
• NIWA Wellington: Board Room
• NIWA Auckland: Lake Room
• NIWA Lauder: VC Computer Room
• University of Otago: Room 229, Science III Building

We encourage you to set up your own hub and bring friends and colleagues together to participate in the seminar.

Email: [email protected]