By Steve Mooney
Coastal erosion is a growing issue in New Zealand, and is presenting challenging questions for residents, as well as for local and national governments. Years of erosion have seen the coastland recede in some areas of the country, threatening many homes which may have also sustained damage from the storms of 2022.
According to a report released last year, some sections of the New Zealand coast are eroding at a rate of a football field each generation, with the impacts exacerbated by climate change.
One of the lessons from those extreme weather events of 2022 was the declaration that in rebuilding, some settled areas should be abandoned and never be used for housing again.
Those events took out chunks of coast of up to 20 metres in part of the North Island’s east coast.
Under the idea of ‘managed retreat,’ home and businesses would be moved out of danger zones as part of a planned process, but there are costs.
One estimate is that the annual costs of the managed retreat would be under 1% of New Zealand’s annual GDP over the next few decades. At the moment, 1% of GDP would be close to NZ$4 billion, a substantial charge if factored over decades.
In many cases, however, it is easier to say than to do, as people understandably cling on to their homes and are reluctant to move on.
At Port Waikato, residents have called for more support from the Waikato District Council, which says it has run out of viable options to prevent further damage.
Mapping has shown an annual loss of 1.5 metres of land over the last 60 years, while the nearby sand spit has actually been growing by around three metres each year.
The council closed a carpark at the beach last year after two metres of the supporting bank collapsed into the sea.
Residents are facing threats to their homes, but erosion is considered a natural event and is not covered by home and contents insurance.
Neither is it regarded as a natural disaster, and so there is no coverage by the Earthquake Commission.
The idea of ‘managed retreat’ is not popular among many residents either.
“Retreat means abandonment, retreat means letting the community drown, and I’m not up for that,” was one highly emotional comment from a Port Waikato resident to the media last year.
Councils around Hawke’s Bay, meanwhile, are facing estimated costs of around NZ$35 million to protect properties in four main areas.
On the west coast, the beachside town of Granity is being threatened with coastal erosion, and a NZ$3.6 million seawall promised by the previous Labour Government is now in doubt.
Not waiting for government action, many locals have built their own seawalls but still think the government has a responsibility to act and deliver on its promises.
They are also pushing back against a rezoning of the area as a flood zone because this would impact their insurance.
For their part, the national government is passing responsibility on to the West Coast Regional Council and the Buller District Council, which found that two dozen residences are in a ‘high risk zone’ for landslides.
New Zealand’s Ministry for the Environment released a document last year, ‘Coastal Hazards and Climate Change Guidance’, designed to provide guidance on adapting to the “increasing coastal hazards and risks from climate change.”
It sets out recommended best practice for infrastructure and new development and, while that is welcome, it leaves a major gap by not addressing what should be done regarding existing developments.
It does however lay out a number of principles in managing coastal hazards under a changing climate. These comprise sustainability and resilience, meeting the needs of future generations, mitigating adverse effects, precautionary planning, and stewardship.
There is no doubt that all of these will be required to address the challenge, but there must be a question mark over the ability of already hard-pressed local government authorities to respond.
There does appear to be a tendency to make this the province of local government on a case by case basis rather than to deal with coastal erosion as a national priority impacting all of New Zealand.
The erosion is continuing and it’s an issue that has been well documented. But concerted action seems to be lagging behind and more procrastination can only put communities at greater risk.
