New reports highlight flood risk under climate change
Reports from NIWA and the Deep South National Science Challenge reveal new information about how many New Zealanders, how many buildings and how much infrastructure could be affected by extreme river and coastal flooding from storms and sea-level rise.
One report looks at what would happen when rivers are flooded by heavy rain and storms, while the other examines flooding exposure in coastal and harbour areas and how that might change with sea-level rise.
The findings show that across the country almost 700,000 people and 411,516 buildings worth $135 billion are presently exposed to river flooding in the event of extreme weather events.
With climate change, more extreme rainfall events are expected to occur – but weren’t covered in this report. Also exposed are 19,098 km of roads, 1574km of railways and 20 airports.