The Changing Coastline

[Brent George]

A cadastral boundary is being severely affected by Mother Nature in this coastal environment...
Stuff: 11-July-2019

Some nice drone video and still aerial images in this report highlighting coastal erosion at Patiti Point - near Timaru.
This cause-and-effect is an on-going issue along the eastern coastline of both Islands - exacerbated by extreme weather events and sea-level rise.  

[Brent George]

Another dramatic example of coastal erosion affecting a long-term residential area:-
Stuff: 8-Sept-2019

This time at Port Waikato.

[Brent George]

Managed retreat for Kāpiti Coast park will go ahead:
Stuff - Environment: 2-Oct-2019

A stitch in time, or a hopeless cause?
There is an engineering solution for most things, but Mother Nature/Mother Earth will prevail.....

[Brent George]

This report describes in text and imagery the rapid and recent coastline change at Carters beach near Westport.
Stuff - National: 16-Nov-2019

One gets the feeling these situations are not going to diminish ....

[Brent George]

We'll need to retreat from rising seas. A new law could set the path.
Stuff - Environment: 6-August-2020

As homes teeter on coastal cliffs and are pummelled by waves, the country faces tough decisions about how we’ll protect and re-home at-risk property owners as a warmer planet causes the oceans to rise.

As part of a review of the Resource Management Act, an expert panel suggested new legislation to settle these issues – a Managed Retreat and Climate Change Adaptation Act.


'People have lived there 30 years' — Breaking bad news about rising tides.
Stuff - Environment: 11-August-2020

In coastal and low-lying areas across the country, councils are sitting down with communities to warn them the seas are rising due to climate change.

It’s an issue that will emerge – at an accelerating pace – over the coming decades. In some places, we’ll be able to temporarily protect the houses, roads and community facilities in the ocean’s path with sea walls and other physical protections, before being forced to retreat.

It’s tough news to break to a community, according to a new report from Local Government NZ, which summarises the efforts of Christchurch City, Dunedin City and Kaipara District Councils. “The uncertainty and the risk of loss of autonomy associated with climate change has flow-on consequences for well-being, mental health and community cohesion,” the document highlights.

[Brent George]

North Canterbury coastal communities could be underwater in 100 years:
Stuff -Environmental: 23-Sept-2020

North Canterbury’s coastal communities are under threat, with modelling showing erosion and flooding over the next century could wipe them out.


The Hurunui District Council has started a series of meetings with those likely to be most affected – residents at Leithfield and Amberley beaches, Motunau, Gore Bay, Claverley, and part of Conway Flat Rd.

[Brent George]

And some higher-profile exposure (excuse the pun) of the coastal erosion problem.
Stuff - Lifestyle: 28-Sep-2020
A feature episode on the popular "Grand Designs: NZ" series currently screening.  

Are these people short-sited; revolutionary; mad; brave; or got more money than sense?

In any event, the bach on the coast is (generally) a favourable Kiwi habitat.... 

[Brent George]

Homes on parts of New Zealand’s coast will begin losing access to affordable insurance within 15 years, according to a stark new report.

Wellington will be hit first, and Christchurch hardest, but all four major cities will be affected, according to new research led by climate and insurance specialist Belinda Storey for the Deep South National Science Challenge.

By 2050, at least 10,000 homes in our biggest cities will be effectively uninsurable, however spiking premiums and policy exclusions could start being felt as soon as a decade from now, it concluded.

Stuff - Environment: 2-Dec-2020

[Brent George]

Port Waikato resident's home on borrowed time.
Stuff - National: 24-Jan-2021

When Jo Poland bought at Port Waikato in 1994, she looked at the turquoise ocean through rows of undulating dunes and thought she'd won big.  The $34,000 section on Ocean View Road was the 68-year-old’s ticket to building a family holiday home and a relaxed retirement.

But living by the beach isn’t relaxed when the sea could wipe out your home in two decades.  Erosion has made the dunes, once deep gullies where Poland’s family lit bonfires, precarious cliffs.

At Port Waikato, the sea has eroded about 50 metres in the last 10 to 16 years.

[Brent George]

Part of Greymouth foreshore could be lost
Stuff - National :15-April-2021

Saving parts of Cobden from the sea may be impossible in the long-term, Niwa warns.

In an updated report for the West Coast Regional Council meeting this week, the agency sets out three options for managed retreat to protect Cobden Beach from further damage from coastal erosion.  It recommends sacrificing part of Jellyman Park, and building a new rock revetment 50 metres back from the present failing seawall, as a short to medium-term measure to manage the problem.

But within 100 years, sea levels would pose a growing threat to the coastal structures and the communities behind them, Niwa said.

[Brent George]

Tiwai Point smelter toxic waste 'under considerable threat' if coast erosion trend continues.
Radio NZ News: 17-June-2021

The sea is rapidly eroding a beach in front of a mountain of toxic waste stored at Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, new coastal mapping shows.

[Brent George]

'Managed retreat' from Hawke's Bay coast discussed behind closed doors
Stuff - Environment: 3-June-2022

Discussions about ‘managed retreat’ from the Hawke’s Bay coast were held behind closed doors in Napier on Friday due to the “sensitive material” being discussed and its possible impact on businesses and property values.

The Clifton to Tangoio Coastal Hazards Strategy joint committee, charged with looking at how Napier and Hastings will deal with climate change, met to discuss a report on managed retreat in a public excluded session of its monthly meeting.

The committee, which included members of Napier City Council, Hastings District Council, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council and local iwi groups, voted unanimously to discuss the report in the public excluded session.

Discussion of the report, by Tonkin + Taylor was public excluded in order to “avoid prejudice to measures protecting the health or safety of members of the public”, “to avoid prejudice to measures that prevent or mitigate loss to members of the public” and “to prevent the disclosure or use of official information for improper gain or improper advantage”. These grounds are listed in the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act.

[Brent George]

A tiny West Coast town where 'only the strong survive' mooted as climate change refuge
Stuff - National: 25-June-2022

At Millerton the smell of burning coal still hangs in the air. Sitting 300 metres up a steep rocky hillside overlooking the Tasman Sea, it’s an unforgiving place where men worked in underground coal pits, where the cloud sets in for weeks on end and the wind and hail blow sideways.

Now, it is being mooted as the answer to nearby coastal villagers who are being inundated with sea erosion – Millerton residents say they don’t want regenerating native forest ripped up to make way for housing.

[Brent George]

Washed away - more houses on the brink at beach town
Stuff - National: 28-June-2022

Three more Port Waikato houses are uninhabitable after metres of beach were claimed by the sea in the latest storm.

The popular holiday spot on the North Island’s West Coast has long been affected by a natural phenomenon where sand movements build up, then erode the shore.

[Brent George]

The tiny Taranaki beach settlement disappearing before our eyes
Stuff - Environment: 8-Oct-2022

The world’s climate crisis is knocking on the door of a tiny Taranaki beach community where time is the enemy.

A tarot card prediction of a “life-rich” existence in a house by the sea came true for Stephen Sait.
The endless horizon line and stunning sea views are vistas he wakes up to every day.
“It’s just a dream,” the Waitara East Beach resident says.
The slice of Taranaki coastline, part of the Rohutu block, serves as his backyard and playground – the place where he has indulged his passions for surfing, fishing and environmentalism for a decade.
In that time, the seven-hectare beach front spot has seen people come and go, but the forces of nature and the changing climate have left the biggest impression, with metres of land already lost to the sea.