Region at risk from rising sea levels

MARTIN DE RUYTER/ The Nelson Mail

BEACH FRONT: Kaye McNabb, general manager for Nelson Airport, and Andy Booth, of Nelson Company SolarCity, with a red ribbon that signifies the predicted rise in sea levels over the next 100 years and the impact it will have on Nelson Airport which is less than 1 metre above the present sea level.

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Cawthron report on the effects of climate change on the Nelson-Tasman region

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Large parts of Motueka, central Nelson, the Wood and Tahunanui may be drowned by rising sea levels in 100 years, putting a billion dollars' worth of assets at risk, a new Cawthron Institute climate change report warns.

The report, commissioned by Nelson solar company SolarCity, also shows that Nelson Airport, the Boulder Bank, Trafalgar Park, Waimea Estuary and large parts of Farewell Spit will be at risk.

Cawthron Institute sustainable business group manager Jim Sinner said the estimates "could be considered a worst-case scenario".

"But it's in the likely range of facts if the world continues to experience rapid economic growth based on fossil fuel," he said.

The report was based on new scientific research from Greenland and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, including that of Victoria University's Tim Naish. It found sea levels were more likely to rise quicker, contrary to earlier projections.

SolarCity chief executive Andrew Booth said there had been little attention on how much climate change was going to cost communities like Nelson. He commissioned the report because he wanted to know what would happen to Nelson if carbon emissions were not drastically cut by 2020.

Mr Booth, whose business is as a provider in the Nelson City Council's solar-city scheme, hoped to encourage community action and business planning over climate change.

"I don't think any community wants to deal with the types of consequences that Cawthron Institute highlights," he said. "I think everyone would much prefer to pull together to try to reduce their own personal emissions now as much as they can to try to stop it happening."

The report said ratepayers would bear the cost of protecting or relocating community assets vulnerable to flooding. Mr Sinner said if there was a billion dollars at risk, "you don't just plan for the most likely scenarios; you also need to consider the plausible range of effects of what could happen".

However, Nelson MP and Environment Minister Nick Smith said putting the community to "huge expense" on the basis of one scientific report would be "unwise", although town planners needed to take long-term projections into account.

Dr Smith said a rise of 1.9m was significantly more than Niwa was advising the Government. Its prediction was between 0.5m and 0.8m. However, although there was uncertainty about the extent of sea levels rising, climate change still needed to be taken seriously.

"Nelson is responsible for only a fraction of global emissions ... but we still need to do our fair share," he said.

The report also showed a 1m sea-level rise would have water lapping the runways of Nelson Airport, while 1.9m would swamp them. Nelson Airport chief executive Kaye McNabb said that although the area had been flagged as an inundation area for a while, it was the first time she had seen such a "graphic" representation and the report was "sobering reading".

Nelson Chamber of Commerce chief executive Dot Kettle said the chamber welcomed the report, not least because it spelled out the consequences of climate change on the Nelson region very simply.

Ms Kettle urged all business to "take heed of emerging science". A business sustainability audit would help reduce energy costs as well as making a contribution on a bigger scale, she said.

Nelson Marlborough Seafood Cluster executive chairman Ron Heath said the report was based on extreme estimates.

Mr Heath, who is a former assistant vice-chancellor of sciences at Otago University, said the report was based on the Antarctic ice shelves melting, and there was conjecture over whether that would actually happen.

"The estimates are only as good as we understand the models themselves but we just don't understand all the processes. There is still a lot of work to be done."

Nelson city councillor Ian Barker said he thought the evidence to support the conclusions was not credible. There had been an effort in recent years to manipulate the record of temperature to show that there had been a rise in temperature when there had been none.

"So a pragmatic person like myself questions whether man-made emissions have had the effect that could lead to predictions like this. I think we should be more worried about how the world is going to be spending billions of dollars to try to fix something that is not a problem."

AT A GLANCE

Nelson in 100 years – impact of a 1.9m rise in sea level and a 2.5-degree rise in temperature:

* More storms of greater intensity.

* More and stronger gales.

* Flooding from the Maitai, which already overflows its banks during the highest tides, will increase.

* More flooding from high tides in other low-lying areas of the city.

* More mosquitoes, blowflies, termites, jellyfish, wasps, which will find it easier to invade in warmer temperatures.

* Estuaries and wetlands drowned.

* More crop diseases such as fungi and botrytis.

* 10 per cent increase in rainfall – but drought, flooding and erosion will worsen.

* Impact on tourism, fishing, aquaculture, forestry and horticulture.

- Source: Cawthron Report 1699: Effects of Climate Change on the Nelson-Tasman Region.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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Erolgo   #4   11:09 am Dec 08 2009

@ Rex: If you'd applied that same logic in 1900 to predicting population growth, you'd never have believed we've got 5 billion people on the planet now. Even if you doubled the 1900 population growth rate! Things can more than double you know.

Rob(bed)   #3   10:58 am Dec 08 2009

This ETS (emission trading scam) must be the biggest rort ever. Global warming proved too much to hogwash us so climate change was invented. We are now paying for ETS on our petrol, in January we start paying on our electricity bills. Seems the head of NASA, Hanson, who was responsible for some of the data supporting climate change, is part of a company that has just been reported as having made a billion dollars in carbon credit trading HMM! The university of East Anglia was found out on its flawed data supporting this garbage. Key's government, which is nothing more than the business round table that now wears a feathered cloak, has said that we, the customers of these big companies will have to pay their carbon credits. What a load of old cobblers and good on you OZ, don't let the slimeballs get you too!

Rex   #2   11:11 pm Dec 07 2009

What a pack of dropkicks. If you doubled the current estimated (and unproven) yearly sea rise of 1.4mm you get 280 mm or 11.2 inches in 100 yrs. That is a lot less than your 1900mm (6.3 feet) where are your heads at? Isn't there any liability for media propagating the drivell of over paid nutjobs from our scientific institutions?

Steve   #1   04:21 pm Dec 07 2009

Future sea level rises and flooding of certain residential areas from increased rainfall (plus higher winds) was a consideration when we moved house recently.

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