Two major reports released in recent weeks help illustrate the scale of New Zealand\u2019s climate adaptation challenge \u2013 and some of the biggest barriers to tackling it.<\/p>\n
The Climate Change Commission has found<\/a> the country\u2019s adaptation efforts are still not keeping pace with growing climate risks, with progress uneven and some areas slipping further behind.<\/p>\n It cited the potential for working more with nature to reduce those risks, but found this was being hampered by a lack of action, supportive policy and funding.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, an analysis<\/a> from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment highlights a parallel obstacle: that information needed to make good environmental decisions is often fragmented, inaccessible or difficult to combine.<\/p>\n In our warming world, both reports reflect the need for a more strategic approach that nature-based solutions<\/a> can help provide. Rather than relying solely on engineered defences, these solutions use natural systems to help manage climate impacts.<\/p>\n Protecting a community from flooding, for example, might involve restoring an upstream wetland, giving a river more room to move or strategically revegetating parts of a catchment \u2013 potentially reducing the need for ever-larger stopbanks.<\/p>\n But knowing which of these approaches will work \u2013 and where \u2013 depends on having the right information, along with the right system to support it.<\/p>\n Turning information into action<\/p>\n For all their promise, nature-based solutions won\u2019t work equally well everywhere.<\/p>\n A wetland might reduce flooding in one part of a catchment but make little difference elsewhere. Similarly, re-vegetating an erosion-prone slope may deliver far greater benefits than planting already stable farmland.<\/p>\n Nor does every restoration project necessarily qualify as a nature-based solution.<\/p>\n Such interventions need to address a defined problem, work at an appropriate ecological scale and produce measurable benefits once implemented. International standards<\/a> also require these projects to be practical, well governed and monitored over time to ensure they are working.<\/p>\n In recent research<\/a>, we argued that strategic native re-vegetation needs to work at three levels: national priorities, ecological processes across landscapes, and decisions made on individual farms and other whenua<\/a> (land).<\/p>\n The landscape, such as a river catchment, is where these ecological processes come together, while individual farms and properties are where action typically happens.<\/p>\n A federated environmental data system<\/a> proposed by the parliamentary commissioner could provide an important foundation for this kind of strategic thinking. But better-organised data alone won\u2019t be enough.<\/p>\n What\u2019s missing is what we call a \u201clandscape intelligence\u201d system. This would bring together information about ecosystems, hazards, land use and communities, alongside the tools needed to turn that information into practical decisions.<\/p>\n New Zealand already has many working examples<\/a> to show both the potential of using better information for climate adaptation \u2013 and its limitations. Our own work in Doubtless Bay<\/a>, Te Tai Tokerau, is one of them.<\/p>\n The catchment faces a range of climate-related risks, alongside declining freshwater and coastal habitats. Through the Department of Conservation\u2019s Ng\u0101 Awa programme<\/a>, restoration ecologist Adam Forbes and I worked with hap\u016b and other community members to explore<\/a> how revegetation could support climate adaptation.<\/p>\n We combined local knowledge with spatial data to identify potential nature-based solutions and to map environmental vulnerabilities<\/a> across the catchment. This showed where problems such as erosion, poor water quality and flooding overlap \u2013 and where revegetation or wetland restoration could deliver several benefits at once.<\/p>\n But maps can only take us so far. They can\u2019t tell us whether a landowner can afford the recommended work, how restoration costs should be shared among those who benefit, or whether nature-based solutions, engineering or a combination of the two would work best.<\/p>\n Making those decisions requires more than good environmental information. It also requires modelling and economic analysis, Te Tiriti-informed governance and credible ways of financing the work.<\/p>\n The cost of waiting<\/p>\n The costs of climate change are already being felt<\/a> by communities across New Zealand. Yet 97% of government spending<\/a> on natural hazards since 2010 has gone towards response and recovery, compared with just 3% for risk reduction and resilience.<\/p>\n The longer New Zealand delays investing in climate adaptation, the greater those costs are likely to become. All the while, catchment groups, hap\u016b<\/a>, landowners and volunteers are developing local plans, gathering environmental information and putting nature-based solutions and restoration projects into practice.<\/p>\n Much of this work is being done with limited support, with no clear pathway for turning local priorities into sustained public investment.<\/p>\n That is not a durable national adaptation strategy. Communities cannot be expected to build long-term responses to climate change around volunteer labour, fragmented information and temporary grants.<\/p>\n New approaches to nature finance<\/a>, such as those being developed by the digital platform Toha Network<\/a>, could help share the costs of nature-based solutions across the public and private sectors.<\/p>\n