The Paris Climate accord has tried to cap global warming at 1.5C.<\/p>\n
A recent United Nations report cautions that there is an 86% likelihood global temperatures will exceed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels within the next five years, with a 1% chance of reaching 2C. <\/p>\n
Predictions by the United States-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show the Earth is tracking towards 2.7C above pre-industrial levels by 2100.<\/p>\n
University of Waikato professor Iain White and associate professor Silvia Serrao-Neumann convened river managers, iwi, government agencies, financial institutions and other key stakeholders to address the flooding hazard.<\/p>\n
Flood risk management varies by region, and there is no consistent method to assess current or future flood risk under climate change, Serrao-Neumann said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLocal and regional governments also vary in how they manage and reduce these risks.\u201d<\/p>\n
A project outcome is the country\u2019s first consistent flood hazard viewer.<\/p>\n
Research helped provide a consistent and co-ordinated approach to understanding, measuring and communicating flood risk at a national level, Serrao-Neumann said.<\/p>\n
Nearly 26,800km of the nation\u2019s roads, 14,100km of stormwater pipelines and 21% of national substations are also exposed to flooding under New Zealand\u2019s current climate, programme leader and principal hazards scientist at Earth Sciences New Zealand, Emily Lane, said.<\/p>\n
It could rise to 30,800 km, 15,400km and 29% respectively.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur country\u2019s flood risk is increasing and not just in places where we can remember floods occurring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rapid urban intensification is another contributing factor, Lane said.<\/p>\n
The research showed notable regional differences in exposure, with 8% of people in Taranaki affected by one-in-100-year rainfall events under current climate conditions, compared with 34% on the West Coast.<\/p>\n
The findings are the culmination of a five-year national flood risk research programme.<\/p>\n
It involved wide-ranging collaboration with other research organisations, universities, councils, central government agencies and industry.<\/p>\n
Dr Lane says the flood risk viewer complements localised maps already developed by many of New Zealand\u2019s regional and unitary councils.<\/p>\n
It is the first time that rainfall flood maps covering different regions of the country can be viewed in a single online tool.<\/p>\n
The mapping workflow was carried out for New Zealand\u2019s current climate and then repeated for the three climate-change scenarios and compared with the current climate, Earth Sciences principal climate scientist Sam Dean said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIncreasing extreme rainfall due to climate change is one of the biggest and most impactful hazards faced by New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n
The building of towns and flood defences has been shaped by historical floods that are no longer a reliable guide to the future, Dean said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPredicting how flood risk is going to change is important to ensure we can protect people and places that we value in the most cost-effective way.\u201d <\/p>\n
The flood hazard viewer provides a bird\u2019s-eye view to identify high-risk areas, aiding policy development, risk assessment, and investment prioritisation.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment\u2019s Endeavour Fund paid for the research.<\/p>\n
Tom Eley is a multimedia journalist at the Waikato Herald. He previously worked for the Weekend Sun and Sunlive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Paris Climate accord has tried to cap global warming at 1.5C. A recent United Nations report cautions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[96005,95,3685,24925,1437,23500,14153,111,43,139,69,96006,6046,34091,530,7192,418,1361,1524,51463],"class_list":["post-141628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-96005","tag-and","tag-events","tag-flood","tag-global","tag-impact","tag-modelling","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-onein100year","tag-potential","tag-rainfall","tag-residents","tag-risk","tag-shows","tag-that","tag-waikato","tag-warming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}