Nationwide, councils were legally required to manage flood risks in planning decisions, especially with more frequent adverse weather expected because of climate change.<\/p>\n
It was costly work and could impact people\u2019s property values, especially in areas confirmed to have flood risk.<\/p>\n
The Southland Regional Council recently completed work to widen a section of the river channel south of the main bridge entry into Gore, removing nearly 22,000cu m of sediment to increase flow capacity.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the district council\u2019s proposed plan required new builds in the Gore township to be constructed metres higher than what many were now, so they were prepared for a one-in-200-year flood.<\/p>\n
The flood modelling scenario and subsequent construction requirements for those in the flood zone prompted some appeals against the plan.<\/p>\n
Gore Mayor Ben Bell said regardless of the plan process outcome, flood risk management would need to be looked at.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will have to have a conversation as a community around whether Southland spends a lot of money on flood mitigation, which in my personal opinion I think is a good thing. I think that you can mitigate the Mataura River,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOr whether it is that managed retreat.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said locals and riverside farmers would be impacted by future flood resilience decisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a very large catchment, so there\u2019s lots of opportunity to do river mitigation further up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s really the responsibility of the regional council to get on with that and listen to the views of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bell said other districts such as Buller on the West Coast lacked flood mitigation options, so were having more active conversations around managed retreat.<\/p>\n
One district plan appellant, advocacy group Groundswell, awaited mediation proceedings with local government officials.<\/p>\n
Last week, it took a petition against Gore\u2019s flood modelling requirements with more than 3200 signatures to the district council chambers.<\/p>\n
Co-founder Bryce McKenzie said the requirement to plan and build for a one-in-200 year flood was unworkable and put a \u201cmassive burden\u201d on residents in the flood zone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s things that we think could be looked at rather than put all the cost and burden on to the residents that live in that zone,\u201d McKenzie said.<\/p>\n
He said more flood mitigation work had to be done in affected areas, like removing mud and gravel from the Gore bridge\u2019s piers.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The regional council\u2019s] just done some widening of the river at the bottom end of Gore, and they claim that\u2019s going to increase the flow by 13%.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlood banks could actually be widened and even made a bit higher as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always been opposition to cleaning rivers out. But let\u2019s face it, if we don\u2019t start doing that, we\u2019re going to be in major trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
Further flood mitigation work underway<\/p>\n
As part of the Mataura River Flood Resilience project, Environment Southland was now reviewing 14.5km of flood management assets including stopbanks, many of which were owned by the Gore District Council.<\/p>\n
It would also assess existing mitigation infrastructure and identify improvements needed.<\/p>\n
The project had about $10.8 million in Government co-funding, with $7.2m from Environment Southland.<\/p>\n
Environment Southland said some flood assets were upgraded in Gore, Mataura and Wyndham between 2021 and 2024, also supported by Government co-funding.<\/p>\n
General manager of integrated catchment management, Lucy Hicks, said climate change was expected to bring more intense rainfall, larger floods and more frequent severe weather events.<\/p>\n
She said the Matarua River Flood Resilience Project would be delivered in stages to improve resilience.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe river has a long history of overflowing onto its floodplain,\u201d Hicks said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs communities, businesses, farmland and infrastructure have developed alongside the river, the consequences of flooding have become more significant.<\/p>\n
\u201cOngoing investment in maintenance, upgrades and targeted adaptation is needed to sustain agreed service levels, recognising that flood defences reduce effects but cannot guarantee protection in all events.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hicks said it expected to complete a list of possible works by mid-next year.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The project] will help identify potential future work and may support subsequent business cases and applications for Government co-funding. <\/p>\n
\u201cAny future projects would remain subject to further investigation, funding decisions and necessary approvals. This process will be commencing in the next three months.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the Mataura Blueprint will bring together technical information, community perspectives and other evidence to inform longer-term flood-risk decisions and investment, and was expected to be completed by mid-2028.<\/p>\n
The regional council was also purchasing new river-level and rainfall monitoring sites and cameras, with funding from a separate co-funded $500,000 Mataura Flood Warning Network Resilience Project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nationwide, councils were legally required to manage flood risks in planning decisions, especially with more frequent adverse weather…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[33846,273,24925,111137,10934,28205,130,111,139,69,156371,12879,6739,147,8128,28206,14638,4576],"class_list":["post-614282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-along","tag-environment","tag-flood","tag-mataura","tag-mayor","tag-monique","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-progresses","tag-resilience","tag-river","tag-science","tag-southlands","tag-steele","tag-wants","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614282","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=614282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}