Hawke’s Bay, Friday 9 May, 2025 – A key milestone report examining climate change risk for Hawke’s Bay, has been released today.

The Climate Change Risk Assessment report, the first of its kind for the region, was commissioned by the Climate Action Joint Committee (CAJC), made up of local and regional council representatives and tangata whenua leaders, working together to drive co-ordinated regional climate action.

 CAJC Chair Xan Harding welcomes the report as foundational evidence for the region.

“Climate change means our environment is changing, and we need to understand those changes and how they could impact our way of life. Several regions across Aotearoa New Zealand have commissioned similar risk assessment reports to inform their decision-making about how to respond to a changing climate. It is incredibly positive for Hawke’s Bay that we now have the information we need in one report to help us understand the broad range of risks we face and to inform conversations about reducing risk by adapting and building resilience.

“This assessment is an important resource, bringing together the best available information and evidence to paint a picture of how the impacts of climate change will likely be experienced across the region, affecting Hawke’s Bay places and people, both now and into the future, if we take no further action to mitigate the effects of climate change.

“For the first time, this report presents a full range of climate risks for the region affecting the natural and built environments, people, the economy, and governance. The report gives us a snapshot of those climate risks, at regional and district levels, and shows us where our information gaps are, so we can keep building our knowledge.

“One of the key findings from this work is the significant level of variability and gaps in our climate datasets across the region. We have a foundation to work from with this report, but there is more to do so we can all be confident we are making climate risk-informed decisions based on consistent data that is as complete as possible.

“We are all affected by climate change, and this report is for everybody. It will help to inform us all – councils, mana whenua and communities, public services, businesses and critical lifeline services – to better understand the risks and take action.

“It means we can make more informed decisions together about how we reduce risks, take advantage of new opportunities, and adapt in ways that will have positive inter-generational impacts,” says Mr Harding.

KEY FINDINGS – REGIONAL

Climate change is projected to substantially alter weather patterns and environmental conditions in the coming decades, with significant implications for the human, built and natural environments. Ex-tropical cyclones will likely become more intense, packing stronger winds and heavier rainfall. Fire seasons will get longer and more dangerous with increased risks of wildfires, droughts will become more common, putting additional stress on the primary sector and water resources. There will be more hot days, and fewer overnight frosts. This means warmer temperatures overall, which will affect everything from farming to wildlife.

The report assesses regional climate change risks across six categories; risk to the natural environment, built environment, human, economic, governance, and iwi Māori, with key regional findings as follows.

Natural environment

Climate change will exacerbate existing threats to Hawke’s Bay’s biodiversity. These can include increased pressures from mammalian predators, faster spread of invasive species, accelerated habitat loss and fragmentation, and increased sedimentation in waterways following extreme rainfall events. Native species already under pressure will face additional stresses as temperature and rainfall patterns shift. Marine environments will experience rising temperatures, ocean acidification, and sea level rise, affecting coastal habitats and marine species.

Built environment

Some of the region's buildings and infrastructure face increasing risks from multiple hazards. Coastal flooding will progressively impact more assets as sea levels rise, particularly in low-lying urban areas. River and rainfall flooding poses immediate and increasing risks to commercial, residential, and industrial buildings across all districts. Critical infrastructure networks including transportation, electricity distribution, and three waters systems show significant vulnerability, with potential for cascading failures during extreme events.

Human

Climate change will impact community wellbeing through both direct exposure to hazards and indirect effects on social systems. Vulnerable populations, including those in areas of higher socioeconomic deprivation, face disproportionate risks from flooding and isolation. Mental health impacts are expected to increase from both acute disaster events and chronic stressors like drought or recurring floods. Community cohesion may be challenged as climate impacts affect liveability in certain areas. Access to essential services could be compromised during hazard events, with isolation risks particularly high in rural areas.

Economic

The regional economy faces significant disruption from climate change, with both direct damage to assets and broader challenges to tourism, industries, manufacturing and the service sector region wide. Primary industries including agriculture, horticulture and forestry will experience shifting seasonal patterns affecting production cycles, increased water stress during critical growing periods, and greater risks from extreme weather events. Manufacturing, retail, and service sectors face substantial risks from infrastructure disruption and isolation, potentially affecting supply chains and workforce availability. Tourism may experience both challenges from extreme events and opportunities from longer summer seasons.

Governance

Climate change presents complex challenges for the region's governance domain. Unmitigated climate impacts may be perceived by communities as a failure of authorities to protect property and life, eroding trust in governing institutions. This erosion will be accelerated where impacts exacerbate existing socioeconomic inequities. Key governance challenges include balancing immediate priorities with long-term planning, working across traditional disciplinary boundaries, and maintaining progress through political cycles. The potential for misalignment between national policy frameworks and local implementation capacity creates additional complexity, as councils must translate broad strategic direction into practical local actions with limited resources. The increasing frequency of emergency response operations further strains governance capacity and potentially diverts resources and funds from adaptation planning.

Iwi/Māori

Māori in the region face unique exposure, risks and sensitivities to climate change. Key hazards as identified in this assessment are river, rainfall, and coastal flooding. The harms associated with being exposed to these hazards can be exacerbated by the existing health and socioeconomic inequities that many Māori experience. Such hazards can undermine Māori cultural wellbeing through the degradation of and/or loss of connection to the natural environment and damage and/or loss of cultural sites and associated practices.

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council Chair Hinewai Ormsby says: “This report gives us a shared foundation of knowledge and empowers us to take action. Climate change is reshaping our region, and the protections we’ve relied on in the past will no longer be enough. That’s why at the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council we are investing in new flood defences, restoring wetlands, securing our future water supply, and working alongside our communities to adapt to climate change with strength and care. Together, with courage,  we can build a safer, more resilient Hawke’s Bay — for our communities and for generations to come."

KEY FINDINGS – DISTRICT LEVEL

The key findings for each district are included in the supplemental information for media.

Each district-level assessment in the report focuses on hazard exposure of assets and people, including risks to physical infrastructure, communities and the local economy.  Differences in available datasets, and the variability of the hazard datasets across the region mean that the district-level findings in this report cannot be directly compared. The report notes this is also not the intent of doing these kinds of risk assessment.

The exposure figures presented for buildings and infrastructure should be interpreted as indicating areas of potential risk rather than as predictions of outcomes during specific flood events. In this assessment, water depths exceeding 10cm were used when assessing exposure. 

Exposure doesn't automatically equate to damage. Some exposed assets may be designed to withstand a level of hazard without damage or disruption. For example, a building on raised foundations may be exposed to shallow flooding but experience no significant impacts.

The report provides more information on the hazard datasets used for this assessment, including event likelihoods (Annual Exceedance Probability or AEP) and how the modelling takes climate change into account. A 1% AEP is an event that has a 1% chance of occurring each year.

Central Hawkes’ Bay District Council Mayor Alex Walker says:  “This report is fundamental to the future of Central Hawke's Bay, and how we manage and mitigate the risks of climate change. The relationships and knowledge built through the Joint Committee since 2023 have been important building blocks for us.

 “As a rural community in a drought-prone district, we understand the importance of this foundational knowledge better than some.  We have felt the impacts of climate change.  Our producers are constantly looking at ways to evolve, so they can withstand climate change's brute force each time it strikes.   We must arm them with as much knowledge as we can.  We must also protect our most vulnerable, which this report highlights.

 “Where and how we live, and work in our district will change, and how we invest in our infrastructure must be responsible and informed.  As kaitiaki of $1billion of infrastructure assets throughout the district,  we must ensure every dollar we spend to repair, rebuild or improve is done through a lens of a changing climate. This is why we are part of the collaborative work in the region on climate change. 

 “This report is both the culmination of a lot of hard work, and the green light for more hard work to be started. We're just getting started,” says Mayor Walker.

Sandra Hazlehurst, Mayor of Hastings District Council says: “The Climate Risk Assessment Report is the next step in understanding the climate risk facing our region’s future. For Heretaunga Hastings, it confirms the importance of our people’s safety through climate change, making sure we are carefully planning on where people will live and protecting critical infrastructure services.

“Since Cyclone Gabrielle we have rolled out 44 community emergency hubs, to support community-level emergency response. In the past few years we have invested in coastal resilience projects at Haumoana, Te Awanga, and Waimārama. We are rebuilding and improving culverts, bridges, roads, and stormwater systems for our community resilience and to support emergency management. These practical, future-focused actions will make a real difference for our people and this regional report highlights the importance of this continuing work,” says Mayor Hazlehurst.

Napier City Mayor Kirsten Wise says: “Climate change adaptation is a big part of Napier’s work programme and resilience is one of our core principles. That’s why having as many tools and as much knowledge as possible on climate risks is important to us. Our focus is on our community and making sure it has everything it needs to plan for a safe, healthy and successful future.

 “This report is based on data provided by the region, and one of the things it highlights is the need to ensure we have high-quality data to feed into work like this. To identify our priorities and to ensure we are being financially astute on behalf of our community, our decisions must be based on evidence, and it’s helpful to share that across the region. Our adaptation though, must be locally led and it must be a continuous process of assessing, planning, implementing and reviewing,” says Mayor Wise.

Wairoa District Council Mayor Craig Little says: “Wairoa people have really suffered, and are still suffering, from the flooding and weather events of the last few years. We know that over the last century, Wairoa has been impacted by numerous flooding events, and we appreciate that Central Government has ring-fenced $70 million for flood mitigation for our town.

“While the Wairoa Flood Mitigation Project is our priority. We are also focused on rebuilding and developing resilience and will continue to collaborate on regional climate action initiatives as well as exploring all options to protect our future generations as best we can.

“We know there are many information gaps relating to climate change risks in Wairoa, and our hope is that through this regional assessment these areas will be identified, so we can have an accurate and full picture of our risks,” says Mayor Little.

NEXT STEPS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR FURTHER WORK 

The report doesn’t tell us what to do, says Mr Harding, but does outline opportunities for further work to build on this report at regional and local levels.

Enhancing the regional evidence base: Developing consistent hazard modelling across districts would substantially strengthen future risk assessments and adaptation planning. Priorities include comprehensive flood modelling, coastal assessments, groundwater monitoring, and improved understanding of infrastructure vulnerabilities.

Supporting infrastructure resilience: Continued collaboration with lifeline providers and the Hawke's Bay Lifelines Group to examine interdependencies between critical systems will strengthen regional resilience planning.

Enabling Māori-led adaptation: The findings can support climate adaptation and resilience kaupapa across the region by weaving together mātauranga Māori with technical assessments to strengthen understanding of climate risks.

Integrating climate risk considerations: Councils and organisations can embed climate risk considerations into operations and long-term strategies through regional guidelines, monitoring frameworks, and collaborative initiatives.

Empowering locally-led action: Each district can deepen their understanding through local assessments of vulnerable infrastructure and community engagement to define adaptation priorities and risk tolerances that reflect local values.

“As far as future adaptation work is concerned, that is for all of us – communities and councils – to decide together.

“Doing this work enables us to move from reactive to proactive adaptation planning and risk-informed future investments and decision-making. The report will help inform future climate adaptation work as well as community conversations about where and how we prioritise actions to address our climate risks over time. Councils will be able to use the report to support their planning and decision making.

“The report notes that many climate adaptation decisions require a long-term mindset which can conflict with present day challenges and resource allocation discussions, further heightened by the three-year electoral cycle.

“No matter where you are in Hawke’s Bay, you are affected by climate change.  With this information we can better understand the impacts and factor that into our planning for the future.

“Adapting to climate change is an enormous challenge. It will require changing how we do things, so our people, our places, and our systems can adapt and be resilient. This doesn’t just apply here in Te Matau a Māui Hawke’s Bay, but across the entire country. By working together now to understand the risks and taking action to manage them here in Hawke’s Bay we can meet this challenge,” he concluded.

About the Climate Action Joint Committee

The Committee is a joint council, tangata whenua committee brought together to drive co-ordinated regional climate action, and was formed in 2023, after the last local body elections.

Its purpose is collaborative leadership to support the region to address the complex challenges of climate change and its impacts. Specifically, to support co-ordinated and collaborative responses to climate resilient development, to promote action to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and to support communities and industries to become resilient to climate change.  

The Climate Change Risk Assessment report is a key deliverable for the joint committee.

The 20-strong committee comprises two representatives from each of the region’s councils, representatives from post treaty settlement group entities, and two from Ngāti Kahungunu Taiwhenua and Board representatives on the Regional Māori Committee.  The Chair of the Joint Committee is HBRC Councillor Xan Harding, and the Deputy Chair is Napier City Councillor Hayley Browne.

About the Climate Change Risk Assessment Report

The assessment was undertaken and associated report compiled by Urban Intelligence, risk specialists who supports their clients and communities to navigate climate change, by understanding climate change risk.  Urban Intelligence has undertaken climate risk assessments and supported other local councils around New Zealand in their climate risk and adaptation work programmes. They also supported the work of the Climate Change Commission in 2024 to assess national adaptation progress.

The assessment was undertaken using information and data from a range of national, regional and district sources. This includes public information sources like the Hawke’s Bay Hazard Portal. Most of the data is held by councils, government agencies, research institutes and the economic sector.  The report synthesises available and accessible data appropriate for this level of assessment with expert analysis to present a broad range of climate risks and their likely impacts.

The regional risk assessment looks at six categories or domains, consistent with the Ministry for the Environment guidance and the approach taken to the first National Climate Change Risk Assessment. These domains provide a framework for assessing our complex and interconnected world. The interdependencies between the domains highlights the critical need to understand not only the direct risks arising from climate change, but the indirect, cascading and compounding risks as well.

• Natural Environment: All aspects of the natural environment.
• Built Environment: Physical infrastructure, transport and buildings.
• Human: People’s skills, knowledge, health, social norms, and cultural aspects.
• Economic: Production, distribution, trade, and consumption arrangements.
• Governance: Governance processes and institutions.
• Iwi/Māori: Whānau/hapū/iwi networks, businesses, assets and taonga.

Despite variations in available datasets for each district, a consistent approach has been taken to assess risk at a district-level. Coastal flooding, river and rainfall flooding, and landslides were selected as the hazards to analyse at a district level, with the report including an assessment of impacts to physical infrastructure, communities and local economies.  

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