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Amberley
Gibson introduced the item, which updates the committee on the regional
climate risk assessment project, and the team from Urban Intelligence (UI)
– Dr Tom Logan, Dr Alison Floyd and Dr Paula Blackett (online).
The team was joined by Liz Read from Reputation Matters who presented the
communications approach for the public release of the risk assessment report.
Discussions covered:
Councillor
Di Roadley arrived at 1.07pm
·
As
directed by the Joint Committee, TAG has prioritised the first Regional
Climate Change Risk Assessment (phase one) and gaps analysis.
· Risks are being assessed at a
regional and district level, across different value and wellbeing domains
(Natural Environment, Built Environment, Human, Economic, Governance and Risk
to Māori) from hazards to different elements, e.g. infrastructure,
amenities, culturally significant sites, ecological areas and more.
· UI is using its spatial software,
Resilience Explorer (RE), to undertake the assessment, and has been gathering
and analysing a significant amount of data and information, provided largely
by the five councils. RE, which is being used by councils around New Zealand,
can be used by adaptation advisors, asset managers, land use planners and
other decision makers.
· The output from the data analysis
and assessments will be a technical report, which will be released to the
public in March 2025.
· UI noted the key themes identified
to date.
· Next steps are to finalise the
report, to continue collecting data sets and to provide training to key
council staff on the use of RE, to which all five councils can have login
access. HBRC has a contract with UI and current license to use the software
internally. RE is updated quarterly as new data and information becomes
available, including national datasets.
· Info extracted from RE has a date
stamp to make it clear which data sets are being used at the time.
· UI is working on a public facing
version of RE.
· The current RE license runs until
April 2025 and the TAG is exploring options for continued use including joint
licensing/access arrangements.
· Adaptation is not provided for under
the RMA currently – need to look to central government for legislative
changes.
· Nichola Nicholson, Acting Manager Policy
& Planning,
advised that HBRC is currently rewriting the Regional Policy Statement (RPS)
which is able to direct district council plans. The RPS will be reviewing the
hazards risk chapter and adding a climate change chapter. The HB
independent flood review made recommendations for determining unacceptable
risk for the RPS and there is a National Policy Statement being developed
which will provide a framework for RPSs.
· The importance of supporting
communications when releasing climate risk information was noted, and that
there is a wide audience for the report including mana whenua, communities,
public service providers, business and industries, and critical lifeline
services.
· People need to know the report is
out and have consistent messaging about its importance, explaining the
purpose and snapshots at a regional level.
· All elected members and members of
the Joint Committee will be briefed ahead of the report’s public release.
·
The
technical report will not include actions or recommendations, so will be
provided for information purposes.
Robbie
Paul joined online at 2.10pm
·
It’s
important not to over complicate the release.
·
Some risks
will be better dealt with locally, and some regionally.
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