Clifton to Tāngōio is the most developed and populated part of the Hawke’s Bay coastline. It embraces the city of Napier and several coastal communities, along with millions of dollars’ worth of at-risk infrastructure and is subject to existing coastal hazards that are anticipated to become more severe with future climate change. Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, Hastings District Council, and Napier City Council, charged with managing the effects of coastal hazards, have developed a long-term strategy to manage them.
The Clifton to Tāngōio Coastal Strategy is a first in New Zealand, in terms of the scale and complexity of the assessment over such a large area. It was a collaborative project between councils, consultants, and academia, with a heavy emphasis on community engagement and working within the latest government guidance.
Tonkin + Taylor assisted the councils and community with state-of-the-art probabilistic coastal hazard risk assessment techniques to identify the extent of hazards and the risks to social, cultural, environmental, and economic values. We then worked with the council’s team, using the Ministry for Environment’s new pathways approach, and developed a range of adaptation options to strategically manage the possible outcomes over the next 100 years.
