Over the years, we have seen frequent and severe extreme weather events.
In 2018, cylones Fehi and Gita swept the region one after the other causing havoc. In 2019, a hot dry summer resulted
in a large fire across Pigeon Valley forcing Wakefield residents to evacuate. Last August, continuous heavy rain caused severe landslips and floods in and around Nelson, dramatically impacting our communities and demanding long and expensive recovery work.
These events impose a heavy cost on communities, businesses and councils, not just financially, but also emotionally, socially, and environmentally.
We are also seeing changes in weather patterns and ongoing gradual change like sea-level rise.
These gradual changes aff ect, and will continue to affect, the environment, people, communities,
and the regional economies.
Tasman District Council and Nelson City Council are taking action to understand how a changing
climate and worsening climate-related weather events may impact what we care about. To this
end, both councils have been working on a joint Regional Climate Change Risk Assessment that
can inform the development of a range of adaptation options and strategies.
They’d like bringing citizen’s local knowledge, unique perspective and expertise to the different locally based workshops that they are organising over the next weeks.
More information here: Invitation to a Climate Change Risk Assessment workshop and here NTCCRA_Overview