Coastal hazards in Akaroa Harbour area VIDEO

Christchurch City Council yesterday released a video on coastal hazards in the Akaroa Harbour area.

In this video, Coastal scientist Derek Todd talks about how coastal hazards could impact this area in the coming decades.

Communities in low-lying inland and coastal areas around New Zealand and the world are facing challenges with the impacts of climate change and sea-level rise.

In Ōtautahi Christchurch and Te Pātaka-o-Rākaihautū Banks Peninsula, the future is expected to bring warmer weather across all four seasons, more days of extreme wind, and more intense rainfalls.

Climate change is slowly raising the level of the sea. Water expands with heat, so warmer temperatures are causing the oceans to expand. At the same time, these higher temperatures are melting ice sheets and glaciers adding more water to the oceans.

The result is a rise in sea level that will not only affect the open coast but also allow high tides and the effects of storms to reach further inland. This means that more land may be affected by coastal flooding, erosion and rising groundwater in the future, and the severity of those impacts would likely be greater

The first step in adapting to these challenges is understanding the risks.