New NIWA-led research shows increasing flood risk is going to be what leads people to make changes to adapt to sea-level rise.“Rising seas are slowly causing a trifecta of impacts along coastlines in Aotearoa: increasingly frequent flooding, coastal erosion and even permanent inundation,” says Dr Scott Stephens, NIWA Chief Scientist for Coasts & Estuaries.

“The people within MENAR are saltwater people, they rely heavily on the sea, to the point that if their fish stocks collapse it would be a catastrophe,” says Pete Waldie , a coastal fisheries scientist with The Nature Conservancy’s Melanesia program .

French policy places a duty on local authorities to develop plans by 2020, identifying the areas at serious risk of coastal flooding or erosion, what needs to be relocated and how (including sources of funding).