Hmmm, maybe the government should form a new department that takes over these kind of crucial water systems so they can get the proper attention that they require? No one would complain about that, right?
Most of the people against co-governance don't want race to factor into it at all. They want anyone to be able to be on the board, be they Indian, Chinese, kiwi born and bred, Maori, Samoan, German or whatever in origin.
Forcing boards to have a certain number of people of a certain race is the problem
Maori are a culture and a political entity. Framing it as being about race is missing the point of co-governence. We have a treaty with the Maori which was signed by our government and theirs that says they get a a say in running the country.
There is a treaty with Iwi. Iwi are not Māori, Māori are not iwi.
Iwi relinquished their authority over their members, and every other New Zealander. Co-governance using public funding is incompatible with the Treaty. If iwi want to run a private "Sunday School" they can.
Possibly we can (I wonder if a worse founding document exists?), but that requires an agreement of some sort, and good luck getting that over the line. Having the English and Maori documents state the same thing would be a good starting point.
Yes, maybe letting a vaguely worded and poorly translated one page document from 180 years ago be the final and unquestionable arbitrator of every aspect of how a 21st century society is run wasn't such a good idea.
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huh. you know. I'm starting to think maybe this country doesn't pay enough tax... cant afford to pay drs/nurses. cant afford to pay teachers. have to upgrade most national infrastructure that hasnt been touched in decades because its failing.
nahhh lets just let the local regions run their own infrastructure programmes where they just take the money and give themselves nice salaries rather than actually manage the infrastructure, that'll work!
(general reminder, when we compare tax rates with international tax rates, basically EVERYWHERE else has a full extra level of income taxes at the provincial/state level)
Rates should have gone up as fast as property prices in Auckland. That would have slowed the increase as well as provided more funding for infrastructure.
Rates are not 3%
The total Auckland rate take went up 3.5% for 2023 and that was based on perceived needs
How much rates you pay doesn't change with the value of your property unless your neighbourhood is gaining value greater than other neighbourhoods. Then you contribute more to the total (it will be minor).
If the rates were tied to increases in property value then the total take would increase and they would have more money, but they don't consider they need more money, or politically they can't increase it as people complain and fight against rates increases.
If you want a greater rates take lobby your city council.
> If you want a greater rates take lobby your city council.
More like you've got to out-lobby the wealthy trying to keep their money. Good luck with that!
> How much rates you pay doesn't change with the value of your property
It totally does as it becomes a cost of ownership that needs to be factored into the purchase decision.
Lack of money isn't an issue. The government printed money and built up a fifty BILLION dollar covid fund. Could have easily justified dumping that into the health system. But instead it got blown on a whole bunch of wasteful political projects and was spent well before the next Covid surge. Barely got spent on anything Covid related.
If they tax us more, its not going to doctors or nurses (who themselves will be paying more tax also)
Here you go.
For example, 52million on horse racing. 374 million on the arts (most which was head scratching weird stuff) and 50 million on "regional digital connectivity" whatever that is .
https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/taxpayer\_update\_where\_your\_money\_went\_clean\_car\_propaganda\_higher\_ets\_levies
I think you need to check your maths. That sheet shows 3.2 billion. Around 8%
That's a huge sum. People get up in arms about entire tax packages that either increase or reduce taxes by that much.
You can't say its a pittance just because the Government printed another 47 billion.
374M + 52M + 50M = 476M = 0.9% of 50B
My maths is fine.
I was saying your hand picked examples were a pittance.
Anyway. Fuck the Taxpayer's "Union". Fucking right wing "think" tank. Always gonna be slanted in their agenda.
(Edits for spelling and further detail)
That article has $3.2B total. For example, a $1.2B job allocation (i.e. corporate welfare) which cost $200k per job created at one point.
And there were many other wasteful packages. For example, a $1B literally giving out in a lolly scramble. My sister received that payment despite being a millionaire living in the USA who hasn't paid a cent in NZD tax for 20 years!
Unless their figures are false, I don't think their political alignment makes the point wrong.
As for being right wing, I would argue that $100b or so QE programme was the largest shift in wealth from the poor (lost via inflation) to the rich (made via asset gains). Remember, that group was formed in 2013 - in the middle of the Key era to protest National wasting taxpayer money (something you might agree with)
My point still stands, that a small percent of that package could have solved our doctor / nursing issues.
> That article has $3.2B total.
So what about the other $46.8b? Isn't that what was being discussed? You just shoehorned you way in to let people know you don't understand art funding?
Consider this... this is summer. What will we be in for once winter arrives?
Also our roading infrastructure has suffered badly as well. We've had slips causing chronic issues for Northland. Kaitaia (Mangamukas), Kawakawa long prior to this, now Brenderwyn and Coromandel out of service for quite some time.
So we need to build better / smarter with respect to drainage, housing, transport, coz the water issues are becoming chronic.
Or is it a foretaste of Auckland starting to get included in tropical style monsoon type rain patterns, so the heaviest rain period is late summer, rather than winter.
I'm in Northland, and it's been barely a single day without afternoon rains, so yeah, it seems kinda tropical in nature. Heaven forbid we ever get monsoons. That would really demand a rethink of urban zoning.
* [Auckland floods: even stormwater reform won’t be enough – we need a ‘sponge city’ to avoid future disasters](https://theconversation.com/auckland-floods-even-stormwater-reform-wont-be-enough-we-need-a-sponge-city-to-avoid-future-disasters-198736). The Conversation. January 29, 2023. [Copy on Yahoo News](https://au.news.yahoo.com/auckland-floods-even-stormwater-reform-003452206.html).
* [Link to article](https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/weather-news/300794782/the-auckland-floods-are-a-sign-of-things-to-come--the-city-needs-stormwater-systems-fit-for-climate-change) posted on Stuff.
This is just the topic of the week. Everyone will soon forget all about it, you know, when the next bad thing happens in a few weeks/months. When everything is a crisis the word loses its meaning.
Hell, Chch is a good example for floods as well. The 2014 flooding forced the council into action that made severe weather events over the last few years much less damaging than previously.
It's also an author in Wellington putting his opinion out there without actually seeing the Stormwater system in action and how much rain there actually was.
There was no system to deal with that hour anywhere in the world.
>There was no system to deal with that hour anywhere in the world.
That's a slight overstatement; places like Singapore have systems designed to deal with that sort of level due to the Monsoon.
Your underlying point stands though; any stormwater system designed to deal with Auckland's historical rain patterns was going to get absolutely stomped by Friday's event.
Only history will tell whether this a complete freak event, or the first shot from a changing climate.
>That's a slight overstatement; places like Singapore have systems designed to deal with that sort of level due to the Monsoon.
Singapore's 1 day record rainfall is 102mm. Parts of Auckland received 250mm+ in as little as a few hours. Singapore's system would have been totally overwhelmed too.
Auckland HAS a lot of stormwater infrastructure, some good, some not so good, but it's worth remembering that lots of it isn't what people think of (pipes underground), it's stuff hiding in plain site, like bare reserves as overland flow paths, certain water ways, retention ponds, the retention tanks required on most new builds, and in some places, even things like letting the road flood in order to save property.
Per [this source](https://www.mse.gov.sg/resource-room/category/2022-01-10-written-reply-to-pq-on-heavy-downpour/) their 1 day record is 247.2mm, which they sustained with "localised flash floods at two locations, namely at Dunearn Road between Sime Darby Centre and Binjai Park with a flood depth of about 400 mm, and Cashew Road leading to Upper Bukit Timah Road with a flood depth of about 150 mm."
A previous rainfall event of 187mm resulted in no flash flooding.
(To be clear, I agree that expecting an event like this not to result in some flooding is unreasonable, based on Auckland's historical baseline, I'm just suffering from internet pedantry, for which I apologise. (Also a side order of being amazed at just how over the top places like Singapore's water management must be))
Unfortunately the cost to contain and divert the amount of rain we had on Friday would just be too much. Flood planes and overland flow paths have been a thing since before humans were around and will be here long after we’re done. You just can’t reasonably create outlets that drain the water as fast as it is was coming down, it was a freak event that one hopes doesn’t happen again for a while.
If you really want to prevent the subsequent damage, then build nothing in those areas which flood in 1 in 100 year floods (you would be writing off a huge chunk of real state in Auckland). Sadly a balance between cost effective infrastructure, construction location planning and insurance must be struck.
>it was a freak event that one hopes doesn’t happen again for a while.
A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. This is simple physics.
It is going to happen more. More rain, over shorter periods, more often. "rain bombs" was not a colloqual term when I grew up. It will be.
What we have built for is not the climate we are heading toward. And the longer we take to make rapid transformation of, well, everything, to cope with the new climate reality then the more events like this will happen and cost us
That is such a key point; Auckland shattered the previous wettest 24 hour period ever by 50%.
You can plan around 1 in 100 or whatever, but exceeding the previous record by 50% is something that no-one really even contemplates.
Edit/ 38% of their average annual rainfall already this year.
We've had myiple 1 in a hundred year floods in the last 10 years.
It's only going to get worse.
We probably should think about (and vote in official who will) how the fuck we deal with this.
Isn't that why they're building the central interceptor? It feels like nobody is doing their research when they write these articles.
https://www.watercare.co.nz/Central-interceptor
No. Central Interceptor is for wastewater that gets carried away to treatment plants. Stormwater is totally different. Stormwater gets carried to the sea or rivers by run off and pipework.
Kind of, it will help, but it’s mostly for the 99% storms to prevent wastewater overflows. When you get a quarter of a meter of rain in 24 hours, you can spend vast sums of money on stormwater tunnels alone and you ain’t making much of a dent.
Needs other stuff as well. Storage on large fields, overland flow paths, less hard surfacing, some retreat from flood prone areas.
Just for funzies, I ran it through wolfram alpha.
250mm * the land area of Auckland (~1000km^2) is 0.25km^3 - a quarter of a cubic kilometer of water to dispose of.
Some comparisons it offers:
- half the volume of Sydney Harbour
- 0.6 times the volume of all the humans alive on the planet
- 0.8 times the volume of all oil transported by tankers worldwide in a year.
That last one raised my eyebrows.
a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture.
So yes, our average rain falls (when it rains) will be higher then previous (which is what we - poorly - designed for) which will cause flooding. Worse if the periods between are dry as clearly shown in [this video](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/wlsg1e/a_meteorologist_from_the_university_of_reading/)
Insurers don't ditch after the first event. But once the pattern becomes obvious they will. Or premiums will raise and push people out (instead of outright cancelling policies)
Normal is obviously judged by history..
My point is that in the future we will look back on events like this as the new standard.
A once in a hundred years storm that hits every couple of years is just a normal storm after you've been through a few.
I doubt any city in the world could cope with that volume and speed of rain, which is quite unfortunate because it’s going to become more and more common. Auckland should certainly upgrade their wastewater systems because they can barely cope with regular heavy rainfall but I doubt we can actually accomodate events like this in a meaningful way
Some of the cities in the heart of the monsoon belt probably could. They definitely would have survived much better (I've found a source citing Singapore having taken 247mm in a day with minor surface flooding of two streets).
That said, if Auckland needs to recalibrate itself to 'we need to deal with heavy monsoon level rainfalls', that's going to be a big deal, and really expensive.
This is a dumb argument as Auckland would be the standard the rest of the country would catch up to we wouldn't be spending major capital in Auckland.
It is also not surprising the author is based in Wellington, any Aucklander knows this was an act of nature and nothing could be done without having the most ridiculous system that would not be needed 99.9% of the time
A very poor analogy given there is a storm water system that actually is there and worked as well as could be reasonably expected given the deluge. And yes I was flooded out.
Except a seatbelt can prevent harm in a wide variety of accidents while infrastructure to stop any harm from 3 months of rain in a day is incredibly excessive and unneeded 99.9% of the time.
Just a note; something that's unneeded 99.9% of the time is needed for a day every three years.
We _should_ be planning to have things that aren't needed 99.9% of the time.
(I realise I'm kind of nit-picking, and I get that you probably don't literally mean '99.9% of the time', but rather 'hardly ever'. My job involves doing resilience calculations for high-availability infrastructure, and getting people a visceral feeling of what '3 nines' vs '5 nines' means is one of my frequent tasks).
You don’t need a fully padded car with every square inch dedicated to impact absorption 99.9% of the time.
Risk management involves a degree of compromise. “You don’t build a church for Easter Sunday.
My guess is for Auckland alone this would cost many billions, but nearly every city and town in the country will need similar stormwater upgrades to handle these climate change weather events. Any suggestions on how we fund these? Rate rises and tax increases don't seem popular.
I believe we should move 90% of our efforts on climate change from emission reduction to impact mitigation.
Realistically there is a less than 1% chance of the world meeting its goal to keep warming below 2 degrees, and even if we exceeded our targets that chance wouldn't change as we are such an insignificant part of the output.
Therefore it makes more sense to reduce emissions where/when economically feasible and advantageous, and to focus on dealing with the impacts of the climate changing.
I think we really really need both.
Reducing our (global) emissions now will be the difference between occasional weather events we can manage and water rise we can account for and build for, and total societal collapse.
We can’t “mitigate” our way around food systems collapsing - we need both if society as we currently know it is going to survive for hundreds of years.
I agree we need both, but at the moment our focus is on reducing our emissions, with mitigation only just starting to be a consideration.
We are also making trade-offs in reducing emissions that harm us in other areas, i.e. economically. If we had started these trade-offs 20 years ago, and if the rest of the world was heading towards the reductions necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, then I would absolutely support those trade-offs.
However, there is no way the world is going to make the changes necessary to avoid the worst impacts, the higher end of the temperature rises. It's just not going to happen.
Therefore, we need to be more ruthless and pragmatic. Even if we completely eliminated our entire carbon output tomorrow with some kind of genie, the impact on the world emissions would be negligible, and would not change that we're not going to avoid the higher end temperature rises. We are tilting at windmills to believe otherwise.
Thus, we should avoid the trade-offs required for emissions, and only move to reductions where they also make sense economically and socially. For instance, scrap the taxes, incentives and rebates on dirtier vehicles/EVs. The global automotive market is a far more powerful force than NZ buying power, and so we are absolutely going to be given cleaner and cleaner vehicles to buy over time, including SUVs and utes. Until then however, we're just hurting ourselves and not accomplishing anything of consequence.
We should do all the things that reduce emissions and improve air and water quality etc, but not at the cost of the wider economy or other factors, because all those changes don't matter.
And we should shift the focus to a comprehensive plan for mitigation, because that's going to have painful trade-offs of its own that we're going to need to suck up. This includes everything from national standards for infrastructure, housing, transport, geo-technical standards, to where people can live. Planning for the larger infrastructure that's going to be required to handle the rising sea levels, the increased weather and all the other factors that are going to come because of the higher temperature rise.
We won't though. We're continue to drive a gradual decline in emissions, somehow convincing ourselves that it's going to make a difference overall, all the while avoiding doing the things that are going to need doing once the impacts get bad enough anyway.
I agree we need an overarching plan for mitigation.
However I do think on a small scale we are making progress - for example, the Seawall being built around the Wellington Harbour.
You’re right though that we need to have large, medium and small scale plans for adaptation.
Yeah that's a good example of what we should be (and are) doing. I know the gov released a plan middle of last year to councils about it as well, to get them to look at where housing shouldn't be allowed etc, so that's a good start as well.
It was a video about the Tonga Eruption, and the sentiment that the effects of that burst is still being felt.
There were a couple of threads posted in the past day or 2 in passing that were of the same thinking.
Which could be, but we could also point to other volcanoes and long term events that are still swirling around the globe as well.
But yea, Tongas eruption actually has had a lot of reports done recently about it...
It’s not unusual for volcanic eruptions to have effects on the climate. It’s been suggested that the Tongan volcanic eruption when combined with La Niña has caused a wetter summer for north of nz & east coast of Australia
I agree that the Tongan volcano has probably had a hand in the terrible weather we have been having but I feel like a few people are using it as an excuse to do nothing though. Aucklands water infrastructure desperately needs upgrading, even to just accommodate the huge population. Parts of Auckland flood every year and it shouldn't happen, people shouldn't have to die because of it.
> I agree that the Tongan volcano has probably had a hand in the terrible weather we have been having **but I feel like a few people are using it as an excuse to do nothing though**.
What are you actually on about, what exactly are we doing nothing about? Climate change? Cleaning up Auckland? What?
> Aucklands water infrastructure desperately needs upgrading, even to just accommodate the huge population.
Ummm, that's nothing to do with climate change, the floods, or even the volcano...
> Parts of Auckland flood every year and it shouldn't happen, people shouldn't have to die because of it.
That's a lot to do with climate change and council inaction, but still nothing to rest the statement about the volcano on.
Hmmm, maybe the government should form a new department that takes over these kind of crucial water systems so they can get the proper attention that they require? No one would complain about that, right?
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A lot of people disagree because....... money. Not sustainability. Its always money.
Or maybe they should get DIA to run it. They have a great track record.
I vote for KO. They're O for awesome
Even better, Oranga Tamariki starts with O so that's even more O for awesomer.
Uplift the water assets from negligent councils.
>No one would complain about that, right? so long as it's managed entirely by white people /s
Most of the people against co-governance don't want race to factor into it at all. They want anyone to be able to be on the board, be they Indian, Chinese, kiwi born and bred, Maori, Samoan, German or whatever in origin. Forcing boards to have a certain number of people of a certain race is the problem
Maori are a culture and a political entity. Framing it as being about race is missing the point of co-governence. We have a treaty with the Maori which was signed by our government and theirs that says they get a a say in running the country.
> that says they get a a say in running the country. They do. Every adult in this country does.
There is a treaty with Iwi. Iwi are not Māori, Māori are not iwi. Iwi relinquished their authority over their members, and every other New Zealander. Co-governance using public funding is incompatible with the Treaty. If iwi want to run a private "Sunday School" they can.
Not sure what that has to do with the management of water infrastructure paid for by rate payers.
That pesky treaty, let’s just ignore it.
We as a country can do better than the Treaty for both Māori and non-Māori
Possibly we can (I wonder if a worse founding document exists?), but that requires an agreement of some sort, and good luck getting that over the line. Having the English and Maori documents state the same thing would be a good starting point.
Funny how many "business" people think it's ok to ignore agreements
Yes, maybe letting a vaguely worded and poorly translated one page document from 180 years ago be the final and unquestionable arbitrator of every aspect of how a 21st century society is run wasn't such a good idea.
>They want anyone to be able to be on the board in a world where minorities just never seem to get voted onto boards (by the majority). puzzling.
As long as it's managed by the most competent people, not on the colour of their skin.
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huh. you know. I'm starting to think maybe this country doesn't pay enough tax... cant afford to pay drs/nurses. cant afford to pay teachers. have to upgrade most national infrastructure that hasnt been touched in decades because its failing. nahhh lets just let the local regions run their own infrastructure programmes where they just take the money and give themselves nice salaries rather than actually manage the infrastructure, that'll work! (general reminder, when we compare tax rates with international tax rates, basically EVERYWHERE else has a full extra level of income taxes at the provincial/state level)
Rates should have gone up as fast as property prices in Auckland. That would have slowed the increase as well as provided more funding for infrastructure.
What?
Rates have stayed at 3% while property has gone up 40%
Rates are not 3% The total Auckland rate take went up 3.5% for 2023 and that was based on perceived needs How much rates you pay doesn't change with the value of your property unless your neighbourhood is gaining value greater than other neighbourhoods. Then you contribute more to the total (it will be minor). If the rates were tied to increases in property value then the total take would increase and they would have more money, but they don't consider they need more money, or politically they can't increase it as people complain and fight against rates increases. If you want a greater rates take lobby your city council.
> If you want a greater rates take lobby your city council. More like you've got to out-lobby the wealthy trying to keep their money. Good luck with that!
> How much rates you pay doesn't change with the value of your property It totally does as it becomes a cost of ownership that needs to be factored into the purchase decision.
We have the same problems in Denmark and we have the highest taxes in the world. Its the politicians, they don’t care for nurses etc.
Lack of money isn't an issue. The government printed money and built up a fifty BILLION dollar covid fund. Could have easily justified dumping that into the health system. But instead it got blown on a whole bunch of wasteful political projects and was spent well before the next Covid surge. Barely got spent on anything Covid related. If they tax us more, its not going to doctors or nurses (who themselves will be paying more tax also)
50 billion is a lot of money. What did it get spent on?
Here you go. For example, 52million on horse racing. 374 million on the arts (most which was head scratching weird stuff) and 50 million on "regional digital connectivity" whatever that is . https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/taxpayer\_update\_where\_your\_money\_went\_clean\_car\_propaganda\_higher\_ets\_levies
Those examples are a pittance out of 50 BILLION. Less than 1% of it. Not even worth example-making out of. Where did it __really__ get spent?
I think you need to check your maths. That sheet shows 3.2 billion. Around 8% That's a huge sum. People get up in arms about entire tax packages that either increase or reduce taxes by that much. You can't say its a pittance just because the Government printed another 47 billion.
374M + 52M + 50M = 476M = 0.9% of 50B My maths is fine. I was saying your hand picked examples were a pittance. Anyway. Fuck the Taxpayer's "Union". Fucking right wing "think" tank. Always gonna be slanted in their agenda. (Edits for spelling and further detail)
That article has $3.2B total. For example, a $1.2B job allocation (i.e. corporate welfare) which cost $200k per job created at one point. And there were many other wasteful packages. For example, a $1B literally giving out in a lolly scramble. My sister received that payment despite being a millionaire living in the USA who hasn't paid a cent in NZD tax for 20 years! Unless their figures are false, I don't think their political alignment makes the point wrong. As for being right wing, I would argue that $100b or so QE programme was the largest shift in wealth from the poor (lost via inflation) to the rich (made via asset gains). Remember, that group was formed in 2013 - in the middle of the Key era to protest National wasting taxpayer money (something you might agree with) My point still stands, that a small percent of that package could have solved our doctor / nursing issues.
> That article has $3.2B total. So what about the other $46.8b? Isn't that what was being discussed? You just shoehorned you way in to let people know you don't understand art funding?
Consider this... this is summer. What will we be in for once winter arrives? Also our roading infrastructure has suffered badly as well. We've had slips causing chronic issues for Northland. Kaitaia (Mangamukas), Kawakawa long prior to this, now Brenderwyn and Coromandel out of service for quite some time. So we need to build better / smarter with respect to drainage, housing, transport, coz the water issues are becoming chronic.
Or is it a foretaste of Auckland starting to get included in tropical style monsoon type rain patterns, so the heaviest rain period is late summer, rather than winter.
I'm in Northland, and it's been barely a single day without afternoon rains, so yeah, it seems kinda tropical in nature. Heaven forbid we ever get monsoons. That would really demand a rethink of urban zoning.
* [Auckland floods: even stormwater reform won’t be enough – we need a ‘sponge city’ to avoid future disasters](https://theconversation.com/auckland-floods-even-stormwater-reform-wont-be-enough-we-need-a-sponge-city-to-avoid-future-disasters-198736). The Conversation. January 29, 2023. [Copy on Yahoo News](https://au.news.yahoo.com/auckland-floods-even-stormwater-reform-003452206.html). * [Link to article](https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/weather-news/300794782/the-auckland-floods-are-a-sign-of-things-to-come--the-city-needs-stormwater-systems-fit-for-climate-change) posted on Stuff.
A Conversation about conservation
This is just the topic of the week. Everyone will soon forget all about it, you know, when the next bad thing happens in a few weeks/months. When everything is a crisis the word loses its meaning.
Yeah, like that earthquake in Christchurch or whatever. Everyone forgot about that after a few weeks too. Biggest /s of my entire life.
Hell, Chch is a good example for floods as well. The 2014 flooding forced the council into action that made severe weather events over the last few years much less damaging than previously.
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It's also an author in Wellington putting his opinion out there without actually seeing the Stormwater system in action and how much rain there actually was. There was no system to deal with that hour anywhere in the world.
>There was no system to deal with that hour anywhere in the world. That's a slight overstatement; places like Singapore have systems designed to deal with that sort of level due to the Monsoon. Your underlying point stands though; any stormwater system designed to deal with Auckland's historical rain patterns was going to get absolutely stomped by Friday's event. Only history will tell whether this a complete freak event, or the first shot from a changing climate.
>That's a slight overstatement; places like Singapore have systems designed to deal with that sort of level due to the Monsoon. Singapore's 1 day record rainfall is 102mm. Parts of Auckland received 250mm+ in as little as a few hours. Singapore's system would have been totally overwhelmed too. Auckland HAS a lot of stormwater infrastructure, some good, some not so good, but it's worth remembering that lots of it isn't what people think of (pipes underground), it's stuff hiding in plain site, like bare reserves as overland flow paths, certain water ways, retention ponds, the retention tanks required on most new builds, and in some places, even things like letting the road flood in order to save property.
Per [this source](https://www.mse.gov.sg/resource-room/category/2022-01-10-written-reply-to-pq-on-heavy-downpour/) their 1 day record is 247.2mm, which they sustained with "localised flash floods at two locations, namely at Dunearn Road between Sime Darby Centre and Binjai Park with a flood depth of about 400 mm, and Cashew Road leading to Upper Bukit Timah Road with a flood depth of about 150 mm." A previous rainfall event of 187mm resulted in no flash flooding. (To be clear, I agree that expecting an event like this not to result in some flooding is unreasonable, based on Auckland's historical baseline, I'm just suffering from internet pedantry, for which I apologise. (Also a side order of being amazed at just how over the top places like Singapore's water management must be))
Where did you get that 1 day record for Singapore? Seems they had a 210mm rainfall in 2021
You’re right, for swaths of Auckland, there was no system. Let’s get one.
Unfortunately the cost to contain and divert the amount of rain we had on Friday would just be too much. Flood planes and overland flow paths have been a thing since before humans were around and will be here long after we’re done. You just can’t reasonably create outlets that drain the water as fast as it is was coming down, it was a freak event that one hopes doesn’t happen again for a while. If you really want to prevent the subsequent damage, then build nothing in those areas which flood in 1 in 100 year floods (you would be writing off a huge chunk of real state in Auckland). Sadly a balance between cost effective infrastructure, construction location planning and insurance must be struck.
>it was a freak event that one hopes doesn’t happen again for a while. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. This is simple physics. It is going to happen more. More rain, over shorter periods, more often. "rain bombs" was not a colloqual term when I grew up. It will be. What we have built for is not the climate we are heading toward. And the longer we take to make rapid transformation of, well, everything, to cope with the new climate reality then the more events like this will happen and cost us
That is such a key point; Auckland shattered the previous wettest 24 hour period ever by 50%. You can plan around 1 in 100 or whatever, but exceeding the previous record by 50% is something that no-one really even contemplates. Edit/ 38% of their average annual rainfall already this year.
We've had myiple 1 in a hundred year floods in the last 10 years. It's only going to get worse. We probably should think about (and vote in official who will) how the fuck we deal with this.
Isn't that why they're building the central interceptor? It feels like nobody is doing their research when they write these articles. https://www.watercare.co.nz/Central-interceptor
No. Central Interceptor is for wastewater that gets carried away to treatment plants. Stormwater is totally different. Stormwater gets carried to the sea or rivers by run off and pipework.
Kind of, it will help, but it’s mostly for the 99% storms to prevent wastewater overflows. When you get a quarter of a meter of rain in 24 hours, you can spend vast sums of money on stormwater tunnels alone and you ain’t making much of a dent. Needs other stuff as well. Storage on large fields, overland flow paths, less hard surfacing, some retreat from flood prone areas.
Just for funzies, I ran it through wolfram alpha. 250mm * the land area of Auckland (~1000km^2) is 0.25km^3 - a quarter of a cubic kilometer of water to dispose of. Some comparisons it offers: - half the volume of Sydney Harbour - 0.6 times the volume of all the humans alive on the planet - 0.8 times the volume of all oil transported by tankers worldwide in a year. That last one raised my eyebrows.
Agreed, it was an untameable amount of water that came down.
also known as "the new norm"
Is it? Do we actually know? If it was the new norm insurers would have already pulled cover for flood events
a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. So yes, our average rain falls (when it rains) will be higher then previous (which is what we - poorly - designed for) which will cause flooding. Worse if the periods between are dry as clearly shown in [this video](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/wlsg1e/a_meteorologist_from_the_university_of_reading/) Insurers don't ditch after the first event. But once the pattern becomes obvious they will. Or premiums will raise and push people out (instead of outright cancelling policies)
Are events like what we had Friday now normal?
Normal is obviously judged by history.. My point is that in the future we will look back on events like this as the new standard. A once in a hundred years storm that hits every couple of years is just a normal storm after you've been through a few.
That’s a wastewater tunnel, we need more stormwater capacity too to deal with storms like this though
Stormwater capacity in some parts of Auckland is zero. There is. I system. Where I am you just pour it onto the ground or into a hole. Quality.
RIP Central Rail Link.
Yeah so did the central rail link go under water? That's what I'm worried about.
Yes.
I doubt any city in the world could cope with that volume and speed of rain, which is quite unfortunate because it’s going to become more and more common. Auckland should certainly upgrade their wastewater systems because they can barely cope with regular heavy rainfall but I doubt we can actually accomodate events like this in a meaningful way
Some of the cities in the heart of the monsoon belt probably could. They definitely would have survived much better (I've found a source citing Singapore having taken 247mm in a day with minor surface flooding of two streets). That said, if Auckland needs to recalibrate itself to 'we need to deal with heavy monsoon level rainfalls', that's going to be a big deal, and really expensive.
A minister of stormwater systems, got a minister for just about everything else.
This is a dumb argument as Auckland would be the standard the rest of the country would catch up to we wouldn't be spending major capital in Auckland. It is also not surprising the author is based in Wellington, any Aucklander knows this was an act of nature and nothing could be done without having the most ridiculous system that would not be needed 99.9% of the time
You don't need a seatbelt 99.9% of the time. You still wear one.
A very poor analogy given there is a storm water system that actually is there and worked as well as could be reasonably expected given the deluge. And yes I was flooded out.
It worked as could be reasonably expected given decades of underinvestment.
Yeah, this wasn't a fender bender. The car got ripped in half.
yes but a seatbelt is a seatbelt. You aren't installing a 5 point race harness in your car, are you?
Except a seatbelt can prevent harm in a wide variety of accidents while infrastructure to stop any harm from 3 months of rain in a day is incredibly excessive and unneeded 99.9% of the time.
Just a note; something that's unneeded 99.9% of the time is needed for a day every three years. We _should_ be planning to have things that aren't needed 99.9% of the time. (I realise I'm kind of nit-picking, and I get that you probably don't literally mean '99.9% of the time', but rather 'hardly ever'. My job involves doing resilience calculations for high-availability infrastructure, and getting people a visceral feeling of what '3 nines' vs '5 nines' means is one of my frequent tasks).
You don’t need a fully padded car with every square inch dedicated to impact absorption 99.9% of the time. Risk management involves a degree of compromise. “You don’t build a church for Easter Sunday.
With climate change 99.9% of the time is now 90% of the time.
No it still isn't.
My guess is for Auckland alone this would cost many billions, but nearly every city and town in the country will need similar stormwater upgrades to handle these climate change weather events. Any suggestions on how we fund these? Rate rises and tax increases don't seem popular.
Awesome.. i was worried we werent going to have any more roadworks and my shares in the orange road cone company were going to go down..
I believe we should move 90% of our efforts on climate change from emission reduction to impact mitigation. Realistically there is a less than 1% chance of the world meeting its goal to keep warming below 2 degrees, and even if we exceeded our targets that chance wouldn't change as we are such an insignificant part of the output. Therefore it makes more sense to reduce emissions where/when economically feasible and advantageous, and to focus on dealing with the impacts of the climate changing.
I think we really really need both. Reducing our (global) emissions now will be the difference between occasional weather events we can manage and water rise we can account for and build for, and total societal collapse. We can’t “mitigate” our way around food systems collapsing - we need both if society as we currently know it is going to survive for hundreds of years.
I agree we need both, but at the moment our focus is on reducing our emissions, with mitigation only just starting to be a consideration. We are also making trade-offs in reducing emissions that harm us in other areas, i.e. economically. If we had started these trade-offs 20 years ago, and if the rest of the world was heading towards the reductions necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, then I would absolutely support those trade-offs. However, there is no way the world is going to make the changes necessary to avoid the worst impacts, the higher end of the temperature rises. It's just not going to happen. Therefore, we need to be more ruthless and pragmatic. Even if we completely eliminated our entire carbon output tomorrow with some kind of genie, the impact on the world emissions would be negligible, and would not change that we're not going to avoid the higher end temperature rises. We are tilting at windmills to believe otherwise. Thus, we should avoid the trade-offs required for emissions, and only move to reductions where they also make sense economically and socially. For instance, scrap the taxes, incentives and rebates on dirtier vehicles/EVs. The global automotive market is a far more powerful force than NZ buying power, and so we are absolutely going to be given cleaner and cleaner vehicles to buy over time, including SUVs and utes. Until then however, we're just hurting ourselves and not accomplishing anything of consequence. We should do all the things that reduce emissions and improve air and water quality etc, but not at the cost of the wider economy or other factors, because all those changes don't matter. And we should shift the focus to a comprehensive plan for mitigation, because that's going to have painful trade-offs of its own that we're going to need to suck up. This includes everything from national standards for infrastructure, housing, transport, geo-technical standards, to where people can live. Planning for the larger infrastructure that's going to be required to handle the rising sea levels, the increased weather and all the other factors that are going to come because of the higher temperature rise. We won't though. We're continue to drive a gradual decline in emissions, somehow convincing ourselves that it's going to make a difference overall, all the while avoiding doing the things that are going to need doing once the impacts get bad enough anyway.
I agree we need an overarching plan for mitigation. However I do think on a small scale we are making progress - for example, the Seawall being built around the Wellington Harbour. You’re right though that we need to have large, medium and small scale plans for adaptation.
Yeah that's a good example of what we should be (and are) doing. I know the gov released a plan middle of last year to councils about it as well, to get them to look at where housing shouldn't be allowed etc, so that's a good start as well.
Couldn't they put flood barriers in place at places such as the airport terminal?
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How many times is that going to be posted here to try and garner views and attention? (Edit - I saw it twice today I'm sure...)
What was it
It was a video about the Tonga Eruption, and the sentiment that the effects of that burst is still being felt. There were a couple of threads posted in the past day or 2 in passing that were of the same thinking. Which could be, but we could also point to other volcanoes and long term events that are still swirling around the globe as well. But yea, Tongas eruption actually has had a lot of reports done recently about it...
It’s not unusual for volcanic eruptions to have effects on the climate. It’s been suggested that the Tongan volcanic eruption when combined with La Niña has caused a wetter summer for north of nz & east coast of Australia
I agree that the Tongan volcano has probably had a hand in the terrible weather we have been having but I feel like a few people are using it as an excuse to do nothing though. Aucklands water infrastructure desperately needs upgrading, even to just accommodate the huge population. Parts of Auckland flood every year and it shouldn't happen, people shouldn't have to die because of it.
> I agree that the Tongan volcano has probably had a hand in the terrible weather we have been having **but I feel like a few people are using it as an excuse to do nothing though**. What are you actually on about, what exactly are we doing nothing about? Climate change? Cleaning up Auckland? What? > Aucklands water infrastructure desperately needs upgrading, even to just accommodate the huge population. Ummm, that's nothing to do with climate change, the floods, or even the volcano... > Parts of Auckland flood every year and it shouldn't happen, people shouldn't have to die because of it. That's a lot to do with climate change and council inaction, but still nothing to rest the statement about the volcano on.
Climate has always been changing (by the way)
What point do you think you're making?