Westport leaders and residents are being urged to carefully consider the costs of either moving major parts of the town to avoid flooding, or staying put and increasing flood defences.
The coastal town on the mouth of the Buller River has flooded repeatedly in recent years — with climate change causing concerns that floods are only going to get worse.
Mayor Jamie Cleine told TVNZ Chief Correspondent John Campbell that Westport is currently eyeing nearby farmland, which is at a higher elevation.
Campbell visited the town as part of his new Small Town Survival Guide series, focusing on the massive decisions some towns have to make about their future.
Professor Nicholas Pinter is a world-leading expert on managed retreat from flooding risks, and told Q+A there were many examples of towns in the US that came to the difficult decision to move.
He said, ultimately, the decision came down to both emotional and economic factors when deciding between an engineering solution or managed retreat.
“We have what we call a sniff test that is looking at a project that’s asking for a large protection engineering investment,” said Professor Pinter.
“What you have to look at is whether the existing infrastructure is large, whether it is dense and protectable, and whether it is already there – and in some cases, the answer is ‘yes’ to build a levee or embankment.”
He said costs would depend significantly on context, and contrasted the small Australian town of Grantham, which relocated after catastrophic flooding, and the Gold Coast which was threatened by rising sea levels but was too built up to make a move practical.
Much like the 175-year-old Westport, Pinter said some of the US communities that have retreated have very deep roots in a place, making a move more emotionally difficult.
“But after you’ve been flooded once, or twice, or 33 times, those pressures become overwhelming, and they overwhelm that sense of rootedness.”
Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of New Zealand On Air