Climate change is already affecting flooding and sea level rise in Aotearoa, with 2026 starting with eight severe weather states of emergency by February, including the deadly storm that resulted in the Mt Maunganui landslide, and killed 9 people. Flooding has become the country's most expensive hazard, including through its health effects. For the past decade, Kaituna has been at the forefront of national climate change adaptation planning, as the first large urban area facing difficult relocation and major flood management decisions. Since 2020, we have been undertaking a programme of transdisciplinary action research to help decision-makers put health equity at the heart of adaptation in Kaituna. The latest project has been a health effects assessment of the three shortlisted options that were themselves the result of a lengthy community engagement process by South Dunedin Future. I will present this work and highlight the challenges it presents to status quo governance models locally and nationally.

Professor Alex Macmillan

Department of Public Health - Dunedin

Alex is a public health physician and professor of environmental public health in the Department of Public Health Dunedin. She is the tangata Tiriti Co-Director of Climate Health Aotearoa national research centre, a principal investigator at Te Pūnaha Matatini national complexity Centre of Research Excellence, and the tangata Tiriti Co-Chair of Housing Alliance Otago.