Wainui Beach holds significant cultural, social, and economic importance to the region. However, it also faces long-standing challenges with erosion and coastal management.

The Wainui Coastal Adaptation Plan aims to provide a forward-looking strategy for managing current and future coastal hazard risks at Wainui Beach. The plan will guide sustainable development, protection structures, and emergency management, while preserving key values like the natural environment, habitats, surf breaks, and access for recreation and kai gathering.

Adaptive planning means planning in a way that allows for the uncertainty of climate change impacts. It involves planning for multiple different future scenarios and then monitoring beach conditions to ensure the plan changes as conditions change. The level of risk that a community can tolerate will direct the ‘trigger’ that determines when one mitigation option is no longer suitable.

For example, the plan of protecting an area with a seawall may be appropriate up until a certain ‘trigger’ point such as 0.5m sea level rise. After that point, protection may not be adequate to reduce risk.

The Wainui Coastal Adaptation Plan will not dictate where and when managed retreat will occur. Instead, it will identify the different options available to reduce coastal risks and the trigger points that will indicate when an option is no longer available.

The Wainui Beach Erosion Management Strategy (WBEMS) was developed in 2003 and then updated in 2014. The WBEMS 2014 update included a lot of community engagement and was considered a successful process, however implementation of the plan has proved difficult.

In 2020 a review of the WBEMS 2014 was completed by Coastal Management Collective. This review looked at the strategy and implementation.

What we're doing now

We're reviewing the Tairāwhiti Resource Management Plan which includes the natural hazard and coastal plan chapters. It is a good time to revisit the WBEMS and update it in line with current best practices for adaptation planning.

The Wainui Coastal Adaptation Plan will then be used to guide the rules in the the plan as well as the ongoing management of assets and protection structures and our emergency planning and response.

WSP New Zealand Ltd (WSP) was engaged by Council to prepare a coastal hazard assessment for Wainui Beach. The full report can be found here.

We then looked at the assets and infrastructure that are at risk of coastal hazards under current and future climate scenarios. The Wainui Beach Coastal Risk Assessment report can be found here.

You can view the hazard and risk assessment maps below.

You can switch between layers using the toggle in the upper right corner. Potential coastal erosion hazard zones are based upon industry standard erosion equations, with the inputs updated from detailed analysis of the beach monitoring data. Inundation layers which are representations of inundation levels from the most recent modelling work, for the different climate change scenarios. Assets at risk shows an overlay of assets across the hazard projections. The assets include buildings, carparks, roads and stairs (public and private).

The Wainui community identified the following key priorities from the engagement last March:

• Protecting wildlife across the entire beach
• Maintaining access, public open spaces, and recreational opportunities
• Ensuring the plan stays relevant and adaptable over the long term

These priorities are helping to guide the development of the Wainui Coastal Adaptation Plan. We’re committed to making sure the final plan reflects what matters most to the community.