“Having been historically ‘water-rich’, New Zealand is not well-prepared to cope with a future that will involve more drought in some areas. Drought already impacts a wide range of activities in Aotearoa and has significant impacts culturally and in our communities. Future drought may very well be the climate change impact with the most significant effect on the New Zealand economy. The group took a people-focussed view of the impacts of droughts and focussed on future drought exacerbated or altered due to climate change. An overarching concern of the group was that New Zealand doesn’t know what resilience to future climate change related droughts means or what it looks like. The key research priorities were identified as the impacts on drinking water, domestic food, energy, cultural identity, livelihoods, and wider system impacts. We hope that future research projects will be developed and supported to address these important issues.”
These are the conclusions in a recent study created by The Deep South National Science Challenge Drought Dialogue group in New Zealand that is available in full at: https://motu.nz/assets/Documents/our-work/environment-and-agriculture/climate-change-impacts/Drought-Dialogue-Report.pdf
RSS