Flood control efforts at the Patearoa Bridge in Otago Photo: Central Otago District Council
Questions are being asked about how well our infrastructure can weather climate change. Climate economist based at Victoria University of Wellington and managing director of Climate Sigma, Belinda Storey is Principal Investigator on the Time-to-Failure in Infrastructure under Climate Change project, which is modelling the impact of escalating extreme weather events on decisions to invest in infrastructure such as bridges, roads, dams, stop banks and airports.
The work is being done under the auspices of Victoria University's Whakahura team, lead by Director of the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute Dave Frame and Chair of Disaster Economics at Victoria University Wellington Ilan Noy, which has received 10 million dollars from MBIE to look at extreme events over the next forty years. Belinda's team has teamed up with NIWA and other modellers to calculate the "time to failure" in infrastructure, and compare it to the pay-back periods currently calculated to give the green light to major infrastructure investments.
