The health and wellbeing of South Dunedin communities should be at the heart of council decision-making about climate change-related increases in flooding and sea-level rise.
We have seen a lot of attention paid so far to pipes, roads and buildings, but this can miss community needs and priorities. Having worked alongside South Dunedin community members, we know that they care deeply about the ability of all in their place to thrive and live well, in a healthy environment.
Our Healthy Climate Adaptation in South Dunedin report, released last week, shows that the multiple links between climate change and the building blocks of health play out in many ways over time. The decisions being made about South Dunedin have the opportunity to address health risks, but careful design will be needed to avoid worsening existing health injustices.
The report brings together South Dunedin community voices, aspirations and knowledge from our earlier research, with updated health evidence to understand how the three South Dunedin short-listed futures could improve or worsen health and wellbeing.
Our team compared the three possible futures with each other, as well as with a ‘‘do nothing further’’ scenario, and found that not progressing any long-term well-planned adaptation pathway would be the worst choice for health, and widen existing health inequalities.
Our previous research with South Dunedin community members makes clear that flooding has significant negative effects on people’s wellbeing.
As a community member told us: ‘‘One of the impacts of flooding is fear and the sense of helplessness, which leads to depression and/or anger ... [it] sits like a miasma over this stuff’’.
As well as these effects on mental health, worsening flooding and sea-level rise are already affecting physical health. Community members recognise the importance of these: ‘‘Ongoing health, particularly respiratory issues, [from damp housing] is the big one. We see that cycle through people missing work, kids miss school and then that starts having other impacts — it’s a bit of a vicious cycle.’’
The traumatic nature of floods, financial stress, and the lingering effects of damp, mouldy homes all have flow-on effects for people’s ability to enjoy living in their community, attend school, go to work, socialise with friends, and afford the things they need to live well.
Reducing our overall climate pollution remains our best protection against growing health harms from climate change.
As well as showing how to protect people’s health from flooding, we identify opportunities for council to design in healthy communities and a healthy environment for each option, as well as ensuring health harms aren’t borne disproportionately by those who have the least resources.
For example, the city can make the most of necessary changes by redeveloping neighbourhoods for healthy homes, fair access to daily needs, facilities and services, and maintaining the strong sense of community that already makes South Dunedin special.
This includes improved, affordable access to parks, everyday destinations and services by wheelchair, on foot, by bike and bus. Good long-term planning for water means healthy people, as well as healthy streams and harbour ecosystems that can flourish.
The need to make way for water means there are some areas where land use will need to change away from homes to floodable areas to keep people safe, while leaving many areas remaining as homes. This will affect the whole city’s housing.
Our report makes clear that simply leaving housing and land governance to the market in South Dunedin risks widening housing-related health injustices across the city.
Regardless of which future pathway is chosen, how it is implemented matters very much. The report recommends:
(1) supporting people through stress, grief and trauma, by ensuring strong social connections and support services are maintained and improved;
(2) ensuring decent, affordable, healthy homes for those who have to move, and for those who remain in South Dunedin; and
(3) designing in opportunities for improving health and reducing health injustices from the start.
There are clear pathways for putting people’s health and wellbeing, and fairness, at the heart of decisions on flooding and sea-level rise in South Dunedin. We urge decision-makers to incorporate the report’s recommendations into future design and investment.
As one community member said, ‘‘If a community feels that it is being listened to and engaged with in real terms, then the ability to be resilient to change ... will rise and it’s going to be a major positive in terms of community welfare.’’
• Alex Macmillan is a public health physician and professor of environmental public health at the University of Otago and tangata Tiriti co-director of Climate Health Aotearoa national research centre; Sarah Harrison is a climate change adaptation and public health researcher at Urban Intelligence, and a member of Climate Health Aotearoa.
