Auckland remains in a state of emergency after the city was hit by yet another rain deluge, but some are wondering if this is the new normal and what impact the heavy rainfall this year is having on people’s mental health.
Dr Annette Semadeni-Davies, an urban aquatic scientist at Niwa, explained that in Auckland a culmination of rapid climate change and the “intensification” of urban development has contributed to devastating floods in relatively quick succession.
“In addition, the Auckland stormwater system is aging in places and was not designed for climate-change-driven extremely high-intensity rainfalls,” Semadeni-Davies said.
“The combination of extreme rainfall and limited capacity to cope with high runoff volumes in the system led to widespread flooding.”
Semadeni-Davies said there are a number of strategies Auckland may use to try and lessen the effects of flooding, but the strategy must be holistic as the most recent floods were a combination of many flood types.
In Auckland’s CBD, flooding was due to the “water having nowhere to go or soak into” whereas, in areas like West Auckland, the flooding was mostly due to rivers and streams bursting their banks, Semadeni-Davies explained.
There have already been several recommendations for improving flood management in Auckland, Semadeni-Davies said, including nature-based solutions. However, many of these are only designed for rainfalls with a return period of decades compared to return periods of two to five years for stormwater management.
Already, AMI, State and NZI Insurance have received more than 360 claims for property damage from yesterday’s flooding, and are expecting more. This follows the 51,936 claims during the Auckland Anniversary Weekend floods.
If nothing is done to develop flooding infrastructure and Auckland continues to see severe weather events that cause immense property damage and other harm, residents may be re-traumatised every time the rain falls, Victoria University of Wellington Clinical Psychologist Dr Dougal Sutherland said.
The psychological impacts from the floods can range from very mild to severe, he added.
He explained that people are often re-triggered or re-traumatised every time the rain falls, and with each major flooding event, the trauma continues to compound.
There are also unspoken effects, Sutherland said.
“I think it would have a really abrasive sort of draining effect on communities as, when people are under stress, they often act in ways that they wouldn’t usually act in,” Sutherland said.
“You tend to get higher rates of relationship difficulties, breakdown in family units, and, with all the associated consequences that they have, families splitting up, of communities falling apart of, people having to move and breaking up those communities that use to exist.”
Sutherland said that as climate change continues to evolve at a rapid pace, these are effects we are “going to have to come to terms with”.
“I think one of the real challenges will be, how do we continue to remember and support and advocate for those people in six months’ time and in 12 months’ time when it’s no longer kind of news?” Sutherland said.
“It’s a real challenge for us as a society about how do we deal not only with the immediate mopping up and drying out of places but how do we help and support people in the much longer term as well?”
Already, Auckland is above average amount of rain for May, and this year Auckland has seen a “phenomenal amount of rainfall just in this first five months”, head of communications for MetService Lisa Murray said.
“There’s another portion of society that’s actually very anxious about whether now, as it comes in and every warning, they’re more anxious, you know, because their property has been damaged,” Murray said.
“We knew that there was going to be a lot of moisture around, but the signals are that we have more settled weather for the rest of May, even a nice range of high pressure this weekend, which is always good news, especially for people on clean up.”
She said many parts of the country that have been continuously battered by the rain have seen “little respite” that may change during the winter, which is traditionally our wettest months.
Niwa reported during the seasonal outlook that rainfall totals are expected to be “near normal” from May through to July with “above average” temperatures.
“For the coming three-month period, rainfall is most likely to be normal or above normal in the north and west of the North Island and the north and west of the South Island, while normal rainfall is the most likely in the east of the North Island, and below normal or near normal is most likely in the east of the South Island,” Niwa signalled.