South Dunedin as we know it may be about to change.
City and regional councillors will have to make tough decisions on how to protect south Dunedin and its 10,000 residents from future flooding.
The decision-makers are being guided by scientists who have painted the most accurate geological picture they’ve ever had.
“We expect that the sea will come up and push against the groundwater, we expect the rain will come down more and lift the groundwater,” said Simon Cox, GNS principal scientist.
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Wedged between Otago Harbour and the St Clair, St Kilda coasts is south Dunedin.
South Dunedin sits largely right on sea level. A LIDAR scan, the first in more than a decade, paints the landscape in the most accurate picture. The area in green sits less than a metre above the sea. Forecast sea rises of 30cm put the area at even more risk.
For the first time, pressure transducers scattered around south Dunedin give us an ultrasound-like look of how groundwater behaves.
One model shows the month of August 2019 after persistent heavy rain with red and orange pulses indicating above-average groundwater elevation pushing the underground water up and down.
For the more than 10,000 people who call south Dunedin home, the problem is the groundwater level sits just centimetres below the streets they live on.
