How Mount Maunganui tragedy could change land use across New Zealand - including campsite locations
Land use needs to be urgently reviewed in landslide-risk areas in the wake of the devastating Mount Maunganui slip, a prominent scientist and professor says.
There should even be discussions around moving whole communities if they are in harm’s way, according to Professor James Renwick, who in 2018 won the Prime Minister’s Science Prize for communication.
Renwick says authorities should be considering this urgently, with storms in New Zealand predicted become more frequent and intense.
Susan Doreen Knowles, Jacqualine Suzanne Wheeler (both aged 71), Lisa Maclennan, 50, Mans Bernhardsson, 20, and 15-year-olds Sharon Maccanico and Max Furse-Kee were buried under a large landslide that came down on part of the Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park last Thursday.
The tragedy happened after 274mm of rain drenched the area over 24 hours.
As efforts continue to recover the remains of the six victims, Renwick – professor of physical geography at Victoria University of Wellington - says now is a good time to question where we need to change our land use.
“This was a terrible event. Hopefully we can learn something and learn to protect ourselves better, become more resilient by using the land better.” Renwick said.
He recommends a survey of all camping grounds, looking at how exposed they are to the effects of extreme weather.
“Where do we know there are dangers? If [there are] camping grounds in the way, or communities in the way, then those communities need to be having conversations about what they do.
“Do they move? How do they protect themselves?”
Mauao was renowned for being an area at risk of landslides.
A scientific probe into its stability presented to a Canadian geohazards conference in 2014 – including the area that collapsed last week – had already revealed it was prone to “mass movement” slips after heavy rain.
Mapping in the study included aerial photography taken in 1977 that identified the site of a large slip overlooking the campsite and neighbouring hot pools.
In 2003, the risk of debris from a controlled explosion to remove unstable rock near the summit of Mount Maunganui led to the evacuation of both the campground and the hot pools.
Engineers had placed 47 shipping containers around the area below – including the campsite – to stop the fast-moving and large debris from causing damage.
Scientist: Why NZ needs to act now to protect itself
The huge amount of rain that fell on Mount Maunganui in the lead-up to last Thursday’s tragedy eclipsed that previously dumped on the popular spot during 2011’s Cyclone Wilma, and during the Auckland Anniversary Floods and Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023.
And Renwick – whose research areas include Southern Hemisphere climate variability, and the impacts of climate variability and change on New Zealand – said big storms are set to increase in regularity and severity with global warming.
The past 11 years are the warmest 11 years that have been observed, he said.
“Climate change is making heavy rainfalls heavier, and these kinds of big floods are going to become more common,” Renwick told the Herald.
He said councils, planners, engineers and other officials needed to be thinking ahead about which slopes are prone to slipping.
Mitigation factors – such as tree planting – should be considered.
“Because inevitably there’ll be more of these storms,” Renwick said.
“Most likely they’ll be even heavier next time. Over the next 10 or 20 years, the amount of rain coming out of these things is only going to increase – unless of course we get on top of our greenhouse gases.”
Treasury has previously estimated a trio of storms in 2023 – Cyclone Hale, the Auckland Anniversary Floods and Cyclone Gabrielle – caused up to $14.5 billion in damage.
After the massive flooding event in the Nelson-Tasman area in mid-2025, Dr Emily Lane – Earth Sciences New Zealand principal scientist, natural hazards and hydrodynamics – said in a year where there weren’t three events so close together as in 2023, “on average we could face around $200m annually” for flooding to buildings alone.
Lane said that in a bid to “minimise our exposure to flooding” and other damage from heavy rain, mitigation measures had to be made to reduce carbon emissions, and New Zealanders had to have access to “consistent national information on current and future flooding risk, and to work together at national, regional and local scales”.
Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 34 years of newsroom experience.
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