New Zealand's coast is a socially significant environment. Statistics New Zealand estimated that approximately 65% of New Zealanders live within five kilometres of the coast, rising to 75% within ten kilometres. The coast is a place of food, recreation, culture, identity, economic activity and home — and it is also a place of growing risk.
With better data, decision-makers will be able to identify which communities and assets are genuinely at risk, under what scenarios and timeframes, and what adaptation measures will be most effective. This will improve and maintain the wellbeing of communities, Māori, hapū and iwi and businesses by enabling evidence-based responses to climate change induced sea-level rise.
The societal benefits of 3DCM arise from the programme's core output — high-resolution, accurate, publicly available coastal mapping data — and from the downstream uses of that data. These benefits are for all New Zealanders and without public investment in this data, they would not be realised.
The following societal benefits have been identified:
- Protection of life and reduction of harm from coastal hazards.
- Improved community resilience and adaptive capacity.
- Safeguarding Māori cultural heritage and relationships with the coast.
- Protection of public conservation and natural/cultural heritage assets.
- Equitable access to high-quality coastal risk information.
- Improved public health outcomes from reduced coastal inundation.
Protect Māori cultural heritage
Valued cultural infrastructure including marae and urupā on exposed, erosion-prone lands in low-lying coastal areas are vulnerable to sea-level rise.
Displacement of whānau, hapū and iwi from coastal areas will likely affect the ability to engage in customary practice, mahinga kai (the practice of gathering and managing food resources), kaitiakitanga (responsibility to nurture the life essence of taonga), and ahikāroa (continuous occupation), with implications for Māori identity, social cohesion, and wellbeing.
Protect conservation, cultural and recreational assets
New Zealand's coastal environment supports a rich network of publicly valued conservation, cultural and recreation assets including beaches, walkways, campgrounds, marine reserves, pā, middens, burial grounds and underwater cultural heritage sites. These assets are an integral part of New Zealand's national identity.
3DCM data will enable government (including councils and Department of Conservation), iwi and community groups to conduct more accurate assessments of which sites are at-risk, prioritise conservation investment and proactively document and protect sites before irreversible loss occurs.
Community wellbeing and resilience
Many coastal communities derive their social, economic, cultural and psychological wellbeing from the coast. As sea-level rise accelerates and the frequency of coastal hazard events increases, communities must adapt — changing where and how they develop, what infrastructure they build, and how they plan for future generations. Adaptation requires accurate information— communities, councils and iwi need to know which land is at risk, over what timeframe, and under what scenarios.
3DCM will provide baseline elevation and bathymetric information needed for sea-level rise modelling, inundation mapping and shoreline change analysis. This underpins community-level adaptation plans, managed retreat strategies, and investment decisions for coastal infrastructure. With this information communities can make considered, evidence-based decisions that balance risk reduction with economic and social continuity.