Shoreline Management Pathways Project

In 2023, the Shoreline Management Pathways (SMP) project won the prestigious Terry Healy Project Award at the New Zealand Coastal Society (NZCS) conference in Wellington. This was jointly awarded to our project partner, Royal Haskoning DHV, and our Council.

The Terry Healy Coastal Project Award is for projects which have made a 'significant contribution to New Zealand's coastal and marine environment'.

The award recognises 'overall commitment to excellence working within the coastal zone and promoting the vision and values of NZCS:

In June 2023, the Shoreline Management Pathways project won a significant award at the Taituarā local government excellence awards, receiving the GHD Award for Environmental Leadership.

These awards recognised that the project provides tangible benefits to the environment and showcases leading practice in managing environmental impacts. Importantly, the winning approach had to be transferable to other local authorities. Our Council’s win reflects over three years of comprehensive work to understand the risks to our coastline and communities from the effects of sea-level rise. The SMP project set out 138 adaptation pathways specific to the aspirations and concerns of each of our communities, and the principles of kaitiakitanga.

Watch our video submission to the awards panel that explains more about the project:

Find our more about our coastal panels

Find the adaptation pathway for a particular stretch of coast

Click through to the Thames-Coromandel Coastal Adaptation Pathways iReport to find the strategies and pathways for your area. Select "Map Viewer" and enter and address or zoom to a stretch of coastline. Select the coloured line on the coast that includes the area you are interested in for information and to download the Coastal Adaptation Pathway for that area.

Watch this video for handy tips on how to best navigate the iReport:

After three years of work and extensive community engagement, our nation-leading Shoreline Management Pathways Project was completed.

This included finalising coastal hazard modelling and the development of community-led coastal adaptation pathways for sea-level rise.

The project was completed in September 2022 and we are now looking to implement the outcomes of the project which are included in the 138 pathways.

Each pathway is specific to a section of our coastline and sets out how our communities want to manage the risks from sea level rise.

A co-governance structure with the Pare Hauraki Collective has been critical to the project’s development and execution, along with community leadership through four Coastal Panels.

“Empowering local people to make recommendations on the future management of coastlines has been hugely valuable,” says Project Lead, Amon Martin.

“Agencies including Waka Kotahi (New Zealand Transport Agency) and Waikato Regional Council have given key input, alongside consultants Royal Haskoning, who have been part of this project since its inception three years ago. Everyone working together has been the defining feature of our project,” says Amon.

He says the collaboration of all parties will be even more critical as our Council moves to action the preferred pathways.

The next step now is for our Council’s Executive Leadership Team to consider an Implementation Plan with the allocated budget for this financial year, as well as looking at sourcing external funding options for additional work that is identified.

Implementation work currently planned includes doing more detailed costing of coastal protection options in vulnerable areas.

Important additional resources

You can download and view the interactive 20cm increment mapping for 1% AEP (1 in 100 year), 5% AEP (1 in 20 year) and king tide events here. Please right click the file label to open the maps.

You can read the Coromandel Peninsula Coastal Protection Feasibility Study Summary(PDF, 5MB) here.

Click here to explore our interactive Risk Assessment Summary map.

The factsheets and posters from open days can be found below: