Tuesday, November 14, 2023

11:45 AM - 12:15 PM

Breakout Room B, Rongomatane B

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Overview

Presented by Pax Austin and Mercia Abbott, Wellington City Council

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Details

The Wellington Climate Adaptation Digital City Model enables an interactive reflection of Wellington using data to model the impact of climate change today and in the future while also being a window to the past. Due to its accessible and interactive nature, local communities can more easily understand the impacts of climate change and the complexity of potential responses. Layering a two-way engagement functionality with the Digital Twin allows communities to co-create community climate adaptation actions, exchanging information and ideas with the Council allowing for critical and coordinated adaptation decisions to be made that communities feel ownership of. Our novel approach connects city planning, climate science and community values with decision-making processes. We are developing our Digital City Model in the open-source gaming engine, Unreal, which will allow other cities to access and replicate our concept in their own context. Residents will access the Digital City Model through their own devices and on interactive displays in our community facilities. Wellington is a low-lying coastal city that is highly exposed to climate change impacts including sea level rise, storm surges and flooding. With few options for relocating infrastructure, businesses and homes, climate adaptation planning for Wellington is extremely complex and urgent. It is critical that we enable evidence-based climate adaptation decisions in the next 2-3 years. Our last climate change engagement in 2019 had a response rate of 0.6% of the residents - many voices are going unheard. Strategies at-scale to engage on this threat are scarce; the decision-making is so extremely complex that it previously took one Wellington suburb nearly a year to arrive at climate adaptation options. The climate literacy required means the larger the community, the more difficult the conversation becomes. Our solution enables the city to work together with our community to create a climate resilient Wellington.

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Speaker