NIWA CLIENT REPORT No: 2020073CH Report Date: April 2020 NIWA Project: TEW19201
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Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment of Selected Taonga Species Technical Report MARCH 2020 Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment of selected taonga freshwater species Technical report Prepared for Te Wai Māori Trust April 2020 Prepared by: Eimear Egan John-Mark Woolley Erica Williams For any information regarding this report please contact: Dr Eimear Egan Freshwater Fish Ecologist Freshwater Ecology +64-3-343 7800 [email protected] National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research Ltd PO Box 8602 Riccarto Christchurch 8011 Phone +64 3 348 8987 NIWA CLIENT REPORT No: 2020073CH Report date: April 2020 NIWA Project: TEW19201 Quality Assurance Statement Reviewed by: Petra Pearce Reviewed by: Scott Larned Formatting checked Rachel Wright by: Approved for release Philip Jellyman by: © All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced or copied in any form without the permission of the copyright owner(s). Such permission is only to be given in accordance with the terms of the client’s contract with NIWA. This copyright extends to all forms of copying and any storage of material in any kind of information retrieval system. Whilst NIWA has used all reasonable endeavours to ensure that the information contained in this document is accurate, NIWA does not give any express or implied warranty as to the completeness of the information contained herein, or that it will be suitable for any purpose(s) other than those specifically contemplated during the Project or agreed by NIWA and the Client. Contents Summary ............................................................................................................................ 6 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 13 Te Wai Māori Trust ................................................................................................. 13 Project scope and objectives .................................................................................. 14 Structure of this report ........................................................................................... 16 2 Literature review on climate change effects on taonga species.................................. 17 Droughts ................................................................................................................. 17 El Niño Southern Oscillation Index ......................................................................... 19 Temperature ........................................................................................................... 20 Sea level rise ........................................................................................................... 21 Extreme weather events ......................................................................................... 22 Summary ................................................................................................................. 23 3 Approach ................................................................................................................. 24 What is a Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment? ............................................ 24 Populating the Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment ..................................... 26 4 Results .................................................................................................................... 49 Overall climate vulnerability ranking ...................................................................... 49 Species sensitivity attribute scores ......................................................................... 50 Climate change exposure rankings ......................................................................... 56 5 Discussion ............................................................................................................... 64 Sensitivity attributes ............................................................................................... 65 Exposure variables .................................................................................................. 66 Future research and data needs ............................................................................. 68 6 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................. 70 7 References ............................................................................................................... 71 8 Glossary of abbreviations and terms ........................................................................ 79 Appendix A Summary of information sources used for the species profiles .......... 82 Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment of selected taonga freshwater species Appendix B Expert assessors of the sensitivity and exposure attributes for taonga species 83 Appendix C Data quality scores for sensitivity attributes in the low (no data) and medium (expert judgement) categories .................................................................... 84 Appendix D Taonga species threat rankings ......................................................... 86 Tables Table 1-1: List of freshwater taonga species identified by Te Wai Māori Trust for the CCVAs. 14 Table 2-1: Results from Bond et al. (2011) predicting changes in species occurrence at different temperature scenarios for rivers in South East Victoria, Australia by the year 2030. 21 Table 3-1: Data quality scoring system for the sensitivity attribute scores. 29 Table 3-2: Summary of species sensitivity attributes used to assess climate change vulnerability of taonga species. 30 Table 3-3: Summary of the exposure variables with predictive maps available for the exposure assessment. 32 Table 3-4: Scoring system for sensitivity attributes showing criteria used to inform what is a low or a very high score. 40 Table 3-5: Example of scores assigned to the sensitivity attributes "reproductive complexity" and "prey specificity". 41 Table 3-6: Example of exposure scores assigned to giant kōkopu and banded kōkopu for mean spring precipitation change (%). 42 Table 3-7: System for scoring exposure variables. 43 Table 3-8: Example of a worked scoring system for banded kōkopu sensitivity attributes. 46 Table 3-9: Scoring system used to derive final climate change vulnerability ranks. 47 Table 4-1: Data quality scores for the sensitivity attributes with adequate data. 56 Table 4-2: Exposure variables with scores ≥3. These exposure variables contributed to the "high" vulnerability ranking of the freshwater taonga species assessed during this study. 57 Table B-1: Individuals that assessed the sensitivity attributes of selected taonga species during the workshops. 83 Table C-1: Distribution of tallies for low and medium quality data for each sensitivity attribute and species. 84 Table C-2: Continued. 85 Table D-1: Taonga species threat rankings according to the Department of Conservation threat ranking system (Dunn et al. 2018). 86 Figures Figure 1-1: Sensitivity attributes scored for each freshwater taonga species as part of the Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment. 7 Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment of selected taonga freshwater species Figure 1-2: Exposure variables chosen for the Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment. 8 Figure 1-3: Climate change vulnerability ranking of the freshwater taonga species assessed during this study. 10 Figure 2-1: Dead eels along the shoreline of Lake Tūtira, Napier (December 2016). 18 Figure 2-2: Time series of predicted shortfin eel annual otolith-derived growth rates (as a proxy for changes in fish length) in Te Waihora from 1962–2012. 23 Figure 3-1: An example of maps used to score species exposure. 25 Figure 3-2: The 12 sensitivity attributes used in the Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment. 29 Figure 3-3: Exposure variables used in the climate change vulnerability assessment with projection maps available. 33 Figure 3-4: New Zealand at the shelf seas scale showing coastal currents, plateaus and features. 36 Figure 3-5: Southwest Pacific topography with dominant surface ocean currents. Depths less than 2000 m are shown in yellow-orange colour. 37 Figure 3-6: Proposed spawning areas of shortfin and longfin eel in the Western Pacific Ocean. 38 Figure 3-7: Panel A) shows giant kōkopu distribution with projected changes in mean spring precipitation (%). Panel B) shows banded kōkopu distribution with projected changes in mean spring precipitation (%). Projections are plotted for RCP 8.5 and timeline 2081–2100. Source: NIWA. 44 Figure 4-1: Overall climate change vulnerability ranking for selected freshwater taonga species. 49 Figure 4-2: Boxplot showing mean scores for each of the sensitivity attributes. 50 Figure 4-3: The spawning grounds of giant kōkopu (Galaxias argenteus) in an urban stream in Hamilton. 51 Figure 4-4: Example of pressures on longfin and shortfin eel/tuna populations in Aotearoa- New Zealand. 53 Figure 4-5: Kōura, freshwater crayfish (Paranephrops planifrons) showing the female carrying the juveniles until they are mature. 54 Figure 4-6: Life cycle of kākahi/freshwater mussel Echyridella menziesii. 55 Figure 4-7: Projected changes in mean winter precipitation for 2045–2065 and 2081–2100 for RCP 8.5 scenario. 58 Figure 4-8: Projected change in number of hot days (more than 25°C) for RCP 8.5 and timeframe 2081–2100. 59 Figure 4-9: Projected changes in annual potential evapotranspiration deficit for RCP 8.5 and time period 2081–2100. 60 Figure 4-10: Ocean circulation changes between decades 2000–2009 (panel