While most of the world’s new settlements are slowly shifting inland, in New Zealand we’re largely staying put—or edging closer to the sea, according to research published in Nature. The work tracks artificial light between 1992 and 2019 and finds that globally, settling close to the coast is more common in areas with very low income, presumably where people don’t have much choice. The authors note that Waikato, Northland and Marlborough buck this trend—they’re relatively high income, yet still building ever closer to the water. Overdeveloping coastal areas, the authors warn, might be due to an overconfidence in our ability to protect and adapt these settlements—and increase damage done during extreme climate events.
