An Overview of Changing Usage and Management Issues in New Zealand's Surf Zone Environment

Hume, T.M.; Mulcahy, N., and Mead, S.T, 2019. An overview of changing usage and management issues in New Zealand's surf zone environment. In: Bryan, K.R. and Atkin, E.A. (eds.), Surf Break Management in Aotearoa New Zealand. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 87, pp. 1–12. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.New Zealand has a diverse surf zone associated with its 18,000 km of shoreline. Growing numbers of people are using the surf zone for sport and recreation because of increasing population, a growth in surf culture and related tourism and advances in technology. The latter has provided an ever-growing diversity and availability of devices for surfing, wet suits allowing activities to continue throughout the winter, and weather, tide and wave forecasting services via the www and mobile devices that allow users to target specific locations and sea states. The result has been overcrowding and conflicts between users at prime locations, particularly at times when wind and wave conditions suited to the various activities coincide. There are increasing threats to the surfing space that range in scale from local to global and include activities in the swell corridor such as marine farming, activities close to the area surfed such as dredging of entrances and catchment developments leading to loss of landscape values and degradation of water quality. Case studies presented illustrate the range of issues and conflicts associated with increasing and multi-use of the surf zone and the increasing challenges for councils and water safety organisations who manage this water space. We describe the role of policy and plans and the various stakeholder groups in addressing these issues. At a national level a risk management approach to water safety has been developed and is being applied to beaches throughout New Zealand which includes recommendations to manage conflict in the surf zone.