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Annual rainfall is changing

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Annual rainfall is changing. The south is becoming wetter and the north and east are becoming drier. Medium-term droughts are becoming more frequent.

Many sectors of our economy rely on natural resources such as water, which depends heavily on rainfall and temperature. This includes the agricultural sector, which is particularly vulnerable to the extremes of high and low rainfall and often located on fertile floodplains, making it one of the highest-risk sectors in relation to climate change. Electricity generation is also dependent on rainfall.

The following resources provide information about rainfall, weather and climate in Aotearoa and how we know the annual rainfall is changing.

Articles

Media

Activities

Diagram: Ministry for the Environment, Stats NZ, and data providers, and licensed by the Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Rights: Crown copyright ©, CC BY 4.0
Published:11 October 2023Size: 596.89 KB