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Rob Bell

Rob Bell
Member since: 9/30/2002
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Managing Director
Bell Adapt Ltd
Bio: Rob has over 40 years’ experience in coastal engineering, risk from natural hazards, the impacts of climate change on coastal communities and infrastructure and dynamic adaptive design and planning for adaptation.

Since leaving NIWA, Rob has continued to be involved in climate-change adaptation research, helping councils with adaptive planning and having input to policy and resource management reforms. He has co-authored papers on sea-level rise, coastal hazards (including tsunami), coastal adaptation planning, national coastal risk exposure to sea-level rise and the development of RiskScape (comparing risk from natural hazards).

Rob was the Lead Author of the 2017 coastal guidance for local government published by Ministry for the Environment for planning adaptation to climate change, and on the Expert Panel that produced the risk framework for the 1st National Climate Change Risk Assessment. He was a Contributing Author for the IPCC Working Group II 6th Assessment Report on climate change impacts for Australasia. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Science NZ in 2019 and is part of the Victoria University NZSeaRise team that was awarded the Prime Minister’s Science Prize for 2019.