Rob Bell

Member since: 9/30/2002

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Managing Director

Bell Adapt Ltd

Teaching Fellow

Bio: Rob Bell has 43 years’ experience in coastal and estuary engineering, risk assessments, the impacts of climate change on communities and infrastructure, land-use planning and adaptive planning for climate adaptation (including managed retreat).
Rob, formerly with NIWA, was the Lead Author of the 2017 coastal guidance for local government published by NZ’s Ministry for the Environment for planning adaptation to climate change and is the co-author of the latest 2024 revision released in February. The guidance pivots around the Dynamic Adaptive Pathways Planning approach to deal with the deepening uncertainty from coastal climate impacts.
Rob was a Contributing Author for the IPCC Working Group II 6th Assessment Report on climate change impacts for Australasia (2022). He has been involved in design and assessments of several coastal infrastructure projects where sea-level rise is an emerging issue, compounded with river flooding and stormwater runoff. He has explored ways to incorporate an adaptive paradigm into the delivery of infrastructure and utility services and explored some of the complexities in undertaking managed retreat.
Rob is a Hearings Commissioner with Making Good Decisions certification and Chartered Professional Engineer (Environmental).