The papers in this volume provide sectoral perspectives on adaptation to climate change in New Zealand. They are based on presentations made at the "Climate Change Adaptation: Managing the Unavoidable" conference held in Wellington in May 2009. The authors put substantial further work into the papers following their presentations to pick up on points made at the conference by discussion panel members. The papers then went through two rounds of peer review and were subsequently edited. The papers address adaptation for some of the key sectors of importance to New Zealand for economic, environmental and social reasons, and they consider adaptation through local government mechanisms.