The make up of an expert panel to review a coastal hazard report has been questioned.

The Christchurch City Council is under fire for appointing two climate change "deniers" to a panel reviewing a controversial report on erosion and flooding risk.

Five experts were approved by the council last week to conduct a second peer review of the Tonkin and Taylor Coastal Hazard Assessment Report, which identified 6000 properties that could be susceptible to erosion and nearly 18,000 at risk of coastal inundation over the next 50 to 100 years.

Coal Action Network Aotearoa (Cana), a group of climate campaigners, called on the council to drop South Australia University business school statistician Dr Kesten Green and Waikato University earth sciences senior lecturer Dr Willem de Lange from the panel, because it claimed they were "climate deniers".

"Of course, the Tonkin and Taylor report alarmed residents, because climate change is alarming, especially the issue of sea level rise in New Zealand, but you don't deal with it by questioning the science," Cana member Cindy Baxter said.

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De Lange said he had never denied climate change. He presumed he was asked to participate in the panel because he had been involved in coastal management issues since 1984.

"I assume that . . . Coal Action Network is primarily objecting to my inclusion because they assume that I do not agree with their political or religious views on the solution to whatever they perceive to be the problem."

De Lange was commissioned by a Kapiti residents group in 2013 to produce a hazard assessment, which questioned Kapiti Coast District Council's erosion predictions.

Green said the attack by Cana was "unfortunately, the common and unscientific response to scepticism about unscientific alarmist forecasts of man-made global warming".

"I have been asked to be part of the peer review panel because I am a scientist who is internationally recognised as an expert on evidence-based forecasting."

The council approved the panel based on nominations from a community reference group put together by GHD Consultants, which is leading the peer review process for the council.

The other experts approved by the council include New South Wales University coastal engineer Dr Ron Cox, Canterbury University coastal studies senior lecturer Dr Deirdre Hart, and retired Environment Court judge Shonagh Kenderdine.

Community reference group member Warwick Schaffer​ said the group went to a lot of effort to get a balanced panel.

He hoped having proponents and sceptics would ensure a proper scientific debate.

"Residents really want to know if a metre sea level rise is actually likely to happen in the next 100 years. It's a scientific debate."

Calls for Green and de Lange to be dropped from the panel tried only to stifle that debate, he said.

Maurice Hoban, of GHD, said the panel was expected to have been confirmed on June 3.

Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel said it would not be appropriate to comment on the make up of the panel because the council adopted recommendations made by GHD.