The National Science Challenges end on 30 June 2024. What is happening with our research and researchers? What about our website? What next for collaborative natural hazards resilience research? This article tackles these and other FAQs. Why is the Resilience Challenge ending? The Resilience Challenge is one of 11 National Science Challenges established in 2014 as ten-year, […]
Category: News
A Trip to AGU
At the end of 2023, our Resilience Challenge Built and Coastal Programmes’ PhD student Akuhata Bailey-Winiata, from the University of Waikato, attended the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco, California. AGU brings geoscientists from around the globe for five days of interesting keynotes, talks and poster sessions where students, academics and researchers […]
New LiDAR data coming online
By Sarah McDermott, NIWA NIWA is co-ordinating the collection of remote sensing data to assist understanding of the impacts of the extreme weather events of early 2023. The scope of the project is to supply aircraft LiDAR* data for the Hawke’s Bay and Tairawhiti/Gisborne regions, and high quality aerial imagery over much of the North Island. […]
Flood assessment shows need for consistency and collaboration
By Emily Lane, NIWA Cyclone Gabrielle was a severe ex-tropical cyclone that devastated parts of the North Island of New Zealand in February 2023. The scope of this project was to provide flood risk and flood modelling support, as well as engagement and communications support. The aim of the research was to better understand the scale […]
Cyclone Gabrielle impacts on nearshore marine ecosystems
By Leigh Tait, NIWA Cyclone Gabrielle significantly impacted the Hawke’s Bay and Tairāwhiti nearshore marine coastal zone, an area of vital social, cultural, aesthetic and economic importance. The focus of this work was to quickly and effectively acquire data to determine the stressors (sediment and woody debris) and their long-lasting impacts on invertebrates and other […]
Largest known record of mapped landslides from a single event
Cyclone Gabrielle was the largest landslide-triggering event on record in Aotearoa. Our response required development of new landslide mapping and modelling approaches in order to collate the landslide data. This novel approach provides stakeholders with a timely and sufficient level of spatial and positional accuracy about landslide occurrence and severity – where landslides could occur, […]
Rapid assessment of land damage reveals exotic forest less effective at reducing landslide probability
Cyclone Gabrielle was a severe ex-tropical cyclone that occurred in February 2023. It caused severe landsliding in several zones along the east coast of the North Island. As part of the cyclone response, the Ministry for the Environment contracted Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research to do a rapid assessment of the damage in hill country […]
Supporting critical infrastructure recovery
By Charlotte Brown, Resilient Organisations The aim of this project is to combine data and lessons learned to provide an evidence-base to support critical infrastructure recovering decisions following the North Island extreme weather events in 2023. To date, critical infrastructure asset damage and service disruption data have been gathered from all affected regions. These data […]
Sampling survey shows little groundwater contamination
Cyclone Gabrielle caused severe flooding and damage across parts of the North Island. In the months following the event, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC) initiated a project to identify potential contamination of groundwater in three areas of concern that were subject to significant floodwater inundation: the central north-western part of the Heretaunga Plain, Esk Valley […]
Enhanced natural hazard risk assessment for Cyclone Gabrielle recovery
By Ryan Paulik, NIWA The Extreme Weather Research Platform project ‘Enhanced natural hazard risk assessment for Cyclone Gabrielle recovery’ accelerated RiskScape software development as a multi-hazard risk modelling and information sharing platform to assist planning activities for Cyclone Gabrielle recovery and future hazard management in the affected regions. In this project, RiskScape was extended to […]
Analysis in progress to understand damage to threatened ecosystems and species
By Rowan Sprague, Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research Project summary In mid-February 2023, Cyclone Gabrielle struck the North Island of Aotearoa-New Zealand, causing widespread devastation. As part of the cyclone response, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) contracted Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research to deliver a high-level integrated assessment of the immediate impacts of […]
Cyclone caused >10m erosion on some North Island beaches
By Murray Ford Assessing the erosional impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle across a large swathe of the country has been possible using satellite imagery collected by very-high resolution satellites and in places, aerial photographs. We have used imagery collected by operators of commercial satellites, the likes of which you see on Google maps. We also accessed […]
Joint RNC Urban – QuakeCORE Wānanga
The inaugural joint research wānanga of the Resilience Challenge Urban Programme and QuakeCoRE took place on 15-16 November in Ōtautahi Christchurch, with a theme of ‘long-term recovery’. On day one, more than 20 core researchers joined the humanitarian engineer Matthew Hughes from the University of Canterbury and Joseph Hullen of Ngāi Tahu for a guided […]
Report provides useful data about East Coast landslides
Project: Satellite imagery assessment of land damage Project Lead: James Shepherd (Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research) An assessment of land affected by Cyclone Gabrielle provides useful data about the extent of landslides in hill country areas of the North Island’s East Coast. The Ministry for the Environment commissioned Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research to undertake a rapid […]
Cyclone Gabrielle landslide response and recovery
Project: Rainfall-induced landslide forecasting, rapid assessment and hindcasting Project Leads: Chris Massey and Kerry Leith (GNS Science) Between 12 and 16 February 2023, Cyclone Gabrielle triggered at least 140,000 landslides across the North Island damaging houses, power lines, bridges, roads and creating dams across channels, and sadly, resulting in the death of five people. This […]
Predictive model comparison on a well-documented wildfire event in New Zealand
Samuel Aguilar-Arguello, Wayne Schou, Ilze Pretorius The ability to predict and prevent wildfires is important in safeguarding lives and property. In New Zealand, fire authorities use many tools to predict fire behaviour, one of these being the fire simulation software Prometheus. It was designed to provide near real-time operational decision support by predicting fire growth, […]