Natural Hazards and Resilience Platform

Damaging and disruptive natural hazard events are a feature of New Zealand’s dynamic environment. The same processes that generate our dramatic, picturesque landscapes and natural resources intermittently cause widespread devastation and disruption to New Zealanders’ lives, livelihoods and communities. Earthquakes, storms, and volcanic eruptions are inevitable. But we can avoid these events turning into disasters by reducing our risks at the government, council, community and household levels.

To do achieve this, we need to work together in new ways.

The Natural Hazards and Resilience Platform (the Resilience Platform) is a new multi-institutional, collaborative research programme with a mission to accelerate our resilience to natural hazards. Building on the efforts, achievements and ways of working in the Resilience National Science Challenge (2014-2024), the Resilience Platform is mobilising scientists, resources, agencies and communities to collectively innovate to address this difficult challenge.

The Resilience Platform will develop new knowledge about natural processes, better utilise and leverage existing information and insights, and create evidence-based tools and guidance matched to the needs of research users.
Māori researchers will work closely with collaborators in hapū and iwi to advance Māori aspirations for resilience through place-based research. The Platform is developing a new partnership with the Iwi Chairs’ Forum to ensure this research is linked to strategic goals at the national level.

By 2032, the Platform’s programme will have successfully combined natural hazard datasets, developed advanced models to understand hazard impacts, and improved the way we measure and understand hazard risks under different scenarios. These insights will be linked with new approaches to studying the social, economic, and governance aspects of disaster risk and resilience, using new data science and technologies to help make more informed decisions across different sectors about reducing risks and building resilience.

The breadth and depth of the Platform’s capability across hazard science, social science, engineering and emergency management, combined with strong internal and external networks, make it well-placed to coordinate science responses following large natural hazard events. This new function will ensure that post-event research activities are aligned, the needs of response agencies and communities are met, and that lessons are captured to drive future resilience.

Through scientists, agencies, councils, iwi, industry and communities working together in partnership to build our resilience, we can envisage a future in which we understand our dynamic environment, and know how to anticipate, adapt and thrive in the face of hazard risks.

Damaging and disruptive natural hazard events are a feature of New Zealand’s dynamic environment. The same processes that generate our dramatic, picturesque landscapes and natural resources intermittently cause widespread devastation and disruption to New Zealanders’ lives, livelihoods and communities. Earthquakes, storms, and volcanic eruptions are inevitable. But we can avoid these events turning into disasters by reducing our risks at the government, council, community and household levels.

The Natural Hazards and Resilience Platform is a new multi-institutional, collaborative research programme with a mission to accelerate our resilience to natural hazards. The Platform is hosted by Earth Sciences New Zealand and builds on the efforts, achievements and ways of working in the Resilience to Nature’s Challenges National Science Challenge (RNC) (2014–2024). With funding for 7 years from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, we’re mobilising scientists, resources, agencies and communities from around the country to collectively innovate to address this difficult challenge.

It has been a busy first year for the Platform, as the team has engaged with people in government, councils, iwi and hapū, businesses and the communities who need our research most. We asked what a resilient New Zealand would look like 30 years’ time, and what the Platform needs to prioritise to help us get there.

We listened to their feedback and responded with a research structure designed to accelerate the science we need to reduce risk from damaging natural hazard events, while also driving deep collaboration, building capability in the natural hazards research sector, and delivering real impact for New Zealanders.

Not only are we investing in cutting-edge natural hazards research, but also important supporting activities such as translating and transforming new knowledge into usable products and tools, and harnessing the innovative power of new technologies to advance our knowledge and impact.

The devastation caused by recent heavy rain events in parts of Nelson and Tasman highlights the critical importance of our work. The collaborative nature of the Platform community and the strength of our capability across science, engineering and emergency management means we are well-placed to coordinate science responses following future large natural hazard events. This function will ensure that post-event research activities are aligned, the needs of response agencies and communities are met, and that lessons are captured to drive future resilience.

We are setting up research themes to deliver new science, and we have hit the ground running with a series of ‘fast-start’ projects that will keep essential natural hazard research skills here in New Zealand, particularly those held by researchers early in their careers. With this funding, research teams have been able to continue with critical work, including advancing the use of innovative computer simulations for earthquake and tsunami modelling, improving coastal erosion data for use in adaptation planning, working with Māori communities to enhance preparedness and resilience to hazards, and developing new hazard assessments and maps that cover multiple types of hazards.

Through scientists, agencies, councils, iwi, industry and communities working in partnership to build our resilience, we can envisage a future in which we understand our dynamic environment, and know how to anticipate, adapt and thrive in the face of hazard risks.

More information is available on the Earth Sciences New Zealand (GNS Science) website