PhD student:
Clevon Ash (GRI – UoC)
Supervisors:
Matthew Wilson (GRI – UoC)
Iain White (UoW)
Carolynne Hultquist (SEE – UoC)
Funding:
MBIE Endeavour Research Programme – Increasing flood resilience across Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Duration of Project
3 years
Summary:
Like many other countries around the world, New Zealand experienced numerous floods between 2022 and 2023. In 2022, Aotearoa experienced over 600 million dollars in losses; however, in 2023 this figure skyrocketed to over 3.5 billion dollars with the passage of Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland Anniversary weekend floods. According to the National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) who uses complex flood models to predict how flooding is going to change over the next few decades, these figures are likely to increase based on climate projections. The aim of this research is to develop a better understanding of uncertainty representation in flood risk management and to determine the impact that it has on decision making. As the uncertainty associated with flood risk grows due to climate change and other factors it becomes imperative that decision makers can make the decisions needed within acceptable margins of error to protect the people of Aotearoa and its assets.
Outputs:
Ash, C. Using RiskScape to measure the Impact of Flood Uncertainty on Decision-Making. The Fourth Spatial Data Science Symposium. UoC, Christchurch, September 5, 2023. Poster.
