Northland council launches natural hazards portal

The Northland Regional Council (NRC) has launched its online Natural Hazards Portal, which focuses on projections and data around natural hazards and the risks they pose in Te Taitokerau.

Through the Natural Hazards Portal, property owners, prospective property buyers, and interested members of the public will be able to view various natural hazards in the region, and how they affect specific locations throughout Northland.

Victoria Rowe, river management engineer for NRC, said New Zealand’s coastlines are changing due to a combination of sinking land and rising sea level.

“It’s important people are aware of the natural hazard risks in their areas, and this new portal will really help people with that,” Rowe said. “We hope that by improving the accessibility of this information, we can better enable those most at risk to take steps to mitigate some of those risks. Many people are aware that there may be some risks to their properties but are just unaware of the urgent risks they face, particularly with issues such as coastal erosion, sea-level rise, and tsunami.”

The portal, hosted on the NRC website, allows non-technical users to access information about hazards present on a property or a specific location in the region. It has built-in user instructions and links to other resources for more information. The various maps show projections of areas that may be prone to coastal erosion and coastal flooding over 50- and 100-year timeframes.

“What’s important about a portal like this is that it helps everybody to be able to see the kinds of natural hazards that their properties are exposed to,” said Tim Grafton, chief executive of the Insurance Council of New Zealand. “It’s really important for people who are wanting to buy property to know about what the hazards are and for others to look at ways of reducing risks to their properties.”