There's more to life than earthquakes; there's also Tsunami, floo and wildfire to consider - practical application for disaster resiliance

The Waimakariri District Council recognised that the District is subject to a number of natural hazards and there was a need to better understand this risk. In 2007 the Council commissioned a Disaster Resilience Assessment for its three waters assets.

Since the original assessment, a range of new hazard studies were undertaken and the District experienced its first significant natural disaster, the September 2010 earthquake. This provided an excellent opportunity to reconsider hazard risks and incorporate lessons learned in a 2012 update.

Population centres in the District are concentrated in the east, in areas susceptible to liquefaction, flooding, tsunami, and wildfire. Individual site risk assessments formed the core of the study, based on severity, consequence and likelihood of failure. Understanding which assets are at greatest risk enables mitigation works to be undertaken and assists in response planning.

The Disaster Resilience work has provided Council with:

• Prioritisation of which assets are most at risk
• Reticulation vulnerability scores enabling risk-based water mains renewals programming
• Identified processes and actions to improve Council’s readiness
• Actions for the capital budget to increase the resilience of utilities assets

This has been a valuable exercise which is assisting Council to achieve more robust and resilient utilities infrastructure and meet future community expectations.