Project Team

In June 2004 the New Zealand Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (FRST), being the research funding agency for central government, provided funding for the development of a Regional RiskScape Model.

The organizational structure adopted was a 50:50 joint venture comprising GNS Science and the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA).

Both NIWA and GNS Science are Crown Research Institutes (CRI) and have comprehensive expertise's in the field of natural hazards and the resultant impacts on communities and their assets. They have created the Natural Hazards Centre with the aim to provide New Zealanders with a single point of contact for the latest research, resources, and scientific expertise. The strength lies in their multidisciplinary skills and resources for delivering world-class research to emergency and resource managers, engineers, the science community, and other stakeholders.

The RiskScape programme works closely with, shares resources, and is reliant on core natural hazards research (processes, frequency/magnitude, databases, prediction models, forecasting models) from the two 'parent' hazard programmes respectively of NIWA: Reducing the Impacts of Weather Related Hazards (RIWRH) prgramme and GNS Science: Geological Hazardscape programme.

Other FRST prgrammes such as the Consequences of Earth Ocean Change programmw, the Post Earthquake Cities programme and the Immediate Surveillance & Damage Assessment following Natural Disaster programme also provide input into RiskScape.

Additionally RiskScape collaborates with national and international organizations such as Massey University, BRANZ, University of Canterbury, GeoScience Australia and many others.

For all enquiries about RiskScape please contact: info@riskscape.org.nz