Weather hazards

NIWA-led research

NIWA is developing a national river flow forecasting tool for New Zealand that aims to support and strengthen our planning for and response to extreme rainfall events.

NIWA and the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) are working together to develop a new drought forecasting tool.

RiskScape is a software application for analysing natural hazard consequences.

This five-year NIWA-led research programme is developing a system to map flood hazard consistently across the whole country. It will reveal how our flood risk might change over the next 100 years because of changes to rainfall and sea level from climate change, as well as due to land-use changes. Find out more.

NIWA’s research into forecasting weather systems aims to increase the resilience of New Zealand communities to weather-related hazards.

Developing a snowmelt forecast system to enable more accurate and confident forecasts of river flow and alpine hazards.

Transforming coastal lowland systems threatened by sea-level rise into prosperous communities

This research project aims to establish connections between weather and river flow forecasting, inundation prediction, and the associated risks to people and assets, using the RiskScape platform.

NIWA and Surf Life Saving New Zealand are working together to develop a state-of-the-art, rip current identification tool underpinned by artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning technologies.

University of Canterbury’s Professor Matthew Wilson, one of the Mā te haumaru ō te wai research team, gives us some insight on uncertainty.weather

The three-year PARTneR–2 project aims to help countries in the Pacific become more resilient to the impacts of climate-related hazards.