Hazards

For the past year, NIWA’s meteorologists have been on call to provide real-time, comprehensive information about weather patterns that may accelerate a fire.

NIWA scientists have found signs of recovery in the Kaikōura Canyon seabed, 10 months after powerful submarine landslides triggered by the November earthquake wiped out organisms living in and on the seabed.

Imagine if you could foresee what would happen to your home in a severe flood or tsunami, and then work out how to prevent or reduce the impact before any such event occurred.

NIWA is placing the future of New Zealanders at the heart of its operation by investing in new supercomputers that will significantly enhance scientists’ abilities to solve crucial issues facing the country.

Maps of the average first and last dates of soil moisture deficit are shown here.

One of the major consequences of climate change is rising global sea levels.

This system combines daily sea-level data from NIWA, regional councils, port companies, Antarctica NZ, Bureau of Meteorology and territorial authorities.

This weekly update helps assess likelihood of extremely dry weather preceding a drought. Regions experiencing severely to extremely drier than normal soil conditions are deemed “hotspots”

New Zealand’s coast is sculpted by ocean waves. Some wave conditions bring joy to surfers and beachgoers, but, at other times, waves can cause major hazards at sea or along the shore.

Water Levels: Our Cam-Era installation on the Ashburton River overlooks a hapua or coastal lagoon. We know the exact location of several posts in the front of the image, and we can use these and the position of the camera to back-calculate the water level.
What Cam-Era can do for you
Every day we come up with new things that Cam-Era can monitor.

The New Zealand Drought Monitor is a system for keeping track of drought conditions across New Zealand based on a standardised climate index.

New Zealand faces a variety of hazards associated with undersea geological activity.