NIWA is sponsoring the 6th Australasian Natural Hazards Management Conference - From warnings to response and recovery.
The conference is being held at the University of Canterbury, on the 21st to 22nd August.
NIWA is sponsoring the Association of Women in the Sciences (AWIS) conference being held in Auckland.
For more information about the conference see AWIS conference website
Human recovery is as important as repairing infrastructure if communities are to get back on their feet following natural disasters. NIWA is part of a team providing a new toolkit for post-tsunami research, to include guidance on how to gather critical information from disaster victims following a tsunami.
Scientists at NIWA are investigating the longer-term costs of natural disasters using the September 2009 Samoan tsunami as a case study. The anticipated costs of natural disasters drive decisions about investment in risk-reduction initiatives, so the more accurately the costs can be estimated, the better those decisions will be.
Recent tsunami generated by earthquakes off Samoa and Vanuatu were detected by 12 sea-level gauges around New Zealand, revealing delays of up to 15 hours in local occurrence of peak waves. Using data from the Vanuatu tsunami, NIWA scientists demonstrated new hydrodynamic computer models that may soon be able to predict the effects of regional tsunamis in near real-time.
NIWA hydrologists were recently in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of Palau, installing hydrological stations and training local staff in the installation and operation of equipment, and in data processing.
NIWA scientists are part of a team aiming to assess the tsunami risk in the French Territory of Wallis & Futuna. By coincidence, the team was on Futuna a week after the 29 September 2009 Tongan earthquake and tsunami and were able to view the damage first-hand.
NIWA has been working closely with the Kiribati Government for over two years, contributing to the Kiribati Adaptation Program (KAP II) initiative to plan for climate change. Our role has included assessing hazards such as drought, high intensity rainfall, extreme sea levels, and wave conditions for the islands that make up Kiribati.
