Waikato Regional Hazards Portal

On this page:

Launch the Waikato Regional Hazards Portal •
What is the Portal? •
Natural Hazard Information Hierarchy •
Frequently asked questions (FAQs) •
Further information

To access the Portal, just click or tap on the 'Launch the Waikato Regional Hazards Portal' button.

Please note

By using the Waikato Regional Hazards Portal you are deemed to have agreed to the Terms of Use.
“Natural Hazard Information Hierarchy” classfications are included in the Portal's Layer Descriptions. You can read more about the hierarchy levels on this page.
Also note that the Portal is not intended as a substitute for a Land Information Memoranda (LIM) which can be obtained from your local district/city council.
For an overview of how Waikato Regional Council is complying with requirements under the LGOIMA Act and regulations to provide natural hazard information to territorial authorities, see our supporting information webpage.

Launch the Waikato Regional Hazards Portal

What is the Waikato Regional Hazards Portal?

Natural hazards have the potential to cause disruption, damage properties and take lives.

They can also affect the value and insurability of properties. This is important to consider when purchasing a property, particularly with climate change projected to increase the frequency and severity of events such as river flooding and coastal erosion and inundation.

The Waikato Regional Hazards Portal has been developed to improve access to regional natural hazard information, and to help the public, local authorities and others manage risk and make informed decisions about their exposure to natural hazards.

The Portal contains all available (suitably robust) spatial hazard information that is held by Waikato Regional Council, as well as data from other organisations.

New and updated information will be added as required. It is intended to partially replace the online request for flood hazard information, although this service will still be available to answer specific questions and to provide flood levels where available.

Natural Hazard Information Hierarchy

The information contained in the Portal is of different levels of accuracy and has different scales of use, limitations and intended uses. This may be reflected in the visible display scale of the data. For some data, you will need to zoom in or out in order to make it visible – see the “Layer Descriptions” in the sidebar for a list of the data in each tab.

Also included in the Layer Descriptions section is an “Info Hierarchy Level” classification. This is the “Natural Hazard Information Hierarchy” which specifically supports user interpretation of quality, scale, and applicability for each of the WRC natural hazard data sets. For example, local scale flood depth data can be used to inform minimum floor levels for building consents, but the regional scale flood hazard data is only suitable as a ‘heads up’.

The following table describes each of the Hierarchy Levels:

Hierarchy level	Description
1	Property to local scale Information that is suitable to be used for property specific purposes, including within District Plans, or for: risk assessments resource or building consents decisions that concern personal or public safety the conduct of commercial business insurance purposes land information memorandum reports (LIMs). The information is based on detailed modelling or hazards mapping that includes both current and future possible scenarios, along with the associated likelihoods and impacts. Users should make sure they are using the most appropriate natural hazards data available. Data held by other organisations may be better suited for property scale use or may be more up to date. Before using any of the Waikato Regional Council natural hazard data at property scale or for subdivision development purposes please contact the Waikato Regional Council Regional Resilience team for guidance. Further information on resource consenting is available on this website.
2	Local to regional scale Information that is suitable to be used for District or Regional Plans, or as an initial indicator of where further investigation may be required. This information is NOT suitable for use at property scale, or for: property specific risk assessments resource or building consents decisions that concern personal or public safety the conduct of commercial business insurance purposes. Waikato Regional Council recommends further investigation and using other applicable natural hazard data, if available, for property specific purposes. The information is generally based on modelling or hazard mapping but may not include both current and future possible scenarios. Users should make sure they are using the most appropriate natural hazards data available. Data held by other organisations may be better suited for property scale use or may be more up to date. Before using any of the Waikato Regional Council natural hazard data at property scale or for subdivision development purposes please contact the Waikato Regional Council Regional Resilience team for guidance. Note that further information on resource consenting is available on this website.
3	Regional scale Information that is suitable to be used for the Regional Policy Statement, or regional scale studies/projects, or as an initial indicator of where further investigation may be required. This information is NOT suitable for use at property scale, or for: district planning property specific risk assessments resource or building consents decisions that concern personal or public safety the conduct of commercial business insurance purposes. Waikato Regional Council recommends further investigation and using other applicable natural hazard data, if available, for property specific purposes. The information is generally based on previous events or historic mapping/aerial imagery or LiDAR. Users should make sure they are using the most appropriate natural hazards data available. Data held by other organisations may be better suited for property scale use or may be more up to date. Before using any of the Waikato Regional Council natural hazard data at property scale or for subdivision development purposes please contact the Waikato Regional Council Regional Resilience team for guidance. Note that further information on resource consenting is available on this website.
4	General information Information that is to be used for information purposes only, or as an initial indicator of where further investigation may be required. This information is NOT suitable for use at property scale, or for: regional policy development or regional scale studies/projects district planning property specific risk assessments resource or building consents decisions that concern personal or public safety the conduct of commercial business insurance purposes. This information may be a draft, that is still subject to review, or indicative only. Waikato Regional Council recommends further investigation and using other applicable natural hazard data, if available, for property specific purposes. The information is generally based on national scale mapping, indicative regional scale mapping, or susceptibility from other existing data (e.g. LiDAR data). Users should make sure they are using the most appropriate natural hazards data available. Data held by other organisations may be better suited for property scale use or may be more up to date. Before using any of the Waikato Regional Council natural hazard data at property scale or for subdivision development purposes please please contact the Waikato Regional Council Regional Resilience team for guidance. Note that further information on resource consenting is available on this website.

Information not currently available on the Waikato Regional Hazards Portal

Natural hazards information that is not spatial in nature, such as technical reports, may be available. Also, other spatial natural hazards information may be under development. See the Waikato Regional Council publications on this website or contact the Waikato Regional Council Regional Resilience team for guidance.

Picture shows a slip on the side of the hill while cars drive along the road on top of the hill

Photo taken inside a Christchurch home depicting earthquake damage. Looking out through the demolished brick wall.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

The hazard mapping on the Portal varies in accuracy, depending on the data it is based on. For example, detailed flood modelling is a different level of accuracy to post-event surveys or anecdotal evidence. Because of this, each of the data layers has been given a “Natural Hazard Information Hierarchy” classification (see above) within the “Layer Descriptions” section.
The Portal does not provide property specific hazard assessment (although there is some property scale information), thus the tool in itself is unlikely to devalue a property. The information contained in the Portal has been available for some time and provided by Waikato Regional Council to anyone who has asked for it. Thus any proper due diligence on purchasing a house would include similar information, whether the Portal existed or not. In addition, much of the local scale flood modelling has been included in District Plans for a few years already.
The Portal should not cause issues for your insurance. All of the information has been available for some time and much of it is freely available under Creative Commons licensing or can be provided on request (including to insurance companies).
Our focus is that insurance companies only use the information for its intended purpose, e.g. regional scale information should not be used to determine property specific insurance. In some cases, the information on the Portal may be used to question a decision made by an insurance company.
Depending on the hazard, you may wish to educate yourself further about what it means for you. You can contact the Regional Resilience team to help with this. Again depending on the hazard, it is recommended that you prepare yourself and your family for the event of a natural disaster.

GetReady.govt.nz by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) is a great website to help with developing a plan, as is the Waikato Civil Defence website

In addition, if you are looking to develop or sell the property then you or another party may need to provide/seek further information on the natural hazard. Any further information would likely have been required whether the Portal was used or not.
Some data that is contained in the Portal can be used as part of a consent application. However, generally the only data that is suitable to be used is that classed as Natural Hazard Information Hierarchy Level 1 (Property to local scale). The data in the Portal is at varying degrees of accuracy and thus suitable for different uses depending on its Information Level.
This may be for two reasons:
1. There is no information currently available on the relevant hazard for your property. This may be because your property is not expected to be affected by that hazard, or it may be because no spatial information currently exists for that area (that Waikato Regional Council is aware of).
2. The only information available for your property is not accurate enough to show at a property scale (due to data limitations, etc.). If you zoom out enough, the data layers will turn on. Examples of data that cannot be shown at a property scale are the earthquake and landslide data, volcano data, and regional scale flood hazard data.
No. The Portal currently contains the majority of the spatial information that Waikato Regional Council holds on natural hazards. However, there is still some data to add, such as aerial imagery from previous flood events. As further spatial information is developed, it will be added to the Portal.

The next key stage of the Portal is to add spatial hazards information from other organisations. The Portal currently contains some data from GNS Science, Contact Energy, Mercury Energy and Thames Coromandel District Council. We want to add data from the rest of the district/city councils, and possibly universities and others as well.

It is important to note that the Portal is designed to show spatial information. There is a wealth of information in reports, research papers, etc. that is not in a suitable format to show on the Portal. The Regional Resilience team maintain a metadatabase of reports, etc. that are relevant to natural hazards in the Waikato region. Some of these reports can be found in our Publications area on this website.

Further information