EQC Toka Tū Ake has released its 2023 Resilience and Research Highlights report, a snapshot of its $14 million investment into building Aotearoa New Zealand’s resilience to future natural hazards events.

EQC Chief Resilience Officer Dr Jo Horrocks says “most people know EQC manages the country’s natural hazards insurance scheme, but we also invest millions every year in natural hazard research, data, and education to help reduce the impact of future events. This report covers some of the breadth of our work to build a more resilient New Zealand.”

Dr Horrocks says it’s critical that the information and data EQC helps generate about natural hazards gets into the hands of decision-makers.

“Whether you’re a government minister or someone looking to buy a house, our goal is to ensure every New Zealander is thinking about natural hazard risks when making decisions. We try to make this knowledge accessible, easy to understand and act on,” she says.

The bite-sized stories in the report showcase the people, projects and programmes working towards EQC’s resilience vision, to see natural hazards embedded into all aspects of decision making for our homes, towns and cities.

Featured stories include research led by Dr Calum Chamberlain from Victoria University of Wellington, who is using AI to detect earthquakes too small to be picked up by traditional methods. So far, his team has detected 10 to 15 times more earthquakes than reported through GeoNet.

It highlights University of Canterbury’s Dr Enrique del Rey Castillo work which showed that the cost of earthquake strengthening buildings is much lower than expected, casting doubt on the perception that resilience is too costly.

As well as funding research, EQC supports risk-based decision-making around land use. The report covers the launch of its Risk Tolerance Methodology, a New Zealand-first which helps government agencies make robust and transparent decisions about risk.

Read the full copy of the report on EQC’s website: https://www.eqc.govt.nz/assets/Publications-Resources/Resilience.and.Research.Highlights.Report.2023.pdf

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