Recovering from severe weather events

We are working alongside other government agencies to support the broader response to the severe weather.

In the coming months our focus will be on: 

• supporting councils and communities with the significant recovery job ahead  
• building Aotearoa New Zealand’s resilience to future events. 

We have several main work areas to support the recovery:  

• Changing laws to better enable recovery
• Stronger risk management for areas at risk of natural hazards
• Climate adaptation and resilience.

The focus is on enabling recovery in the immediate term, and adaptation and resilience going forward.

Emergency response regulations under s331AA  

Regulations made under s331AA can support recovery by temporarily modifying specific RMA settings to address regulatory barriers, where existing RMA pathways are not sufficient or fast enough for the circumstances.   

See more about the emergency response regulations.

Regulations made under SWERLA 

The Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Act 2023 (SWERLA) passed into law on 20 March 2023. It was an omnibus Act which made changes to a number of existing laws including the Resource Management Act.

Read more on SWERLA (Beehive website)

It applied to these severe weather events:

• Auckland floods
• Cyclone Gabrielle
• Cyclone Hale.

The Orders in Councils that came from SWERLA were time bound and geographically limited.  

Read more about Orders in Council

We are focused on how climate adaptation and resilience can be factored into the response to support local authorities and decision-makers.

This includes the Climate Adaptation Bill, planned to be introduced to Parliament this year, which will lay the foundations for a system for managed retreat.

We are actively looking at what more we can do in this space to support the recovery response.

Waste and contamination

Councils waste and silt management plans

We are supporting councils with their immediate waste and silt management plans.

Contribution to councils to help remove residential waste

The Government has announced a contribution of $15 million to help local councils remove residential waste from cyclone-affected areas.

We’ve heard from some councils that they don’t have the financial capacity to deal with all the waste generated by the recent severe weather, given the scale of these events. We know that further support will be required, but this funding provides some relief to communities as they recover. 

This support is in addition to the council’s own waste funding streams, as well as insurance and Earthquake Commission arrangements. 

Local councils are facing unprecedented damage from the cyclone. These funds are intended to help them to help their communities as fast as possible.

The Ministerial Inquiry into Tairāwhiti/Gisborne and Wairoa land-use was announced on 23 February 2023. This work is led by the Minister of Forestry and the Minister for the Environment.

The inquiry’s recommendations are assisting local and central government on issues like forestry practice, RMA plans and national direction — specifically the National Environmental Standards for Plantation Forestry.

Read more about the Ministerial inquiry

We commissioned Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research to undertake a rapid assessment of land damaged by the cyclone in February 2023.

Key findings

Manaaki Whenua based its assessment on satellite photos of Tairāwhiti/Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay and Wairarapa coast. It found that:

• there were more than 300,000 landslides, with each landslide comprising about 1,000 tonnes of soil, the equivalent weight of 548 single-cab utes
• in southern Hawke’s Bay/northern Wairarapa hill country, land under native vegetation was 90 per cent less likely to slide, while land under exotic forest was 80 per cent less likely to slide
• in northern Hawke’s Bay, land under native vegetation was 90 per cent less likely to slide, while land under exotic forest was 60 per cent less likely to slide
• in Tairāwhiti/Gisborne coastal hill country, land under native vegetation was 50 per cent less likely to slide than hill country pastoral land. Land under exotic forestry and pasture had the same extent of land sliding.  

Understanding the land damage assessment

The assessment indicates that hill country land under native forest was less affected than land under exotic forest. Areas in pasture and harvested pine were the most affected. The assessment doesn’t draw conclusions about the underlying reasons.

A more in-depth study is needed before conclusions about the soil stabilisation effectiveness of different types of tree/vegetation cover can be made.

Pine is often planted on hill country areas that have been in pasture, and so is likely to have a history of soil disturbance. In Tairāwhiti/Gisborne, pine was planted in areas with extensive erosion damage in an attempt to stabilise the land. Regenerating native vegetation takes longer than pine to stabilise highly erodible areas.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is funding GNS Science to map landslides at a finer scale. This will provide more definitive information than provided in the preliminary rapid assessment.

The Manaaki Whenua and GNS Science reports will form part of the scientific advice that informs the Ministry’s severe weather integrated response and its policy advice to the Government.

Read Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research’s assessment [PDF, 3.6MB].