Theme

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Leader:
Iain White, University of Waikato

Better Resilience Decisions

The Better Resilience Decisions theme aims to help organisations, businesses and agencies make better decisions about natural hazard risks in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Organisations who manage risk need to be able to make decisions that increase resilience to natural hazards, for themselves and others. Science-based tools, guidance and frameworks can support these decisions.  

To achieve impact, these tools need to be tailored to the needs, constraints, and contexts of decision makers in a range of sectors.

Better Resilience Decisions Adobestock 571440920

What are we doing?

The Better Resilience Decisions team will engage with real-world decision-making issues. We are seeking to develop a deeper understanding of how risk and resilience is the responsibility of different entities at different times within the hazard management system, and how we can best support resilience outcomes at different stages. 

Focus areas

Projects are designed to address the following areas:

  • Retrofitting resilience and adaptation of existing land use
  • Anticipating recovery: legislative and regulatory frameworks (joint focus area with the Living with Risk theme)
  • Integrating resilience with growth and development
  • Business, economy, and infrastructure investment

Projects
(more info coming soon)

  • Dynamic spatial planning

  • Scaling up effective ‘nature-based solution’ interventions in built environments

  • Spatio-temporal socio-economic data for resilience research

  • A triple resilience dividends analysis of social infrastructure

  • Breaking the loop: Systems audit of natural hazard decision-making, knowledge translation and action

How are we doing it?

This theme will draw on our existing relationships and develop new capabilities by working closely with the Platform’s other science themes and programmes, and our partners and users in key sectors.

Working with the Living with Risk team, we will ensure that we better understand and consider the behavioural drivers that contribute to decision making in practice, as well as the societal and economic consequences of different risk reduction actions. 

We will use hazard and risk data from the Next Generation Risk Assessment theme to create tailored information for different users. We are also working with the Data and Enabling Technologies programme to bring a wide range of data types into a single, dynamic modelling and decision-support environment.