New research from the Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake (NHC) outlines how design choices, land-use planning, and hazard science are influencing New Zealand’s exposure to natural perils and recovery pathways. In its 2025 Resilience Highlights Report, NHC presents a programme of work aimed at reducing the physical, financial, and social impacts of natural hazards and focusing on the reoccupation of homes and workplaces after events. “We invest more than $10 million a year in research and resilience to strengthen our country’s knowledge base and improve our individual and collective resilience to natural disasters,” Dr. Jo Horrocks, NHC’s chief resilience officer, said.
The report refers to modelling, indicating that buildings designed to higher seismic resilience standards may require greater upfront capital but can recover that premium over about 10 to 15 years. The projected gains are attributed to reduced repair costs, shorter periods of disruption for occupants, fewer cases of displacement, and fewer carbon-intensive rebuilds following earthquakes. NHC’s work also identifies a gap between the Building Code’s minimum life-safety objectives and what many homeowners expect. Survey findings suggest owners often assume their properties will suffer less damage and be usable sooner than current minimum standards are intended to achieve. In response, NHC is supporting the development of guidance for performance-based design and clearer communication about likely post-event building functionality. “We’re pleased to share this report, which gives a snapshot of the diversity of resilience work underway – from uncovering new insights into earthquake and climate risk, to improving building performance and supporting smarter land-use decisions across New Zealand,” Horrocks said.
At a regional level, NHC-funded geoscience work in Auckland has added detail to the city’s seismic profile. Researchers have detected roughly five times more small earthquakes than were previously catalogued and mapped dozens of possible previously unknown or obscured faults. While large earthquakes in the region are still considered unlikely, the updated information may affect regional risk assessments, underwriting assumptions, and council planning decisions as the city expands.
On the climate side, the report notes that extreme rainfall in New Zealand tends to occur in clusters rather than at regular intervals. Some communities may face several severe storms in relatively short periods, while others may go long stretches without major events. For flood modelling and insurance pricing, this pattern suggests that reliance on recent local history alone may understate future risk in some catchments. The report identifies landslides as New Zealand’s costliest and deadliest hazard. Guidance from the New Zealand Geotechnical Society, now widely used in practice, is used by planners, engineers, and developers to distinguish between higher- and lower-risk areas and to adjust development proposals where necessary.
The report also describes a dynamic simulation model that tracks how zoning rules and infrastructure investment can change land-use patterns over time. In test scenarios, stricter zoning settings were associated with reductions of up to 19% in vulnerable residential development. In parallel, NHC’s Pre-event Land Use Planning Methodology, released in 2025, sets out an approach for councils to consider recovery pathways and potential relocation options before a major event. “This report shows how evidence-based investment in resilience can reduce long-term costs, improve safety outcomes, and help New Zealanders recover faster,” Horrocks said.
In addition to land-use and hazard-modelling tools, NHC is focusing on how individual buildings perform during and after earthquakes. Its broader resilience agenda is linked to new guidance for “low damage” seismic design, developed with the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE). Low Damage Seismic Design (LDSD) Volumes Two and Three provide technical guidance for engineers and architects designing buildings intended to sustain shaking with less damage, be repaired more readily, and return to function sooner than conventional minimum-code designs.
“While minimum code design protects lives, it doesn’t guarantee quick recovery,” Professor Ken Elwood, joint chief engineer (Resilient Buildings) at MBIE and NHC, said. He said recent earthquakes drew attention to the gap between life safety and ongoing usability. “Canterbury and Kaikōura showed us that many buildings delivered on life safety but were too damaged to use, meaning that families were out of homes, and schools and businesses were closed for months. In Canterbury, widespread demolition and slow recovery added environmental and financial costs to the social disruption. Kaikōura reinforced that even modern, code-compliant buildings can be unusable for months,” he said.
The LDSD series sets out a voluntary, performance-based framework that allows building owners to specify post-event functionality targets. Designers can use the guidance to select systems and details that align with those targets. Volumes Two and Three build on Volume One, released in 2024, by providing performance frameworks and more detailed technical criteria. The guidance is presented alongside TS 1170.5:2025, Standards New Zealand’s technical specification that updates earthquake design loads based on the latest National Seismic Hazard Model. LDSD and TS 1170.5:2025 are both voluntary. They give design teams and clients the option to design above Building Code minimum requirements where higher performance is sought. LDSD is part of NHC’s Resilient Homes and Buildings Action Plan and is available through Design.Resilience.NZ, an online resource supported by NHC, MBIE, BRANZ, and engineering societies.
