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record_id: reccvndeTZAaLld7e city: Wellington solution_title: Wellington Resilience Programme: Multi-Utility Earthquake Infrastructure Modelin quote: "The supporting report: Wellington Resilience Programme Business Case: Lifelines Outage Modelling, GNS Science Consultancy Report 2017/236, December 2017 found in Appendix K." context: "The infrastructure types included in the modelling process were: road, rail, port, airport, electricity, telecommunications, potable water, wastewater, fuel, and gas. Damage to buildings was also modelled." hazards:

  • Subsidence
  • Landslide ai_intensity_score: 28 models_used:
  • anthropic.claude-4.5-sonnet iterations: 13 searches: 15 validated_claims: 23 documents_scraped: 17 wall_time: 13m 37s repository: resilience-scanner-deepresearcher-2 commit: c84ae821 uncommitted_changes: true branch: dev script: researcher.py generated: 2025-10-22T04:22:55.256894

Solution Overview

The Wellington Resilience Programme represents a comprehensive infrastructure resilience initiative that modeled and mapped service outages and restoration pathways following a magnitude 7.5 Wellington Fault earthquake.[2] This approach drew on knowledge from all 16 Wellington utility providers and local government to identify and present a preferred, accelerated programme of infrastructure investments for the region.[2] The study is the first of this size and complexity ever undertaken in New Zealand, considering the interdependencies of 16 infrastructure providers to identify a step-change improvement to the Wellington region's resilience to a large earthquake.[3]

Technical Components

GNS Science's RiskScape and Post Disaster Cities (PDC) teams modeled and mapped infrastructure service outages and restoration after a M7.5 Wellington Fault event, and its associated perils including fault rupture, ground shaking, liquefaction, landslides, lateral spreading, and subsidence.[2] Impact modelling on nine different lifeline utilities in the Wellington metropolitan area was conducted to quantify the benefits that can be achieved by making the proposed investments.[1] The time-stamped service outage maps and tables produced from this work formed an essential input to evaluate and demonstrate the impact of the proposed resilience initiatives on the regional and national economies.[1] The supporting report Wellington Resilience Programme Business Case: Lifelines Outage Modelling, GNS Science Consultancy Report 2017/236, was published in December 2017 and is found in Appendix K.[2][3][5] The likely scale and timeframe of infrastructure service losses under current investments were compared with that which might occur should further investments be made in infrastructure resilience.[2]

Implementation Details

The preferred programme of investment comprises 25 resilience projects at an estimated total capital cost of $3.9 billion.[3] The investment programme has been broken into three equal phases with projects in Phase One (years one to seven) typically being of higher feasibility and more fully solutioned.[3] Funding capital costs for Phase One is 28% committed, 20% contingent with a small amount of revenue from user payments, while approximately 51% remains unfunded at this stage.[3] A key feature of the project was consideration of infrastructure interdependencies and ensuring any investment was focused on improving the resilience for the region and not separately for each individual utility.[4] The Wellington Lifelines Group and Project Steering Group provided valuable guidance and feedback at all stages of the project.[4] Staff from Wellington Water and Kapiti Coast District Council shared their expert knowledge on their networks and provided technical inputs to this work.[4]

Benefits and Impacts

A coordinated investment of $3.9 billion would save the nation $6 billion in the aftermath of a magnitude 7.5 earthquake on the Wellington Fault.[3] If a magnitude 7.5 earthquake occurs on the Wellington Fault with no investment (the do-nothing scenario), the expected loss to New Zealand's GDP over a 5-year period will exceed $16 billion in 2016 dollars, excluding recovery costs or building damage.[3] If the preferred investment programme is implemented before the earthquake occurs, the expected economic loss reduces to $10 billion over a 5-year period, and a $6 billion impact to New Zealand's economy is avoided.[3] With the preferred programme of investments, the MERIT modelling demonstrated a multi-billion-dollar reduction in economic losses and improved community outcomes in the event of a major seismic event in Wellington.[2] The investment programme was also recognised to have co-benefits in reduction of losses and faster community and economic recovery arising from smaller earthquakes, and from threats arising from other perils.[2]

Climate Adaptation Relevance

Wellington has a probability of a local magnitude 7.5 or greater earthquake of around 20% over the next 100 years.[2] New Zealand experienced a sequence of damaging earthquakes in the last decade that highlighted the need to prioritise improving the country's infrastructure resilience, leading to the Wellington lifeline resilience initiative.[4] The Wellington Lifelines Group delivered a report that demonstrates how impacts from a future major earthquake can be reduced through integrated and targeted infrastructure resilience investments.[1]

Business Analysis

The preferred programme comprises 25 resilience projects at an estimated total capital cost of $3.9 billion, broken into three equal phases with Phase One spanning years one to seven.[3] Funding capital costs for Phase One is 28% committed and 20% contingent with a small amount of revenue from user payments, while approximately 51% remains unfunded at this stage.[3] The economic case demonstrates that a coordinated investment of $3.9 billion would save the nation $6 billion in the aftermath of a magnitude 7.5 earthquake, representing a substantial return on investment.[3] The modelling showed that without investment, the expected loss to New Zealand's GDP over a 5-year period would exceed $16 billion, but with the preferred investment programme implemented, this reduces to $10 billion, avoiding a $6 billion impact to New Zealand's economy.[3]

Sources