Regionwide Flood Models
John Doe made this Official Information request to Wellington Water Limited
The request was refused by Wellington Water Limited.
From: John Doe
Dear Wellington Water Limited,
Wellington Water has updated flood models in GIS for the Wellington region which include data on flood depth, velocity, recommended floor levels etc.
Outputs from these are provided for individual properties when requested. I also understand that local Councils have direct access to this through a GIS portal.
Why has Wellington Water limited public access to this data?
If the reason is that has not been verified or calibrated why does Wellington Water release this on a per property basis and allow Councils to use it?
Please provide access to this data within the Wellington Water GIS online maps.
Yours faithfully,
Wellington Resident
From: Official Information
Wellington Water Limited
Kia ora,
We have received your message and will be in touch in due course with an
acknowledgement to your request, as well as a date that you can expect to
receive a decision from us.
Ngā mihi nui,
From: Official Information
Wellington Water Limited
Kia ora,
Thank you for your request, which has been treated as a general
information request.
Why has Wellington Water limited public access to this data?
We have limited access for Upper Hutt City (UHCC) and Southern Wairarapa
(SWDC) as we need to validate and peer review the data before producing
the flood maps and making these publicly available. This ensures the
information we provide the public is accurate and robust.
We anticipate the peer reviewed flood maps will be available for
Featherston in around a month, with Martinborough and Greytown to follow.
While for Upper Hutt, conversations are yet to be had with UHCC to
determine timeframes, funding and to ensure alignment with their District
Plan.
For Wellington City (WCC), Lower Hutt (Hutt City Council) and Porirua
(PCC), residents are able to view the flood maps in the District plans and
GIS.
[1]Flood Zones (wcc.govt.nz) or [2]Rainfall flood risks in Wellington City
(arcgis.com)
[3]Rainfall flood risks in Hutt City (arcgis.com)
[4]Working towards resilience – rainfall flood risks in Porirua
(arcgis.com)
If the reason is that has not been verified or calibrated why does
Wellington Water release this on a per property basis and allow Councils
to use it?
As individual property data is much more localised and targeted, we are
able to use our data models to produce accurate flood maps for the public
and council. We only require the additional verification/peer review step
for data covering a much wider area, such as whole suburbs, where there
are many more variables impacting the accuracy of these data models.
Ngâ mihi nui,
Liam
Liam Davies (he/him)
Governance Coordinator - Business Services
[5]Wellington Water
Tel 04 912 4400
Private Bag 39804, Wellington Mail Centre 5045
Level 4, 25 Victoria Street, Petone, Lower Hutt
[6]www.wellingtonwater.co.nz
Wellington Water is owned by the Hutt, Porirua, Upper Hutt and Wellington
city councils, South Wairarapa District Council and Greater Wellington
Regional Council. We manage their drinking water, wastewater and
stormwater services.
References
Visible links
1. https://gis.wcc.govt.nz/LocalMapsViewer/...
2. https://wellingtonwater.maps.arcgis.com/...
3. https://wellingtonwater.maps.arcgis.com/...
4. https://wellingtonwater.maps.arcgis.com/...
6. Wellington Water Website
http://www.wellingtonwater.co.nz/
From: John Doe
Hi Liam,
Thank you for your reply.
I acknowledge that WWL has some of this data on public portals as you have pointed out.
However, there is a significant amount of data including flood velocity, flood depth, recommended building/floor levels and freeboard which is not publicly available.
Why is this information not being publicly released, despite being relied on by WWL and Council processing officers?
Yours sincerely,
John Doe
From: Official Information
Wellington Water Limited
Kia ora John,
Thanks for your email.
We are currently processing this additional data and it can be made available with Council permission. However, we are still working through the complexities of having multiple data on 2 metre grid cells, which is data intensive and difficult to currently navigate. We are working on how to display this for the region and anticipate a scheduled launch next year.
Ngā mihi nui,
Liam
Liam Davies (he/him)
Governance Coordinator - Business Services
Tel 04 912 4400
Private Bag 39804, Wellington Mail Centre 5045
Level 4, 25 Victoria Street, Petone, Lower Hutt
http://www.wellingtonwater.co.nz/
Wellington Water is owned by the Hutt, Porirua, Upper Hutt and Wellington city councils, South Wairarapa District Council and Greater Wellington Regional Council. We manage their drinking water, wastewater and stormwater services.
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