New Zealand Institute for Earth Science funded Research Programmes

Rising sea levels, shifting rainfall patterns and more frequent and intense storms; climate change is already driving up costs and damages across New Zealand. While we have the science to understand these risks, we are struggling to act at the speed and scale needed. Adaptation plans and policies exist, but progress is slow. As climate change impacts intensify, urgent action is essential.

The Accelerating Adaptation programme will help close the gap between planning and action. Working with local communities, hapū/iwi and other stakeholders, to identify what’s holding up adaptation, we will design effective ways to address them. We will combine cutting-edge adaptation and behavioural science with economics, engineering, and real-world case studies to help communities, businesses, and governments make informed decisions that deliver benefits for New Zealand.

If we act now, we can reduce the risks of climate change and unlock new economic opportunities for future growth. Our programme will focus on practical, locally relevant solutions, while also avoiding ""maladaptation"" – the risk of actions that solve one problem but create new ones. Our work will ensure that the tools, knowledge, and strategies developed are effective in the long term.

Collaboration will be key to success. Our team will work alongside scientists, communities, and policymakers to develop solutions that allow New Zealand to lead the world in adaptation efforts, making us more prepared and prosperous in the face of climate change.

Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is increasingly recognised as necessary for avoiding global warming beyond +1.5°C. To achieve net zero by 2050 our current national strategy relies on purchasing offshore carbon offsets at considerable cost (NZD$3-23 billion). However, the 2nd Emission Reductions Plan identifies the potential for nature-based solutions to remove atmospheric carbon dioxide. The ocean around Aotearoa-NZ naturally removes five times more carbon dioxide than our forests but enhancing this sink has received little attention to date. Conversely, marine Carbon Dioxide Removal (mCDR) is attracting considerable interest and investment worldwide, with the current international market ($150M) projected to expand to $500B by 2050.

Aotearoa-NZ has a unique opportunity to test the potential of three mCDR techniques, Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement, Terrestrial Biomass Sequestration and Ocean Nutrient Fertilisation, by using their natural equivalents, or analogues. These analogues include alkalinity input from rivers that captures carbon dioxide, seafloor timber deposition following Cyclone Gabrielle, and carbon export from natural algal blooms. This novel approach avoids the need to deploy mCDR, so avoiding technological, environmental and social-licence barriers. We will use the analogues to test new marine carbon tracking technologies, advanced coupled models and experimental impact systems, and develop models to assess optimal locations for mCDR and also potential under future conditions. These new tools for monitoring and verifying carbon removal, establishing environmental risk, and guiding mCDR regulation, will provide the platform to ensure that any development and investment in mCDR is safe, viable and advances our national journey to carbon-neutrality. By determining the pros and cons of mCDR for Aotearoa-NZ, the research may avoid expensive overseas carbon credits and instead stimulate a national mCDR sector as part of our national climate strategy.

Aotearoa New Zealand is on the brink of unprecedented expansion of new offshore industries. This includes offshore renewable energy, open ocean aquaculture, and seabed mining.

For offshore wind, the Government is implementing a developer-led regime to accelerate development. But the lack of a spatially-integrated planning approach means that the synergies between different activities and adjacent developments may be missed, and economic benefits not fully realised. Further, guidance for environmental impact assessment (EIA) is limited, creating uncertainty and risk for industry and regulators in this new industry. Spatial planning, EIA approaches and mitigation solutions developed overseas are unlikely to apply to New Zealand’s unique marine fauna and habitats.

Our solution is toreinvent integrated spatial planning and transform EIA. Speed is our ambition, without compromising robustness. Our approach flips traditional methodology on its head. Typically, marine stressor-impact relationships have been studied through many years of data collection followed by lengthy modelling, often over several iterations. In contrast, we will develop artificial intelligence objective-driven models first, and use their outputs to design field campaigns that are optimised to produce the knowledge we need. In this way we will integrate complex datasets to enable efficient yet accurate assessments of individual and cumulative impacts on taonga species and habitats, specifically focusing on potential offshore wind developments in the Taranaki and Auckland/Waikato regions. Our aim is to make the spatial planning and EIA process more efficient and reliable, thus generating greater confidence in the sustainability of offshore development and maximising the benefits for New Zealand.

Aotearoa-New Zealand’s (NZ) electricity demand is rising rapidly, driven by increasing energy use, the shift to electric transport, and the transition to cleaner industries. By 2050, we will need 82% more electricity than we do today. While renewable sources like wind and solar will play an important role, their reliability and large land use limit their contribution to establishing energy security.

Harnessing deeper superhot geothermal resources offers a potential solution, as a new, low-carbon, small footprint way to generate 24/7 baseload electricity.

NZ is well-positioned to lead the world in developing this next-generation energy source, with the discovery of superhot geothermal resources in the Central Taupō Volcanic Zone (CTVZ). Combined with global expertise and government-backed drilling efforts, NZ has a rare opportunity to pioneer a breakthrough in clean energy production.

Our DeepHeat Programme uses advanced technologies like AI to better understand and harness superhot geothermal energy. We’re focused on:

• developing new methods to understand how geothermal fluids move in the brittle-ductile transition zone, where rock behaves both like brittle and flexible material;
• assessing the CTVZ’s energy potential to guide well placement and design;
• studying the performance of superhot geothermal utilisation; and
• developing safe and sustainable extraction methods for commercial energy production.

Our diverse team of scientists, engineers, AI experts, and Māori advisors will work with established international partners from the USA, Japan, Switzerland and Iceland. Collaborations with drillers, well designers, and energy stakeholders ensure practical solutions for NZ’s energy needs.

Additionally, the Programme supports Māori-led development, promoting indigenous wealth and sustainable resource management.

Unlocking superhot geothermal resources will transform our energy future, drive environmental goals, create new economic opportunities, and establish NZ as a leader in sustainable energy.

When a large local earthquake strikes, science can only provide information on the impacts well after damage has occurred.  Dangerous tsunami may be generated, but we know very little about its size, extent and potential impact until after waves hit our coasts. Despite this, the public are not always aware that official tsunami warnings may arrive too late, and that ‘long, strong, get gone’ immediate self-evacuation is the best line of defence.

Our challenge is to develop the scientific early warning capability to enable rapid, pre-impact decisions that can save lives and reduce economic impacts. Being one step ahead can support early evacuations, pre-positioning of emergency supplies, protective actions for infrastructure and assets, and reduced disruptions to supply chain and transportation to keep New Zealand moving.

Fortunately, global advancements in earthquake and tsunami monitoring offer promising pathways to much faster and more effective forecasts as these events unfold. Our programme also seeks to build New Zealand’s next-generation early warning capability by exploring cost-effective emerging technologies, e.g. utilising satellite (geodetic) measurements and signals from ocean-bottom telecommunications cables.

At the same time, NZ has developed the framework to use “digital twin” models of the interconnected earthquake and tsunami system specifically for Aotearoa’s unique society and geologic environment, meaning we can use physics and computational pipelines to simulate multi-hazard impacts.

We will utilise this capability to test and create early warning and impact modelling approaches based on advanced multi-data analysis. Importantly, we will consider the interplay between earthquake phenomena (e.g. rupture, shaking, coastal land movements), tsunami potential and multi-hazard impacts to society and the built environment.

Concrete is an essential material for building our infrastructure, providing strength, mass and resilience. As stated in the Te Waihanga vision “Infrastructure lays a foundation for the people, places, and businesses of Aotearoa New Zealand to thrive for generations.” However, the processes for making Portland cement, the active ingredient in concrete, release substantial quantities of greenhouse gases. This programme develops a new cementitious material that can replace some or all the Portland cement in concrete mixtures, while simultaneously absorbing large quantities of carbon dioxide. Implementing this research will transform concrete into a climate change solution, thereby transforming our infrastructure into a gigantic carbon sink.

Groundwater sustains lives and livelihoods. It flows in New Zealand’s rivers and streams, makes up much of our drinking water supply, and accounts for over 80% of water used for irrigation in our horticulture and agriculture industries. Yet we currently have few tools to effectively manage it.

New Zealand’s groundwater is declining in quantity and quality at the same time as demand for this vital resource increases—a problem that is projected to worsen due to climate change. To protect our groundwater resources and adapt to changes in climate and land use, we urgently need to better understand groundwater systems and develop new strategies to manage and protect them.

Our project brings together groundwater modellers, complex-system and policy scientists, researchers, and mātauranga Māori experts from multiple domestic and international organisations. In a world first, this team of multidisciplinary experts will develop an agile groundwater management framework based on up-to-date, context-specific understandings of:

• aquifer structure and storage parameters;
• groundwater age, recharge, and flow rates;
• nitrate assimilation capacity at catchment levels.

Our Northland, Hawke’s Bay, Waikato, Wairarapa and Canterbury case studies represent New Zealand’s most productive aquifer systems and are places where drought and nitrate concentrations are of greatest concern. We will extrapolate from these, using new models, to identify:

The groundwater systems most vulnerable to climate change.
How climate change will alter groundwater quality, supply, and demand.
Feasible long- and short-term water and land-use management strategies.
Our vision is to:

• Offer management solutions which take change and uncertainty in groundwater systems into account and involve communities in groundwater decision making.
• Support meaningful, ongoing iwi input into groundwater policy.
• Help communities with competing objectives and aspirations adapt to climate change-induced water-resource challenges.

For many New Zealanders their house is not only their home, but their largest investment. As Cyclone Gabrielle tragically demonstrated, our homes, livelihoods, wāhi tūpuna, and lives are increasingly vulnerable to the impact of landslides. If we were able to detect some of the slopes capable of damage, and even catastrophic collapse, and understand what drives their movement, we could inform building/infrastructure development, prepare our communities, and mitigate landslide impacts before they occur.

Most attention is paid to rapid, first-time slope failures that create obvious scars in the landscape and have immediate consequences. However, many landslides are pre-existing, large, deep, slow-moving and persist for generations; they damage homes, infrastructure and sometimes accelerate to fail catastrophically. Forecasting when a landslide might transition from slow to fast depends on our ability to identify the movement, constrain its mechanism, and model that movement under different driving conditions. Until now, methods used to find and predict the occurrence of damaging landslides faced considerable limitations, with traditional ground-based monitoring being too costly, time-consuming, and offering limited spatial coverage. We propose to use satellite data (InSAR) to detect slow-moving landslides, link their movement patterns to the climatic drivers and characterise their behaviour before they cause damaging and/or catastrophic impacts. Ultimately, our ambition is to move away from expensive local reactive (post-event), in-situ monitoring to nationwide, pro-active (pre-event), space-based observation across all Aotearoa.

Our multidisciplinary international team combines expertise in natural hazards, geodesy, geotechnics, climate, machine learning, and groundwater modelling from research institutions across Aotearoa, and from the UK, USA, and Japan.

Corbicula fluminea, commonly known as the freshwater gold clam, is native to eastern and southeast Asia and an alien invasive species in North and South America and Europe. Its ability to multiply rapidly, forming dense populations of tens of thousands of individuals per square metre, can lead to severe biofouling (clogging) of infrastructure such as hydropower plants, irrigation systems, and water treatment plants. Corbicula can negatively affect aquatic ecosystems, e.g., by competing with native species for resources. Without intervention, large-scale invasion of corbicula across waterbodies will result in significant restrictions and irreversible economic, social, cultural and ecosystem losses.

In May 2023, the invasive corbicula was found for the first time in Aotearoa-New Zealand, at several locations in the Waikato River catchment. The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) responded to the corbicula incursion by commissioning a delimitation survey and corbicula was declared an Unwanted Organism under the Biosecurity Act 1993 in August 2023.

The best chance to stop further spread of corbicula is acting early; it is now or never.

This research programme supports Aotearoa-New Zealand’s response to the invasion. The research includes maatauranga and western science knowledge systems to develop ambitious and novel control methods, understand the impacts of corbicula on taonga species, and predict its further spread. The ultimate goal is to stop the spread of corbicula and safe-guard our taonga, by developing effective control or eradication methods that can be used by a workforce of practitioners, at large spatial scales and across the incursion timeline, from recent to more established populations.

Landslides of all types and sizes occur across Aotearoa. As we’ve seen in Cyclone Gabrielle, they can have a devasting impact, resulting in loss of life, damaged and destroyed homes, and disrupting and isolating communities long after the rain has stopped. To plan for, invest smartly, and reduce our risk from landslides we need to know where and when they will occur, how big they might be, what or who they will impact and what the consequence of that impact is likely to be. In short, we need national maps of landslide hazard and risk that can be used for short-term emergency management and long-term planning. We currently do not have this evidence base. This project aims to create, for the first-time, national scale models that characterise and quantify the risk from earthquake- and rainfall-induced landslides.

About half of Aotearoa's greenhouse gas emissions occur in cities and towns where people live and work. We will produce the highly detailed information on Aotearoa's urban greenhouse gas emissions that is needed to allow central and local government, iwi, urban planners, traffic planners and industry to better monitor their current emission sources, enable targeted mitigation strategies, and change policy to support low-emissions outcomes.

Urban planning and development choices can dramatically change emissions from transportation, built infrastructure, and the ability of the urban ecology to absorb carbon. We will develop granular emissions information going back in time, that allows us to provide the first real world assessment of how different development choices change emissions in the Aotearoa urban environment. Initial data shows that land carbon exchange – release of carbon through respiration and removal of carbon through photosynthesis – can offset a significant fraction of emissions in Aotearoa's cities. We will determine how much carbon is taken up by Aotearoa's urban environments, and how development styles and management of urban parklands can enhance or reduce this carbon uptake.

We will produce emission maps of both fossil fuel derived carbon dioxide emissions and the land carbon exchange for all of Aotearoa's cities and towns using a consistent and robust approach, underpinned by real-world atmospheric greenhouse gas measurements and modelling. Data will be viewable through a verifiable national emissions dashboard. Together this proposal will identify and address the opportunities in our urban environments to achieve Aotearoa's commitment to reach carbon net-zero.

Climate change is impacting our freshwater Cultural Keystone Species (CKS), habitats/ecosystems, biosecurity, water quality, land use and primary production, and disrupting Māori livelihoods and communities throughout Aotearoa-NZ. Complex environmental issues, such as mahinga kai and biodiversity loss, will be exacerbated by climate change and compounded by increasing conflicts between iwi/hapū food security and regional/national economic priorities.

Māori understand intergenerational equity issues and the need for long-term solutions; however, more work is required by Māori in a safe cultural space to consider what their livelihoods may look like under a changing climate, including new relationships with future freshwater environments and CKS. To prepare for this, Maori want to understand how climate change will modify freshwater CKS communities (e.g., tuna, kōura, kākahi, kanakana/piharau, īnanga/pokotehe, pōrohe, kōaro), their interdependencies, and the diversity of socio-ecological-economic systems they support. This programme will evaluate magnitudes of change that CKS may experience, including spatiotemporal variation in species/cultural practice sensitivities, to forecast climate-related vulnerability patterns of species/cultural practices. This will inform the evaluation and implementation of dynamic evidence-based interventions that are targeted to the cultural contexts within which they will be applied.

The programme responds to a diversity of Māori voices and research needs to deliver new transferrable approaches drawn from multiple knowledge systems. It will identify impacts we cannot avoid and co-design interventions to respond, strengthening resilience of whānau livelihoods, cultural practices and CKS – Te mana o ngā taonga waimāori – reflecting that these taonga tuku iho have mana in and of themselves and as such are beneficiaries of the research – Mō tātou, ā, mō kā uri, ā muri ake nei – for us, and our children after us.

The hazards from New Zealand’s near-shore volcanoes - Tuhua and Whakaari – will be explored in depth under a new research programme led by GNS.

The programme was under development before the tragic eruption of Whakaari on December 9 2019, which GNS scientist Dr Craig Miller says gives the research a new urgency and is a stark reminder of the volcanoes’ potential to do serious harm.

Dr Miller, who will lead the research, says relatively little is known about the underwater extent and internal anatomy of the volcanoes and the threats they present to life and property.

“The risks come not only from eruptions which have previously impacted as far as Auckland, but from under-sea flank collapse, which has the potential to send destructive tsunami onto nearby shores containing major ports, settlements and popular beaches.”

Dr Miller says given the scale of risk there is an urgent need to better characterise and forecast island volcanic hazards.

The programme will undertake detailed underwater geophysical exploration and conduct large scale experimental work and computer simulations to understand the potential for ashfall and tsunami. The programme integrates a range of stakeholders, including iwi and national agencies who will guide the research to deliver outcomes relevant for Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Waikato and East Cape communities.

The research will deliver improved understanding of island volcano hazards and their impact as well as improve forecasts of their occurrence.

“Given the population density of the Bay of Plenty/Waikato region, the presence of New Zealand’s biggest port, and the horticultural and tourism industries in this region, the knowledge we gain will be of considerable value in safeguarding future development and nationally-important assets “, Dr Miller says.

Contact: media@gns.cri.nz

Aotearoa-NZ’s coastal lowlands are threatened by ongoing relative sea-level rise (RSLR). New Zealanders and our decision-makers need to know how RSLR will affect lowland freshwater systems, wetlands, coastal marshes and estuaries, and the social, cultural and economic systems that depend on them. Knowledge is needed for adaptation governance and planning, including managed retreat. This knowledge includes identifying thresholds (of RSLR) at which a particular land-use is no longer viable, and new actions are therefore necessary, and when and where those thresholds may be reached.

This national-scale programme will identify and provide free access to visualisations of what and where natural habitats and productive lands are exposed to RSLR, and how adaptation thresholds can be determined. This includes new methods and assessments of groundwater rise and salinisation, estuarine habitat evolution as a function of sediment supply and human interactions, and building national maps and datasets of environmental, land-use and asset exposure in coastal lowlands with RSLR. The project will fold this evidence base together with economic evaluation tools into a dynamic adaptive planning and decision-making framework that transparently compares adaptation approaches in terms of costs, benefits, consequences and opportunities across our complex lowland systems.

Uptake of this research will enable integrated adaptation of Aotearoa-NZ’s coastal lowlands to RSLR by quantifying values at risk, identifying opportunities to improve well- being, identifying local adaptation thresholds, and uncovering community tolerances and preferences for adaptation. The programme will enable adaptation planning that increases resilience across socio-economic and cultural systems and natural environments. This research will contribute to a future in which coastal lowland communities continue to prosper in the face of RSLR, ensuring sustainable protection and value from natural habitats alongside built and productive environments.

This Transformational research programme responds to the ambitious challenge of decarbonising New Zealand’s energy sector through the implementation of green hydrogen production and storage technologies.

If technologies can be developed to economically produce hydrogen from water, rather than fossil-fuels, the world will meet its energy needs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This programme focuses on utilising renewable electricity as an energy source to generate hydrogen by water splitting (electrolysis) – producing a clean, emission-free variant of this key industrial feedstock for stationary power and transport. While electrolysis is not new, it relies on high-cost, inefficient materials to make it work, making hydrogen production in this manner uncompetitive with the conventional fossil-fuel reforming. Our research aims to stimulate the creation of next-generation technologies with an order-of-magnitude improvement in performance relative to existing water electrolysis-based hydrogen production systems, along with new capabilities in hydrogen storage and distribution. We have several promising options currently under development capable of delivering a step-change in green energy production. Not only is our approach more effective, we believe it will result in significant cost savings that will flow through to the New Zealand consumer.

By focusing on hydrogen production for stationary power and transport, our programme aligns with NZ’s Renewable Energy, Hydrogen & Carbon-Zero

Strategies/Targets. It supports New Zealand’s international commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and assists with our challenging 2030 emissions target.

Our programme will drive the development of new, knowledge-intensive industries, accelerating regional innovation, and incorporating the Māori economy as part of the transition to a low-emissions future. Our technology has a strong potential to strengthen NZ’s pathway to becoming a net energy exporter.

New research providing earlier and more accurate information about earthquakes will save lives and enable quicker recovery, says the scientist leading the project. Dr. Bill Fry of GNS Science says his team’s work centres on developing scientific methods allowing more rapid estimates of earthquakes’ characteristics and impacts. “Currently, initial earthquake information is limited to location and estimated magnitude; in other words, a dot on a map represents the rupturing of a three- dimensional fault structure through time.” “By understanding the earthquake’s three-dimensional nature, we can better predict triggering of tsunami and landslides and potential damage to infrastructure in the minutes following the event.”

Dr Fry says his team’s research will help New Zealand respond to and recover from disastrous earthquakes by providing better estimates of their extent and damage from shaking as well as any tsunami that may be generated. “The improved science will provide more rapid and accurate tsunami warnings leading to more effective evacuations and fewer false alarms. It will allow government agencies, utility companies, first-responders and the engineering community to most effectively direct resources, improving life-safety and maintaining critical infrastructure.”

The research will draw on extensive experience of an international team involved in relevant science and first response. Recent investments by government agencies in improved geohazard monitoring will provide the technical and operational structure to swiftly implement and use the research findings.

Data from newly-deployed DART (Deep-Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami) buoys will be used to make estimates of tsunami height, arrival time, duration and inundation.

“This adds value to our recent investment of $47M in DART tsunamameters, making New Zealand and our neighbours in the south-west Pacific more resilient to earthquakes and tsunamis,” Dr Fry says.

Flooding is one of New Zealand’s most damaging hazards. It is also the hazard that will change the most rapidly in intensity and nature as climate change impacts become realised. For instance, flash flooding caused by very heavy rainfall over a short period of time is expected to increase the most dramatically. At the same time our country is undergoing intense urban development, that if not linked to climate futures will increase the risk to people’s homes and wellbeing. These dual challenges make reducing flood risk extremely difficult for our current planning and response systems. There is a knowledge vacuum about the scale of these problems, the integration of different policy domains, and the details of how different parts of the country will be affected.

Our research programme will support the changes that are needed. We will produce New Zealand’s first consistent national flood map, showing where flooding is likely to occur, but also identify how vulnerable our assets and taonga are. In partnership with local and central government agencies, iwi, communities and key financial organisations we will work collaboratively to design, test and establish novel decision-making practices that integrate different climate and socio-economic projections and promote proactive adaptation to changing flood risks.

Recent flooding events have demonstrated the ongoing impacts of flooding are not restricted to rescuing those inundated by water but are felt widely through society and the economy. We will work closely with communities to understand these cascading impacts and how we can be better prepared for them.

This programme will generate information and guidance that is immediately relevant as local and central government form the regulations and policy that will drive our response to climate change.