Providing information to help you prepare for severe weather events

Flood infrastructure and resilience

The Regional Council administers 27 flood resilience and drainage schemes throughout the region to reduce risk of flood and erosion damage. The Council maintains networks of stopbanks, hydraulic structures and pump stations and manages the river, stream, and drainage channels to ensure they work as expected during periods of high rainfall and flooding to help reduce the impact on land and property. This includes gravel management to maintain flood capacity in our major rivers, and allocation of gravel from riverbeds.

The flood resilience and drainage schemes are grouped into two major schemes: the Heretaunga Plains Flood Control Scheme (HPFCS), the Upper Tukituki Flood Control Scheme (UTTFCS), and a third group of much smaller schemes located across the region. The majority of the network of stopbanks is designed to offer a one in one hundred year level of service, while the network of managed drains across the region are designed to protect productive land from flooding during high rainfall and offer a lower level of service, closer to one in five years level of service.

About 85% of Hawke’s Bay’s population lives and works in areas that benefit from these flood  schemes, particularly in urban and highly productive rural areas.

These schemes reduce flood risk for communities such as Napier, Hastings, and surrounding settlements, as well as agricultural and horticultural land across the Heretaunga and Ruataniwha Plains.

While HBRC’s flood schemes cover a significant portion of the population, some communities remain outside these areas.

Flood risk, assessment and warning

The Regional Council identifies, monitors, and plans for major climate change hazards, such as increased storm intensity, flooding, sea level rise, and coastal erosion. Flooding is a significant hazard with extreme weather events projected to increase in frequency and intensity with climate change.

The Council operates a comprehensive network of rainfall and river level recorders across the region. Modelling has been updated to continuously run rather than manually operated in the response to a rain event.

The Council also works with other local councils through liaison, provision of floodplain mapping, catchment management planning, and investigation of specific flooding issues.

The Council also provides advice on rainfall and water flows during flood conditions, and hazard information for land use planning purposes to encourage community resilience and preparedness.

Coastal hazards

The Council seeks to better understand causes and effects of coastal hazards and works with communities, tāngata whenua, and local councils to find solutions to reduce their impact.

The Council will be engaging with the community in 2025 about the Clifton to Tangoio Coastal Hazards Strategy 2120 to understand and plan for coastal hazards risks for this key part of the Hawke’s Bay coastline. In future, the approach developed here can be expanded into other coastal areas in the region.

The strategy identifies the areas that may be affected by coastal hazards over the long term and the associated risks, and sets out pathways for managing these risks.

Open spaces

The Regional Council owns and manages four publicly-accessible regional parks – Pākowhai, Pekapeka, Tūtira, Hawea and Waitangi – and various river berm areas. These areas have multi-purpose functions including flood control, soil conservation and water quality enhancement, as well as protecting and enhancing biodiversity, cultural and historic values and providing recreational opportunities.