​Transcript for 'Why do flood risk assessments take time?'

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[Text on navy blue background. Text reads 'February 2024, Why do flood risk assessments take time? Nick Vigar – Head of Planning for Healthy Waters, Coordinating the recovery efforts on behalf of the Auckland Council Group.' Screen also contains logos for Auckland Council and the Recovery Office.]

[Nick Vigar starts talking standing in front of a window with views of city and sea in the background.]

"For those who are wondering why it might take so long following a site visit to get a categorization. I think it is important to understand that there are multiple steps that have to happen.

"So, the test of what we are looking at is 'risk to life', which is defined based on the depth of water and the velocity of the water. Because in a flooding situation it can be very, very different for even one property right beside another, there is a lot of analysis at a property by property level that has to go on to determine if indeed we get over that thresholder risk to life.

"And then the next steps, really, are that not only do we have to get over that threshold, but we have to make sure that there is not some intervention at a property level or at a community level that can remove that risk to life.

"So in a lot of situations, even once we have established that a property is high risk, we need analysis of that property or we need analysis within the catchment to understand if there are infrastructure solutions, for example, that can solve that risk to life.

"And so right across the region, the situations of all the many properties that flooded are very, very different. So for some properties that will be a reasonably quick process, but for other properties, unfortunately, that will take a little longer.

"Flood risk assessments are happening right across the region. So it is important to understand we are not working in individual areas at a time, we are working right across the region. And the reason we are doing that is to try and make sure that we are prioritising everything we can within our resources right now.

"Unfortunately, some areas, due to their complexity, will take longer than others. But certainly in terms of our process and trying to get people as quickly through the process as possible, we are trying to do that for the region as a whole."

[Video clip ends]

[Duration of video: 2 minutes 6 seconds]

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