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Further information on flood risk management

Information on natural hazards including flooding is available from many sources.

Planning for flooding

Information for individuals on planning to cope with many natural hazards, including flooding is available at the ‘Get Thru’ website. To learn how to plan for floods visit the United Nations Stop Disasters website. For children, the FEMA website contains some educational games on dealing with floods.

Keeping an eye on the weather

If you want to know when it might rain, the Metservice website includes heavy rain warnings and watches. The predicted weather for the next few days can be seen and when it starts raining their rain radar can show where the falls are heaviest.

During floods

Regional councils are a good source of information on current river levels and local rainfall. During floods many regional councils will also issue flood warnings on their websites. Some councils have arrangements to provide data on telephone information lines or via texting.

Northland Region - Civil defence text alerts    

Auckland Region - HydroTel map interface

Waikato Region - River levels and rainfall

Bay of Plenty Region - Water levels

Gisborne District - Civil defence and emergency management information

Taranaki Region - Your environment online web pages

Hawke’s Bay Region - Water web pages

Manawatu Region - River heights and rainfall

Wellington Region - Environmental monitoring

Nelson City Council website

Marlborough District - Environmental monitoring

Tasman District - Rivers and rainfall

West Coast Region - River level and rainfall

Chatham Islands Council website     

Canterbury Region - Monitoring tools

Otago Region - Water information web pages  

Southland Region - Rivers and rainfall data

District and city councils are also good sources of information on local flooding and road closures. You can find more information about your local council at the Local Government website.

Other information

GNS Science and NIWA run the Natural Hazards Centre website with information on various natural hazards including floods.

The Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management maintain a list of links to local civil defence organisations at district/city and regional councils.

The Ministry for Primary Industries has information on emergencies affecting the rural sector.

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Last updated: 27 September 2007