Cardno New Zealand and Wellington Water are joint winners of a prestigious Director’s Award for Innovation in Civil Defence & Emergency Management (CDEM) in New Zealand. The Director’s Awards for Innovation recognise exceptional innovation or creativity that has pushed the boundaries of current CDEM practice in New Zealand.
Cardno has worked with Wellington Water on resilience strategies and planning since 2015. Together this work identified seismic vulnerabilities across the water supply network that could leave suburbs without water for 100 days or more, and led to the creation of the Towards 80-30-80 strategy. This strategy seeks to provide 80 per cent of customers, within 30 days after a major seismic event, with 80 per cent of their water supply needs.
Wellington Water Group Manager Network Strategy and Planning Mark Kinvig describes Cardno’s aptitude for resilience planning and innovation as crucial for setting a new standard for emergency preparedness.
“This has invigorated the region and forged new cross-sector collaboration. The approach is being adopted by other water providers, both nationally and internationally, who share similar resilience vulnerabilities to natural disasters,” Mr Kinvig said.
The water resilience programme has three elements – building household water resilience to help people cope for at least the first seven days after an earthquake, building community water resilience, and strengthening water infrastructure – with the goal of ensuring 20 litres of potable water is available for every Wellingtonian in an emergency.
Jointly funded by central government and the Wellington, Porirua, Upper Hutt and Hutt City councils, a $12m collaborative project is on track to deliver the above ground emergency water network in mid-2018.
Emergency water will be extracted from streams, rivers, and nine new emergency bores. Water will be available through 22 water treatment stations, as well as desalination systems and a comprehensive water distribution network. The alternative network will begin operating from day eight after a major earthquake. By the end of next month every Wellingtonian will be able to access 20 litres of water, every day, should an earthquake shake the region.
Cardno NZ’s Technical Director of Infrastructure Strategy Antony Cameron has worked with Wellington Water from the early stages of resilience programme. Together the two organisations have embraced the challenge of providing the emergency network, from strategy to implementation in just over 12 months.
“We are very grateful to receive this award alongside Wellington Water, and proud to be recognised for the innovation and hard work to deliver this outcome in such a short timeframe. It’s been very exciting to be part of this important project that has the potential to make a real difference to people’s lives,” Mr Cameron said.
At the same time, in collaboration with other critical infrastructure providers, Wellington Water has worked to identify and prioritise major infrastructure upgrades. Progress is underway including drilling for fresh water under Wellington Harbour, and exploring options for creating new reservoirs that will strengthen the water supply network into the future.
For more information, read the Minister of Civil Defence, the Hon Kris Faafoi’s media release, view our feature on the Wellington Water project, or contact:
Antony Cameron
Technical Director of Infrastructure Strategy, New Zealand
+ 64 4 478 0342
[email protected]
