Abstract
Juliana Ungaro 1, Herve Damlamian 2, Sachindra Singh 2, Shaun Williams
3, Ryan Paulik 1, Rebecca Welsh 1, Litea Biukoto 2, Doug Ramsay 4 1.
NIWA Taihoro Nukurangi, Private Bag 14901, Wellington 6241, Aotearoa New
Zealand 2. Geoscience, Energy and Maritime Division, the Pacific
Community (SPC), 241 Mead Road, Nabua, Fiji. 3. NIWA Taihoro Nukurangi,
PO Box 8602, Christchurch 8440, Aotearoa New Zealand 4. NIWA Taihoro
Nukurangi, PO Box 11115, Hillcrest, Hamilton, New Zealand The Pacific
region is one of the most vulnerable and disaster-prone areas in the
world. This issue is exacerbated by climate change, which is causing the
frequency and intensity of climate related hazards to increase.
Furthermore, increased urbanisation, population and environmental damage
are all contributing to worsening risk levels. Hazard risk modelling
tools can enable decision makers to better prepare for and respond to
disasters, and to make sound economic and land-use planning decisions.
The Pacific Risk Tool for Resilience, Phase 2 (PARTneR-2) is a
three-year project that aims to build off the pilot PARTneR project to
help Pacific Island Countries (PICs) become more resilient to the
impacts of climate change and natural hazards through the effective use
of robust information in decision-making. Currently, a critical gap
across PICs is the availability and use of low-cost and easily applied
tools to assist countries to make their own risk-informed decisions. By
developing national risk models and assessment tools, PARTneR-2 will
assist six PICs (the Cook Islands, Republic of Marshall Islands, Tuvalu,
Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu) to have the technical and institutional
capability to use and apply these to make informed and effective
decision-making related to weather, climate, and coastal hazards.