Awa Environmental’s innovative new tool expands the scope of flood risk management in New Zealand

As local governments and water authorities gain access to higher‑resolution hydraulic modelling and richer public datasets, the opportunity to understand flood risk in a more comprehensive way is rapidly expanding. Traditional approaches have focused on two core spheres: human safety and economic damage. Awa Environmental’s new Flood Risk Estimation Tool (FRET) adds a third, often overlooked, sphere – recovery and resilience – to provide a fuller picture of how communities and assets could be affected by flooding.

Developed in collaboration with local authorities, FRET examines the interaction of hazard, exposure, consequence, and vulnerability at property, street, suburb, and sub‑catchment scales. Built in Feature Manipulation Engine (FME) to efficiently process diverse, publicly available spatial datasets, the tool assesses each of the three spheres separately as well as combining them into composite risk scores. This allows decision makers to explore how impacts across the built environment, economic, and social/cultural value domains of risk vary across and between catchments, and to understand which areas face the greatest combined impact.

FRET is a data-driven spatial tool designed for clarity and accessibility, supporting technical and non-technical users alike. It expands the scope of flood risk management and helps councils and others identify priority areas for further investigation, compare intervention options, and communicate risk more effectively.