An innovative project with a Hollywood-inspired name is using digital simulations to predict future hazards in New Zealand’s capital city.
The Minority Report project, which is funded by Horizon Europe, includes Wellington as one of three case study cities around the world. The project is exploring how a changing climate could increase the risk of natural hazards and how these hazards would impact on people’s lives. The other pilot test sites are Patras in Greece and Dublin in Ireland.
Minority Report is also the name of a science fiction book and Hollywood blockbuster set in a world where crimes can be predicted before they happen.
Researchers at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury (UC) are leading the modelling of flood and wildfire risks and human mobility in the Wellington test site and will contribute their findings to the international project, as well as sharing them with Wellington City Council and Tiaki Wai (formerly Wellington Water).
UC Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Tom Cochrane, who is working on the flooding and mobility modelling aspect of the project, says the focus is on how measures could be employed to mitigate future risks.
“By simulating flooding of certain roads and the transport network we can find out how this would impact the movement of people who are getting from their house to the hospital or trying to get their kids to school. We’ve also simulated scenarios where we invest in flood mitigation options and then we can see what their impact would be on residents’ mobility during flooding events and everyday travel,” he said.
The issue is particularly topical, Professor Cochrane says, after the flash flooding and landslips that hit Wellington in April this year. Artificial Intelligence (AI) models are allowing the team to move towards forecasting potential heavy rainfall events and estimating the impact they could have in real time, including estimating how transport systems and the electricity network would be affected during a major storm.
“That’s something that we’re going to continue working on beyond this project so that we get that interface with people on the ground, creating tools that would help them in their day-to-day commutes when hazards are occurring,” he says.
“A big point here is that we’ve chosen Wellington as an initial case study to look at what’s going on right now and what’s potentially going to happen in the future. But the idea is that that is a case study that can be expanded to other cities in New Zealand and worldwide.”
UC Civil and Environmental Engineering Senior Lecturer, Dr Andres Valencia, who is supervising the wildfire component of the research, says the goal is to use digital technologies to empower local authorities to improve resilience against climate-driven hazards, while also protecting and supporting people.
“We are creating a digital twin, a kind of model of Wellington city, in which we can test different scenarios. For example, we can put a flooding or a fire scenario in there, based on different climate conditions, and see how many people might be affected and what the potential consequences could be,” he said.
“We are able to test those things numerically before they happen; to anticipate and start thinking about how to mitigate those consequences.”
Dr Valencia says they have used artificial intelligence (AI) to create a dynamic wildfire model, in which the progression of wildfires towards the city is simulated over time.
“We can also simulate how people may be mobilising and leaving specific locations. It’s quite difficult to actually link both things; the event happening and how people might react, but we have developed a framework for how to do that.”
While the capital city might not seem to be at high risk of wildfires currently, he says this could change in the future.
“It’s a hazard that is not a problem right now, maybe, but in future years it might be a big problem. So, there is an aspect of needing to be ready for that and preparing for what the future will look like.”
Urban Intelligence Ltd, a commercial company co-founded and led by UC Civil and Environmental Engineering Senior Lecturer Dr Tom Logan, is using the research team’s findings to put together models for hazards across New Zealand and presenting it in an interactive platform that will be available for decision makers and policy makers to use.
The other members of the UC research team are UC Civil and Environmental Engineering Associate Professor Markus Pahlow, Senior Research Engineer Peter Thompson, and Engineering postdoctoral fellows Dr Lea Dasallas and Dr Barry Evans.
The total funding of the project, which will continue until November 2027, is about $NZ9.3 million and the New Zealand partners include the University of Canterbury, University of Auckland, Urban Intelligence Ltd and Wellington City Council. Tiaki Wai and Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) are also involved.
The Minority Report Project is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101147385 (Minority Report).
