Juliana Ungaro

and 6 more

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.