$21.5 million from central government will go towards enhancing Waitaha Canterbury's flood resilience effort.
News
Flood and river resilience
Last updated: 17 November 2025
Reporting frequency: Quarterly
Core service: Community Preparedness and Response to Hazards
We are reducing river flood risk to people and property through building and maintaining high quality flood protection, land drainage and erosion control infrastructure.
This work provides an opportunity to maintain and enhance the natural character of our braided rivers through accelerated planting, weed control, wetland enhancement and other nature-based solutions to create healthy river berms or margins.
Along our river corridors we own and manage approximately 25,000 hectares of land, some of which is managed as Regional Parks – Waimakariri Regional Park, Ashley Rakahuri Regional Park and Takapō Regional Park.
How are we tracking on our service measures?
Service measure 19: Percentage of stopbanks, river berms and fairways on our six major flood protection and control schemes that are inspected annually
Target: 92%
How we are doing: 3% – stopbank inspections will increase over summer. Most fairway and berm inspections will occur in quarters three and four
On track
Service measure 20: Percentage of flood protection work that implements nature-based and/or multi-benefit flood and river resilience solutions
Target: 15%
How we are doing: 20% – of 79 jobs completed in quarter one, 16 incorporated either nature-based or multi-benefit solutions
On track
More information
Manmade and natural infrastructure is a key line of defence for our communities during flooding events. There are 58 schemes in the region, and they all have different levels of service agreed with their community.
The major flood protection and control schemes covered by service measure 19 are Kaikōura Rivers, Rakahuri Ashley, Waimakariri-Eyre-Cust, Ashburton Rivers, Orari-Waihi-Temuka, Opihi and the lower Selwyn Waikirikiri.
We are assessing the opportunities for using nature-based solutions that work with and enhance the environment, providing environmental, cultural, social and economic benefits.
Examples of nature-based solutions include giving rivers room to move and using soft engineering solutions (e.g. vegetation). Examples of multi-benefit and river resilience solutions include improving recreational and biodiversity values, mahinga kai, fish passage and access.