Media release

From:

Comment from study co-author Heather Craig, Lecturer, School of Earth and Environment, University of Canterbury:

"Rural communities and farms are highly reliant on road networks for a range of essential services, like accessing medical care, schooling and fuel as well as transporting their farm products (such as milk) for processing. Globally, agriculture is often found around volcanoes because of the fertile soils they produce over long time periods, leading to many agricultural communities being highly exposed to volcanic impacts including road network disruption and isolation. Taranaki is an example of this, where farms, roads, marae, and communities are found the volcanic plain surrounding the mounga.

"Isolation of people from their cultural centres and hubs can reduce the resilience of a community during eruptions. This is particularly important in Aotearoa, where marae are recognised as a critical part of disaster response and recovery. Marae often open their doors to provide manaakitanga (support) to communities during disaster due to their physical capacity and tikanga (customs and practices) to host and coordinate large gatherings of people.

"We developed a network model to assess the whether farms and marae were isolated from service towns, regional exit routes, and the New Plymouth Airport and Port. Whilst applied locally in this study, the model methods could be applied in volcanic settings globally. We found that for a large Taranaki Mounga eruption scenario, 12 marae and over 5,000 farms were isolated potentially for many weeks due to ashfall and lahars damaging roads and bridges. This would have significant social and economic consequences for the region and Aotearoa."