The performance of GeoNet is regularly scrutinised by national and international experts. These experts consider the performance of the GeoNet programme, its current operations and operating environment, and possible new opportunities and directions for the programme to consider. Strategic reviews often result in high level recommendations for the programme and guide long-term strategic planning for GeoNet.
In March 2024 the 10-year GeoNet Strategic Plan was released. The plan builds on the strategic direction from the 2022 Strategic Review and outlines GeoNet’s vision and principles that will guide its plans and partnerships for the coming decade.
Vision: GeoNet is a trusted public good service, highly valued for its widely used open data and readily accessible information and tools that make New Zealand a safer and more resilient place to live.
Principles:
The 10-year Strategic Plan seeks to strengthen GeoNet’s foundation and further GeoNet’s contributions to understanding our changing world and helping New Zealand live with its hazards and risks. To achieve this, GeoNet will build on its relationships with its research delivery and impact partners as well as its users to continue to deliver the infrastructure, data, and information that enables the science and impacts that help New Zealand know where it is in the world and reduce its geohazard risks.
View the 2024 plan here.
In 2022 an independent strategic review was undertaken and released. This was a short, sharp, targeted review by a panel of New Zealand experts in a variety of fields, ranging from peril-specific sciences to data specialists. The panel was chaired by Richard Smith, Director of Resilience to Nature’s Challenges. The review outputs were reviewed by a small panel of international experts: Dr Lucy Jones, Dr Laurie Johnson and Adrienne Moseley.
The 2022 Strategic Review found that GeoNet means many things to many people and wants GeoNet to continue to be taonga ā-motu, a national treasure. While they want it to realise its full potential this should not be to the detriment of the attributes that have made it so successful over the previous 21 years.
The Review Panel agreed on a single theme for the review:
The future is an open, adaptive, and automated GeoNet, built on a stable and sustained core system.
and they made a series of recommendations under 5 themes:
These recommendations are being explored and incorporated, as appropriate, into GeoNet’s 10-year strategic planning (expected in mid-late 2023).
The full 2022 Strategic Review can be found here.
2015 – Stepping up to the Plate – GeoNet’s 2015 Strategic Plan outlined three phases of possible future investment: challenge, build, and sustain. The goals of this review were ambitious and ultimately both disrupted and accelerated by the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake, which eventually led to MBIE’s Enhanced Geohazards Monitoring contract that enabled the establishment of the National Geohazards Monitoring Centre within the GeoNet programme.
2014 – NZIER analysis: The value of information on natural hazards: Unpacking the value of GeoNet – This May 2014 review by New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) evaluated GeoNet’s value in ‘wartime’, focusing on major geohazard events such as the 2010-11 Canterbury earthquake sequence through the lens of the 2009 Strategic Plan. It notes that GeoNet is much more than it appeared when compared against Strategic Plan goals: “GeoNet is now at the hub of a wider community of practice of researchers and users that extends well beyond GNS and EQC. This wider network, which GeoNet has enabled, has yielded direct but unforeseen benefits to New Zealand.”
2012 – Sustaining an Innovative Contribution – Published in January 2013, the panel for GeoNet’s third strategic review reported on GeoNet’s demonstrated flexibility and adaptability in response to multiple geohazard events. The review described GeoNet as “a gem – a brilliant example of government agencies collaborating effectively together to create public value.”
2009 – NZIER analysis: Valuing hazard data: Looking Closely at GeoNet – This July 2009 review by independent consulting firm NZIER for the Earthquake Commission (EQC, now Toka Tū Ake) found current and future investment was well worthwhile for EQC and from a national perspective. It indicated that further investment in GeoNet may also be worth consideration.
2008 – GeoNet Strategic Review – GeoNet’s second strategic review reported, "GeoNet has delivered on the original proposal in March 2000, and in some cases exceeded requirements. Its cautious, staged roll-out of equipment has been a wise approach to ensuring the long-term stability of the networks and the data collected. EQC has shown unique leadership for GeoNet in providing the backbone for other agencies to extend so that New Zealand has a leading-edge integrated hazard monitoring network.".
2004 – GeoNet Project Triennial Review – Reviewing the period 2001-2004, this review concluded that the GeoNet project met the best international standards and was poised to make a valuable contribution to public good. However, the review recommended additional investment to realise this opportunity. In June 2005 Toka Tū Ake EQC announced it would increase its funding to NZ$8 million a year to ensure GeoNet was built and operated to the originally recommended specification.
Our Annual Reports outline the progress we have made towards delivering key activities and outcomes over the past financial year.