11. Natural Hazards Volume One stopbanks. Due to the development that these works have enabled, it is not possible to reverse them and the Council has a responsibility to maintain the current “artificial” river pattern. Eastern Marlborough contains the Wairau, Awatere and Clarence faults onshore and significant and proximate faults in Cook Strait, as well as a number of lesser but still active faults. These faults have the potential to cause significant damage to property and infrastructure and create considerable disruption. Seismic activity can also result in a number of different natural hazards, including liquefaction of soils, inundation by sea, salt water intrusion into freshwater aquifers and tsunamis. Other potential hazards may have localised effects, such as flooding from streams and stormwater overflows, slope instability and fire. Slope instability involves the falling or sliding of material downslope caused by ground failure within bedrock or the overlying soil. This is of particular concern in some parts of Marlborough because of the potential for earth movements to affect residential sites, rivers and transportation routes. Our actions in using and developing natural and physical resources can increase the risk and consequences of natural hazards. Building in areas prone to flooding, fault rupture and/or liquefaction and land instability will put peoples’ lives, property and infrastructure at risk. In some cases, the severity of the hazard may be able to be mitigated through good location, design and construction to the extent that the consequences are minimal. Climate change has the potential to worsen the effects of some natural hazards and itself creates a new hazard of a rise in sea level. These issues are dealt with in Chapter 19 - Climate Change (Volume 1 of the Marlborough Environment Plan (MEP)). [RPS, R, D] Objective 11.1 – Reduce the risks to life, property and regionally significant infrastructure from natural hazards. Natural hazards can have significant adverse effects on individuals and the community, including loss of life, personal injury, damage to property and disruption of day-to-day life, business and the provision of community infrastructure. For this reason, the objective seeks to reduce the risks and consequences of natural hazards. This objective also implements direction from the CDEMP, which signals that resource management provisions have an important role to play in risk reduction. General [R, D] Policy 11.1.1 – Establish the extent of land subject to flooding, liquefaction and tunnel gully erosion and identify this land within the Marlborough Environment Plan as a hazard overlay. In order to reduce the risk of natural hazards it is first important to establish the land likely to be subject to these hazards. This will allow new land uses in these areas to be managed in a way that recognises the inherent risks of the development proceeding. The natural hazards identified in the policy are those to which management can be applied to reduce risk using the provisions of the RMA. The result of implementing this policy will be the production of natural hazard overlays. These will be mapped (or otherwise identified) and included in the MEP. Where there is uncertainty over the spatial extent of a natural hazard, a precautionary approach has been taken. This means that the overlay may be a conservative estimation. However, this approach is considered appropriate given the potentially significant consequences of natural hazards, especially the loss of life. 11 – 2