Cyclone Gabrielle flooding seen from the air just outside of Te Karaka, near Gisborne. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
Gisborne District Council is poised to sign a contract for a new flood forecasting model that provides early warnings in an emergency.
The Tai Rāwhiti region has been hard hit by floods in the last four years, culminating in Cyclone Gabrielle last year.
It has about a year to set up a replacement for its existing in-house flood forecasting.
This is in addition to needing to do modelling for flood hazard maps in about 30 areas.
Council documents said it was having to prioritise what category two areas to map first, when funds were not adequate, even though national Cyclone Gabrielle recovery funds are going into this.
"Due to funding restrictions, the flood modelling being conducted by the [Regional] Rivers Team will be insufficient either in part or in full to fulfil the requirements of flood inundation modelling for flood layers and hazard maps," said a council paper early this month.
In other places, hazard mapping had taken "significant" time and money.
So, too, for its team in the Taruheru and Waimata catchments, "which has experienced significant time delays and required additional budget".
Priorities would be decided based on population, what infrastructure was at risk and experts' recommendations, the paper said.
Non-priority areas would be mapped using imagery from just after the cyclone.