There have been over 1,500 recorded landslide-related fatalities in New Zealand (more than from earthquakes and tsunami combined) since 1760.
No single organisation in New Zealand has overall responsibility for landslides. As a result, landslide data has been stored in multiple discrete locations, often in widely varying formats, with no ability to compile the data to get an overall understanding of the distribution of landslide risk across the country. The New Zealand Landslides Database enables multiple organisations including the public to deposit factual information about every landslide into a single repository, and users to be able to access the data for their own purposes. Co-funded by the Earthquake Commission and Auckland Council, with support from GNS Science, the beta version of the database went live in 2022. By sharing this data organisations gain significant benefits by understanding how landslides might affect their people and assets.
This paper describes the development of the database and its use in a recent emergency event. It highlights the need for a consistent data schema to enable integration of multiple landslide inventories, describes the benefits, and proposes approaches to deliver the schema.