Client: Greater Wellington Regional Council

Authors: David Norman and Kel Sanderson

Date: November 2009

This project followed on from the work we did developing a framework for measuring the business interruption losses from lifeline disruption after a rupture of the Wellington fault line. Working with Greater Wellington Regional Council, we estimated how the proposed Whakatikei Dam would reduce lifeline restoration times, and thus business interruption losses, in the Wellington Metropolitan Area.

The study found the Dam would reduce losses in the first year after the quake by around $251 million in 2008 dollars. Follow-up work estimated that the NPV of losses over a 100-year period would range between 1.68 and 5.00, depending on the probability of an earthquake occurring during that period.

BERL job#: 4798