Far North District Council (FNDC) has leveraged Urban Intelligence’s Resilience Explorer® platform over 15 months to develop adaptation strategies for one of New Zealand’s most geographically dispersed regions. The council faces unique climate adaptation challenges and needed to develop robust transport and infrastructure networks while creating practical adaptation plans that address both immediate infrastructure needs and long-term resilience goals for remote communities.

The Solution

Urban Intelligence’s Resilience Explorer® platform was the key tool used to support FNDC’s adaptation planning processes. Beginning with adaptation areas at the statistical area level, the platform enabled progression to implementable adaptation plans across four larger adaptation stage areas. Katy Simon leads this work as Adaptation Program Lead, collaborating closely with asset management, infrastructure, roading, and transport teams.

The platform’s interactive scenarios and mapping capabilities transform how communities and council teams understand and engage with climate risk, moving beyond static reports to dynamic, visual experiences. This approach enables real-time data integration and live updates, ensuring adaptation planning remains current and relevant.

Crucially, the Resilience Explorer® platform enabled use across different teams throughout the council, providing wide organisational reach that a static report from a consultant would not have achieved. This cross-departmental accessibility has been fundamental to building internal capacity and ensuring integrated adaptation planning.

Implementation and Results

Following comprehensive training in May, FNDC systematically progressed from statistical area-level assessments to developing implementable plans for all four adaptation stage areas. The council has become one of Resilience Explorer’s® most engaged users, successfully integrating climate adaptation with infrastructure planning across multiple departments.

Client Impact

Katy Simon emphasises the platform’s transformative value: “Resilience Explorer’s® ability to pull all relevant data onto one platform with live data links has been game-changing. The administrative load relief is crucial for councils like ours with limited resources.”

Without the platform, Simon notes: “We’d be paying external providers for static reports instead of having live feeds that update regularly. Most importantly, we’ve made Resilience Explorer® available to all staff – resource consents and compliance, strategy and planning, and infrastructure teams can all use it. This kind of internal capacity building wouldn’t happen with external , fixed contracts.”

Future Plans

FNDC plans to expand platform use for community engagement, ground truthing exercises, and public communication, positioning themselves as leaders in participatory climate adaptation planning. For councils seeking to enhance their climate adaptation capabilities and build cross-departmental resilience planning capacity, Urban Intelligence’s Resilience Explorer® platform offers a proven solution for integrated, data-driven adaptation planning.