Rebuilding Hawke’s Bay’s Stopbanks

Cyclone Gabrielle wreaked havoc on Hawke’s Bay as rivers overcame flood protection, leaving many stopbanks in need of urgent repair. This task fell to a rapid rebuild team at HBRC, led by Jon Kingsford. His talk will cover how the team came about, how it was structured to enable rapid scaling up of resource and about the challenges encountered during the repairs, using specific sites as examples. Then looking forward, Jon will describe planned future work and river management challenges more generally.

Jon Kingsford is a civil engineer and Project Manager, managing a small team of project managers delivering infrastructure construction work relating to stormwater and flood protection across the Hawke’s Bay. Jon is an outdoor enthusiast, feeling most at home in the ocean (on a surfboard) or in the mountains and native forests.