Skip to content

Wellington Region Councils data via eolas

The Wellington region covers ~540,000 people across Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) and eight territorial authorities — Carterton, Hutt, Kāpiti, Masterton, Porirua, South Wairarapa, Upper Hutt, and Wellington City. eolas serves 76 datasets spanning the region — every council's district plan, hazard layers, and the regional council's environmental + transport data.

If you're doing Wellington-region property research, hazard analysis, planning work, or earthquake / coastal exposure modelling — this is the source. Wellington has particularly comprehensive hazard data because of its earthquake + tsunami + flood exposure.

Finding datasets

Council names don't always match dataset prefixes. Use search aliases or list helpers:

client.list_wellington()           # all ~110 Wellington-region datasets
client.search("kapiti")            # → kcdc_* (Kāpiti Coast DC)
client.search("porirua")           # → pcc_* (Porirua City Council)

eolas_list_wellington()
eolas_search("kapiti")
eolas_search("porirua")

eolas datasets list --source "Wellington Region Councils"
eolas datasets list --search kapiti

What's in the catalogue

Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) — 21 datasets

Regional-scale environmental + transport data:

Theme Datasets
Hazards gwrc_flood_1pct_aep, gwrc_flood_023pct_aep, gwrc_eq_urm_buildings (unreinforced masonry buildings at risk)
Coastal gwrc_coastline_mhws10 (mean-high-water-springs +10cm — sea-level-rise reference)
Environment gwrc_key_native_ecosystems, gwrc_groundwater_zones, gwrc_river_flows_p (recorder sites), gwrc_sites_of_significance_mana_whenua
Transport gwrc_metlink_park_and_ride, gwrc_regional_cycle_network
Land + planning gwrc_regional_parks_forests, gwrc_managed_land_wairarapa, gwrc_nrp_operative (Natural Resources Plan operative), gwrc_nrp_plan_change_1 (proposed)
Operations gwrc_resource_consents, gwrc_predator_free_phase2

Wellington City Council (WCC) — 9 datasets

Dataset Description
wcc_district_plan_zones_2024 Operative district plan zones (post-2024 plan review).
wcc_flood_hazard_operative, wcc_coastal_inundation_operative, wcc_coastal_tsunami_operative, wcc_liquefaction_operative Hazard layers in the operative plan.
wcc_significant_natural_areas SNAs — biodiversity protection.

Wellington City proposed district plan (WCDP) — 10 datasets

Wellington City's new district plan (in late-stage consultation / hearings):

Dataset Description
wcdp_*_decision "Decisions version" of various overlays — airport obstacle limits, fault hazards, flood, heritage precincts, heritage sites, etc.

Porirua City Council (PCC) — 10 datasets

Theme Datasets
Planning pcc_district_plan_zones, pcc_designations
Hazards pcc_flood_overland_flow, pcc_flood_ponding, pcc_flood_stream_corridor, pcc_coastal_future_inundation_1m_slr

Hutt City Council (HuttCC) — 8 datasets

Dataset Description
huttcc_flood_hazard_overlay, huttcc_flood_100yr_groundwater Flood + groundwater-driven flooding (Hutt valley specific).
huttcc_coastal_inundation_overlay, huttcc_coastal_tsunami_overlay Coastal hazards.
huttcc_designations, huttcc_heritage_areas Planning overlays.

Kāpiti Coast (KCDC) — 7 datasets

Dataset Description
kcdc_district_plan_zones, kcdc_district_plan_precincts Operative district plan structure.
kcdc_designations_kcdc, kcdc_designations_nzta Designations (council + NZTA).
kcdc_flood_extents, kcdc_ecological_sites Hazards + biodiversity.

Upper Hutt City Council (UHCC) — 7 datasets

District plan zones + hazard suite (flood, slope, erosion) — mirrors the structure of other regional TAs.

Masterton District Council — 4 datasets

Dataset Description
masterton_earthquake_hazards Earthquake hazards (Wellington Fault runs through Masterton).
masterton_flood_zones, masterton_liquefaction, masterton_tsunami_evac Hazard layers.

Plus smaller suites from Carterton + South Wairarapa.

Refresh schedule

Weekly, Wednesday morning NZ time. Each council publishes via its own portal — GWRC via Koordinates, Wellington City via data.wellingtoncc.govt.nz, and most district councils via ArcGIS. The pipeline pulls from each source independently.

meta = client.info("gwrc_flood_1pct_aep")
meta["last_refreshed_at"]
meta["source_last_modified_at"]

License

All Wellington-region council data is published under CC-BY 4.0. Commercial use is fine; per-council attribution required.

Recommended attribution: "Source: [Council name], served via eolas (eolas.fyi). CC-BY 4.0." — use the specific council; for multi-council analysis: "Source: Wellington-region councils via eolas (eolas.fyi). CC-BY 4.0."

Common patterns

Earthquake + tsunami exposure for a property

The Wellington-specific due-diligence workflow:

import geopandas as gpd
from shapely.geometry import Point

pt = gpd.GeoSeries([Point(174.7762, -41.2865)], crs="EPSG:4326")  # central Wellington

# WCC operative liquefaction + tsunami overlays
liq = client.wellington("wcc_liquefaction_operative", as_sf=True)
tsu = client.wellington("wcc_coastal_tsunami_operative", as_sf=True)

in_liq = gpd.sjoin(pt.to_frame("g").set_geometry("g"), liq, predicate="within")
in_tsu = gpd.sjoin(pt.to_frame("g").set_geometry("g"), tsu, predicate="within")
print(f"Liquefaction zone: {len(in_liq) > 0}")
print(f"Tsunami evacuation zone: {len(in_tsu) > 0}")

library(sf)
library(dplyr)

pt <- st_sfc(st_point(c(174.7762, -41.2865)), crs = 4326)
liq <- eolas_get_wellington("wcc_liquefaction_operative", as_sf = TRUE)
tsu <- eolas_get_wellington("wcc_coastal_tsunami_operative", as_sf = TRUE)

cat("Liquefaction:", any(st_within(pt, liq, sparse = FALSE)), "\n")
cat("Tsunami evac:", any(st_within(pt, tsu, sparse = FALSE)), "\n")

URM (unreinforced masonry) buildings in the region

Wellington has a known earthquake-prone URM building stock — GWRC publishes the register:

urm = client.wellington("gwrc_eq_urm_buildings", as_sf=True)
print(f"URM buildings: {len(urm)}")
# By TA
print(urm.groupby("ta_name").size().sort_values(ascending=False))

Compare operative vs proposed plan zones (WCC)

operative = client.wellington("wcc_district_plan_zones_2024", as_sf=True)
proposed_decisions = client.wellington("wcdp_amenity_landscapes_decision", as_sf=True)
# Differences are where the proposed plan changes the AUP rule

Source-specific notes

  • GWRC ≠ Wellington City Council: GWRC is the regional council (environment, transport, flood protection at regional scale). Wellington City is one of nine TAs within the GWRC area. Both publish data — don't confuse them.
  • Wellington City has two plans in eolas: wcc_*_operative (current legal plan, in effect) + wcdp_*_decision (proposed plan, late-stage consultation as at refresh time). The proposed plan will eventually replace the operative; both are kept while transition is in progress.
  • URM building register is privacy-sensitive at address level: GWRC publishes building locations + status. Some owners have applied for exemptions or are mid-remediation; don't infer present-day status from a snapshot without checking the date.
  • Hazard mapping methodology varies: WCC's flood overlay uses 100-yr return-period modelling; Porirua's uses 100yr + 200yr scenarios; KCDC uses a different modelling methodology. Don't directly compare hazard counts across councils without normalising for methodology.
  • Wellington Fault: runs along the western edge of the harbour through Hutt + Masterton. The *_fault_* overlays (where present) mark setback zones around the trace.
  • Coastal SLR scenarios: PCC publishes a _1m_slr (1m sea-level-rise) layer reflecting central RCP4.5 projections; other councils use different SLR assumptions. Inspect the metadata before cross-council coastal-risk analysis.

Where to find more

  • Councils overview — the full council coverage model
  • LINZ — for the cadastral parcels you'll join hazard data to
  • Examples — boundary mapping recipes