A leading Kiwi geoscientist has defended a $500,000 earthquake project in Wairarapa that does not aim to predict or prevent the next big shake.
GNS principal scientist Stuart Henrys said the project began in 2010 as part of a collaborative gas hydrate study conducted in waters off the Wairarapa coast. The second phase involved a group of 30 scientists from New Zealand, the United States and Japan, who in May last year placed 900 sensors in an array stretching from Wairarapa to Kapiti Coast. Explosions were triggered in 12 boreholes aligned to the array and images were recorded of tectonic plates that lie up to 25km below the surface.
"But some people don't see the value of the science. The argument is that if we can't predict or prevent earthquakes, why do it," Mr Henrys said.
Draft preliminary findings from the project, which costs about $500,000, will be presented in Wellington next month to a delegation of international scientists, he said.
Mr Henrys said the project aimed to gather data that could be used to inform policy regarding earthquakes and tsunamis and improve infrastructure and building design. He last year spoke to a group in Featherston about the Wairarapa study and will this year lead discussions with the Wairarapa branch of the Geological Society of New Zealand. "Some in Featherston questioned our value and similar questions have been raised in Christchurch. Prediction is a difficult animal and there is a public perception that what we do has no value," he said. "My answer is that the more informed we are, the better prepared we are."
Mr Henrys said the Wairarapa project took about five years to develop and fund, and an upcoming project north of Napier and in waters off Gisborne had been a decade in the making. He said GNS Science had submitted more papers to international publications Nature and Science than all other New Zealand institutions combined, including universities. There is a community of about 100 geoscientists in the country, he said, which has for many years attracted significant international interest and co-operation in scientific circles. He said GNS as a Crown Research Institute had won core funding in a financial regime that began moving away from contestable funding midway through last year. He said funding systems in New Zealand were satisfactory despite the global recession, "funds following fads", and a prevailing government focus on innovative sciences.
"That does make it hard for us where funding is contestable, because the pot is smaller and what we do involves natural hazards and resources, not innovation," he said.
He said the earthquake devastation in Christchurch last year had significantly raised interest in seismic research, even though that focus depends on where and what the ground is shaking. "Public attention is grabbed where there is a societal impact. It is sexy. Today there is a lot of interest and focus in Christchurch. But it's only a matter of time before there are more events in Wairarapa and Wellington - it's happened in Wairarapa in 1855 and 1942 - and the focus will shift. Or the volcanoes in Auckland, which are dormant right now. In the meantime we need to get on with other stuff and the other projects we have on the boil."