Published April 2026 · 12 min read

Auckland's Most Important New Hazard Maps — And Why Most Buyers Still Haven't Found Them

In 2025, Auckland Council published something unprecedented: a region-wide mapping of landslide susceptibility covering every part of Auckland from Warkworth in the north to the Franklin district in the south. The data sits in GeoMaps. The Large-Scale Landslide and Shallow Landslide susceptibility layers are both live. Since 15 October 2025, landslide susceptibility has been a mandatory inclusion on every LIM report issued by Auckland Council.

And yet — if you stop ten Aucklanders on Queen Street and ask them whether their property sits in a landslide susceptibility zone, nine of them will not know.

Most will not have heard of the new maps. A reasonable number will not know that landslide susceptibility is a thing that can be mapped at all.

This is an awareness gap with real consequences. Landslide risk is one of the three hazard categories that PC120 specifically targets for new regulation. It is one of the reasons an insurer may apply an excess uplift or decline cover. According to Auckland Council's own Technical Report 2025/7, approximately 11% of the Auckland region is classified as "high" landslide susceptibility, and a further 7% as "very high" — meaning close to one in five parts of Auckland's land area.

Here's what's going on, why it matters, and how to close the gap for your property in about three minutes.

What the 2025 maps actually cover

Auckland Council commissioned engineering consultants WSP to produce two region-wide landslide susceptibility layers, published as Technical Report TR2025/7. The two layers are:

• Large-Scale Landslide Susceptibility — identifies areas prone to deep-seated, slow-moving, or relict landslide features, including historic slip scars, coastal cliff instability, and deep-bedrock failures.
• Shallow Landslide Susceptibility — identifies areas prone to shallow rainfall-triggered slips of the kind that dominated the 2023 Anniversary Weekend floods, where saturated topsoil detaches from underlying bedrock.

Both layers classify every Auckland property into one of five levels: Very Low, Low, Moderate, High, or Very High. Unlike earlier mapping that only covered known unstable areas, the new layers are regional — every property now has a classification.

An important distinction: the Chief Engineer's own emphasis is that these maps show susceptibility, not hazard or risk. Susceptibility tells you which factors may pre-dispose a particular piece of land to becoming unstable. It does not predict how often a landslide will occur, or what the consequences would be. Susceptibility is a planning input. It is not a forecast.

The maps were developed using high-resolution LiDAR topography, land-use data, waterways, geomorphological and geological maps, and the catalogue of approximately 50,000 landslides that occurred in the 2023 storm events. They are the most comprehensive regional landslide dataset ever produced in New Zealand, and almost certainly the best single piece of natural hazard mapping Auckland has ever published.

Why nobody has seen them

Four reasons, all of them structural.

The council hasn't publicised them heavily. The maps were quietly added to GeoMaps during 2025 and formally embedded into LIM reports on 15 October 2025. There was no campaign. No television ad. No letterbox drop. If you weren't already following Auckland Council media releases, you'd have missed it entirely.

The maps are buried inside a complex tool. GeoMaps is a technical GIS interface built for planners and engineers. To find the landslide layers, you have to switch to the "Natural Hazards" theme and tick the correct overlay boxes from a list of dozens of layers. The default view shows none of this. On mobile, the experience is close to unusable.

The layers disappear when you zoom in. Many Aucklanders who try to check their property on GeoMaps end up thinking nothing is mapped for them, because the landslide colours stop rendering once they zoom in to property level. This isn't a bug, and the data isn't missing — it's a deliberate design decision by the council, and it's worth understanding in its own right. We come back to it below.

The broader conversation has been about floods. Since 2023, coverage of Auckland hazards in the news media, on Facebook, and in council communications has been dominated by flooding — floodplains, overland flow paths, stormwater capacity. Landslides, despite causing a large share of the 2023 damage and the majority of the fatalities, have had comparatively little airtime. For most buyers, "natural hazard" means "flood" by default.

Why the layers disappear when you zoom in — a deliberate design choice, not a bug

This one deserves its own section, because it's the single most common reason Aucklanders conclude their property isn't mapped when in fact it is.

When you search your address in GeoMaps with the landslide layers turned on, you'll see the colour classifications clearly at suburb or regional zoom. Zoom in to property level — the view most people naturally use when checking a specific house — and the colours often drop out entirely. The layer toggle is still on. The data is still there underneath. But the rendering stops.

This is working as intended. Auckland Council's GIS team has deliberately enabled a standard GIS feature called scale dependency (or "visibility range") on these layers — the layers have a minimum scale setting turned on that prevents them from displaying at zoom levels finer than a specified threshold.

The reason comes directly from the technical report that produced the maps. Technical Report TR2025/7 — the WSP study Auckland Council commissioned — explicitly instructs the council to restrict display scales. From the Executive Summary:

"The maps are suitable for use at 1:25,000 scale for shallow landslide susceptibility and 1:50,000 scale for large-scale landslide susceptibility. The maps should be used at scales appropriate for this regional-scale assessment, and where made available to the public through the Council GIS viewer the scales at which they can be viewed should be restricted."

The instruction is repeated later in the report: the shallow layer should not be displayed at scales larger than 1:25,000, and the large-scale layer no larger than 1:50,000. The report also recommends a visible disclaimer warning against viewing or relying on the maps at finer scales.

In plain English, 1:25,000 to 1:50,000 is roughly suburb-to-regional zoom. Property-level zoom — what you instinctively reach for when searching an address — is far more detailed than that, often 1:1,000 or finer. When you zoom past the recommended threshold, GeoMaps stops rendering the layer. The council's GIS team followed the report's explicit direction when they published the layers in September 2025. It is working exactly as the technical experts recommended.

Why the council chose to restrict display

The reasons in the report are entirely technical and reasonable.

The mapping is a regional-scale desk study. It uses a 32-metre resolution analysis grid, regional geology maps, LiDAR, and a broad landslide inventory. It was never intended or validated for property-level accuracy. No site visits were carried out. Site-specific factors — retaining walls, drainage condition, recent earthworks, exact soil profile, slope modifications — are not captured anywhere in the dataset.

Displaying the layers at property scale would invite people to treat the classification as a precise risk rating for their individual house or section. The report repeatedly warns that it isn't. It states clearly that the maps "should not be used for site-specific analysis of landslide susceptibility" and directs property owners to engage a qualified geotechnical engineer for anything beyond regional screening.

The disappearing layer is, in effect, the council actively protecting users from misusing the data. It's a statement — encoded in the GIS configuration — that these maps are a high-level screening tool only.

Why buyers and owners still need to know their classification

Here's the tension: the council has mapped every Auckland property, tied the classification to LIM disclosure, and linked it to consent consequences under PC120 — while also deliberately restricting how it displays at property scale. Both things are true, and they're not in conflict once you understand what the data is.

The classification is material information. It's on every LIM. It triggers consent requirements for certain types of development. It can affect insurance and lending. Ignoring it isn't an option.

But the classification is also screening-level, not a definitive site-specific risk rating. The right way to read it — and the way Auckland Council itself communicates it on LIMs — is something like: "Your property is classified as [X] susceptibility on the regional maps. This is not a site-specific risk rating. A qualified geotechnical engineer should assess it before you build, renovate, or subdivide."

Flagging the classification isn't alarmist. It's what the council has decided to put on every LIM and tie to regulatory consequences. Ignoring it would leave buyers and owners in the dark about something that now has tangible planning, cost, and insurance implications. Treating the screening map as a final verdict — in either direction, reassuring or worrying — is the mistake. For a definitive answer at property scale, a geotechnical assessment is the only thing that counts.

Why the gap matters

If you're buying, selling, or renovating in Auckland, there are several reasons to close this gap before you act.

Every new LIM now discloses it

Since 15 October 2025, Auckland Council LIMs include landslide susceptibility as a standard hazard disclosure. If you are buying a property and your LIM returns a Moderate, High, or Very High classification, that notation is now a legally disclosed fact. It will be on your LIM. It will be on every future LIM for that property. If you don't know what it means when you see it, you can't make an informed decision about whether to proceed, negotiate, or walk away.

PC120 introduces consent consequences for mapped landslide areas

Under the new Chapter E36 rules, which took immediate legal effect on 3 November 2025, properties with higher landslide susceptibility classifications face tighter consent requirements. For new dwellings, major renovations, subdivisions, or earthworks on sites within mapped susceptibility areas, a formal Landslide Hazard Risk Assessment prepared by a suitably qualified and experienced geotechnical engineer — following the Appendix 24 methodology — may be required to support the application. That assessment can cost several thousand dollars, takes time, and may conclude that the proposed development cannot proceed without mitigation measures such as retaining walls, piled foundations, or slope drainage.

A buyer who doesn't check the landslide layer before going unconditional can end up with a section that looks buildable but is, in practice, either expensive or restricted to develop. The purchase price on a property with a High susceptibility classification ought to reflect that constraint. It often does not, because neither buyer nor vendor is aware.

Susceptibility beyond the subject property can still affect you

This is the most under-appreciated feature of the new framework. A property can sit on flat ground with a Low or Very Low susceptibility on its own title — and still sit at the base of a hillside mapped as High or Very High. The council's own regional maps do not currently model run-out or regression zones (the technical report explicitly notes these have not yet been assessed at regional scale), but the surrounding susceptibility pattern is visible on GeoMaps and is relevant context when a geotechnical engineer assesses risk for a specific site.

Put plainly: if you are buying at the bottom of a slope, the story on your own LIM is only part of the picture. Look at the surrounding area on GeoMaps. If the hill above you is red or orange, that's information worth having before you go unconditional.

This matters more in some parts of Auckland than others. Titirangi, Howick, Hillsborough, Kelston, Glen Eden, Mt Wellington, Meadowbank, and many of the suburbs built around Auckland's old volcanic cones are areas where slope-related context is worth checking on the council maps.

Insurance and lending follow the map

Insurers have been moving toward risk-based pricing on landslide risk, and the Auckland Council maps are now one of the public datasets they can cross-reference. A property with a High landslide classification may face a higher landslide-specific excess, require additional information before quoting, or be declined by some underwriters entirely. Banks follow the insurers: if a property can't be insured, the lending becomes more difficult.

Unlike flooding, where a historical event on the property creates a specific claim record, landslide exposure can affect the quote even where the property has never had a slip. The map changes the risk picture before anything has physically happened on the site.

How to check your property in three minutes

There are three ways to look at the landslide susceptibility of an Auckland property. Each has its strengths and weaknesses.

1. Auckland Council GeoMaps (free)

Open geomapspublic.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/viewer/. In the theme picker, select "Natural Hazards." In the layer list, tick both "Large Scale Landslide Susceptibility" and "Shallow Landslide Susceptibility." Search your address.

Because of the scale restriction explained above, the workaround is: search your address, then zoom out to suburb level first. At that zoom, the colours will render clearly. Note your property's classification and the pattern of susceptibility across the surrounding slopes, then zoom back in if you want street-level context — the colours may disappear, but the data is still there underneath. This is free and authoritative, but the interface is clunky, the display restrictions are not obvious to first-time users, and the interpretation is left entirely to you.

2. Order a LIM ($375, up to 10 working days)

A post-October 2025 LIM will formally include the landslide susceptibility notation as a mandatory disclosure. This is the legally definitive source. The trade-off is cost, time, and the fact that a LIM tells you the classification without explaining its consent or insurance implications.

3. Use a third-party hazard report (like Know Your Risk NZ)

A property hazard report will pull the same council data, display a zoomed-in printed map showing the layer rendered clearly at property scale, and translate the Very Low / Low / Moderate / High / Very High classification into a plain-English explanation of the PC120 consent pathway implications and the relevant Appendix 24 assessment requirements. This is what Know Your Risk NZ does for $49, instantly, before you commit to ordering a LIM.

The bottom line

The 2025 Auckland landslide susceptibility maps are the most important piece of hazard mapping the city has produced in a generation. They sit on the council's servers, free to view, feeding directly into every new LIM. And most Auckland buyers have never looked at them.

Close that gap for your property before you make an offer, not after. A three-minute check on GeoMaps or a $49 hazard report is a very small investment relative to the cost of discovering, six months after settlement, that a consent you assumed would be routine now requires a geotechnical assessment — or that the insurer who quoted you happily at the time of purchase has changed their position at renewal.

The maps exist. The regulatory consequences exist. The awareness is what's missing.