← Natural hazards connect with experts
Meet Tane
Kia ora. My name is Tane van de Donk from the emergency management team at Tauranga City Council.
From a young age, I've always been very interested in things like hazards. So when I got to the age of university, I decided to go to the University of Otago and study a Bachelor of Applied Science in environmental management and geography.
Through that, I got the opportunity to get an internship here at the council. And I had an opportunity to work with heaps of different communities about disasters. So it's preparing schools, and telling people about disasters a little bit more, and getting people ready for these types of things.
Meet Craig
Kia ora. Ko Craig Miller tōku ingoa.
I'm a volcano geophysicist at GNS Science in Taupō. My job is a mixture of research and monitoring. So I try to figure out what makes the volcanoes work on the inside, and then monitor what they're doing at the present day. And the purpose of that is really so that we can be prepared – we can inform people when volcanic activity might be about to take place.
I guess I got interested in volcanoes growing up in Auckland; there's 50 volcanic cones there. So just really interested in all these processes that occur – makes the Earth kind of seem alive. And I like geography and learning around how the landscape forms. So that's kind of led me into my job, and it lets me really understand how the landscape works.
And our job is really interesting because it gets us out of the office and visiting really interesting places.
Meet Graham
Kia ora koutou. I'm Graham Leonard. I'm a volcanologist with GNS Science, and I'm also the lead scientist natural hazard and risks. Soon we'll be merging with NIWA, including MetService, to be the Earth Sciences Institute.
I got into volcanology way back 20/30 years ago, studying everything I could about the planet. I studied geography, forestry, biology, geography, geology. And in the end, I decided I'll stick with the Earth and study geology.
And I started studying how volcanoes work because I had a really interesting professor, a really interesting teacher, teaching me about volcanoes at the University of Canterbury. And I was lucky enough to get a job at GNS Science after that, where I travel around Aotearoa New Zealand – and even around the world – understanding the life history of volcanoes. So I can understand what they've done in the past to give us a clue for what they might do in the future.
Kia ora.
