Donald's and Abbots Creeks Flood Hazard Modelling - Stage 4
Help us improve flood hazard maps for Featherston
Greater Wellington has been working with the Featherston community to understand the impacts of flooding from Donald’s and Abbots Creeks. We’re now consulting on draft flood hazard maps, and we’d like your feedback.
These maps show areas most likely to flood during a severe weather event, including scenarios that consider climate change. Your knowledge and experience of flooding will help us refine the maps before they’re finalised.
Click here to view the maps and share your feedback now.
Why this matters.
Flooding affects more people, more often than any other natural hazard in the Greater Wellington region. By understanding local flood risk, we can plan better and help reduce impacts on people, property, businesses and essential services.
Flood hazard maps are used for:
flood risk management planning
emergency preparedness
informing development decisions (e.g. the Combined Wairarapa District Plan and the Featherston Masterplan).
What's new?
We’ve completed our technical modelling and created three draft flood hazard maps for Donald’s and Abbots Creeks:
1% Annual Exceedance Probability (AEP) flood map (also known as a 1-in-100-year event)
1% AEP flood map with climate change adjustments for rainfall
1% AEP flood map with both rainfall and sea level rise adjustments.
These maps are now available for community feedback until Tuesday, 30 July 2025.
How to have your say
Explore the maps.
Let us know if they reflect your experience of flooding in Featherston.
Use the Submit function to tell us what you saw and where.
You can also upload photos and videos to add more detail.
Your feedback will help us ensure these maps accurately reflect local conditions before they’re finalised.
Need more information or to talk to someone?
If you’d prefer to talk with a Greater Wellington staff member to share your experiences, please email us at floods@gw.govt.nz and mention the Donald’s and Abbots Creeks. Or join us at one of our drop-in sessions to view the maps and share your recollections:
Featherston Farmers’ Market
- Date: Saturday 19 and 26 July 2025
- Time: 9am – 12pm
- Location: 33 Fitzherbert Street, Featherston
For advice on how to prepare for floods, or information about our wider flood protection work, please visit www.gw.govt.nz/flood-protection.
How we’ll use your information
Please be aware that any feedback you share on the maps below will be visible to all visitors to the page. However, your personal details will be kept private.
We use this information to refine our flood hazard model map for the Donald’s and Abbots Creeks catchment. We may also use your information to contact you to discuss your information in further detail or clarify things further with you. Your information is held securely by Greater Wellington, find out more in the Privacy Statement to the right.