Tauranga is a small coastal town in the Bay of Plenty home to 150,000 people on the eastern side of New Zealand's north island. The natural hazards that have the potential to cause the most impact are underwater earthquakes causing tsunami, flooding, landslides and cyclones. Tauranga is also home to the largest commercial port in New Zealand and right next to it, the highest concentration of major hazard facilities in New Zealand.

The Tauranga City Council Emergency Management team have successfully implemented the use of mixed and extended reality (XR) to educate communities about various disaster risks. The TCC EM team have created Two modules. The first module focuses on an earthquake and tsunami. The user experiences a small and large magnitude earthquake and has to take action to keep themselves safe. They then experience three different tsunami scenarios, with the highest option being the best evacuation point. The user can see modelled impacts of what the maximum credible event would look like. The second module focuses on flooding in three different stages. In the first stage, the user gets to learn about their surroundings, the second stage encourages them to get ready for the flood and the last stage is to take action to evacuate. The team have been offering both modules as a public resource for disaster risk reduction, free of charge and free to download.

Since the introduction of these XR modules, there has been a significant uptake in the number of opportunities to engage with the community and help them learn about disasters. Extended reality is the next best way to engage and teach our communities about the various natural and man-made hazards they are faced with. This talk will explain the successes of the VR project and outline how it can be applied further.