Webinar: Securing resources for urban growth

Growing cities and regions must plan for not just where they’ll grow, but where to get the materials needed to support this growth.

We use around four million truckloads of sand, rock and gravel aggregates each year in roading and construction. However, these are best quarried close to where they’re used, and quarries and gravel pits aren’t acceptable activities in built up areas. So as cities grow, these vital resource sites get pushed further and further out, increasing their price, the wear on roading, and carbon emissions.

To aid councils and others in thinking about where the resources will come from to support future growth, the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, Te Waihanga, commissioned GNS Science to identify potential extraction opportunities close to four high-growth areas: Auckland, Tauranga, Wellington and Queenstown/Central Otago. These new aggregate opportunity maps will support growth in these areas.

This webinar takes a closer look at this research.