A team of earthquake geologists, seismologists, and engineering seismologists has collectively produced an update of the national probabilistic seismic hazard (PSH) model for New Zealand (National Seismic Hazard Model, or NSHM). The new NSHM supersedes the earlier NSHM published in 2002 and used as the hazard basis for the New Zealand Loadings Standard and numerous other end-user applications. The new NSHM incorporates a fault source model that has been updated with over 200 new onshore and offshore fault sources and utilizes new New Zealand-based and international scaling relationships for the parameterization of the faults. The distributed seismicity model has also been updated to include post-1997 seismicity data, a new seismicity regionalization, and improved methodology for calculation of the seismicity parameters. Probabilistic seismic hazard maps produced from the new NSHM show a similar pattern of hazard to the earlier model at the national scale, but there are some significant reductions and increases in hazard at the regional scale. The national-scale differences between the new and earlier NSHM appear less than those seen between much earlier national models, indicating that some degree of consistency has been achieved in the national-scale pattern of hazard estimates, at least for return periods of 475 years and greater.Online Material: Table of fault source parameters for the 2010 national seismichazard model.

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This paper introduces a generic framework for multi-risk modelling developed in the project 'Regional RiskScape' by the Research Organizations GNS Science and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd. (NIWA) in New Zealand. Our goal was to develop a generic technology for modelling risks from different natural hazards and for various elements at risk. The technical framework is not dependent on the specific nature of the individual hazard nor the vulnerability and the type of the individual assets. Based on this generic framework, a software prototype has been developed, which is capable of 'plugging in' various natural hazards and assets without reconfiguring or adapting the generic software framework. To achieve that, we developed a set of standards for treating the fundamental components of a risk model: hazards, assets (elements at risk) and vulnerability models (or fragility functions). Thus, the developed prototype system is able to accommodate any hazard, asset or fragility model, which is provided to the system according to that standard. The software prototype was tested by modelling earthquake, volcanic ashfall, flood, wind, and tsunami risks for several urban centres and small communities in New Zealand.