The Northern Rivers Resilience Initiative (NRRI) is being led by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in partnership with us. 

The $11.4 million initiative is focused on understanding climate, catchment and hydrological drivers in the area. It also aims to find evidence-based ways to reduce flooding in the Richmond River catchment. 

Progress

The first report was the Rapid Prioritisation for Flood Resilience. These results informed which projects received funding under the Australian Government’s $150 million Northern Rivers Recovery and Resilience Program. 

Under phase two, CSIRO has mapped the: 

• Richmond and Tweed rivers and parts of the Brunswick River, and
• the landscape of the entire Northern Rivers region. 

On 28 June 2024, all of this data was made publicly available through GeoScience Australia’s Elvis website. 

Further information on the NRRI is available on CSIRO’s website. 

Hydrodynamic model

As part of the Australian Government’s commitment to reducing disaster risk and building resilience in the Northern Rivers, the hydrodynamic model and report for the Richmond River catchment has now been finalised. The details on how it was developed and validated are publicly available (PDF 17.1MB).  

The model is now being used by CSIRO to support the next stage of this project. This involves the identification and assessment of a range of potential flood mitigation measures in the Richmond River catchment.  

Community consultation and scenario testing

To support this process, community consultation took place from 31 July - 15 August 2025. This included face to face sessions which gave community members living in the Richmond River catchment a chance to:  

• Hear directly from CSIRO about the model and its findings
• Ask questions and engage with technical experts
• Provide input on possible flood mitigation measures (PDF 5.47MB)

Community members could also submit their ideas online.  

CSIRO is now analysing the information collected through the consultation process and will develop a short-list of flood mitigation measures.  
 
Measures will then be grouped together to create scenarios. Each scenario may include several flood mitigation measures.  

These scenarios will then be shared back with the four councils in the Richmond River catchment as well as the NSW Government for discussion and agreement. For more information on timeframes, please see the timeline below.  

Timeline