On 4 September 2010, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck near Darfield, 40 kilometres west of Christchurch, New Zealand. The quake caused significant damage to land and buildings nearby, with damage extending to Christchurch city. On 22 February 2011, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck Christchurch, causing extensive and significant damage across the city and with the loss of 185 lives. Years on from these events, occasional large aftershocks continue to shake the region.
Two main entomological collections were situated within close proximity to the 2010/11 Canterbury earthquakes. The Lincoln University Entomology Research Collection, which is housed on the 5th floor of a 7 storey building, was 27.5 km from the 2010 Darfield earthquake epicentre. The Canterbury Museum Entomology Collection, which is housed in the basement of a multi-storeyed heritage building, was 10 km from the 2011 Christchurch earthquake epicentre. We discuss the impacts of the earthquakes on these collections, the causes of the damage to the specimens and facilities, and subsequent efforts that were made to prevent further damage in the event of future seismic events. We also discuss the wider need for preparedness against the risks posed by natural disasters and other catastrophic events.
Disasters are often followed by a large-scale stimulus supporting the economy through the built environment, which can last years. During this time, official economic indicators tend to suggest the economy is doing well, but as activity winds down, the sentiment can quickly change. In response to the damaging 2011 earthquakes in Canterbury, New Zealand, the regional economy outpaced national economic growth rates for several years during the rebuild. The repair work on the built environment created years of elevated building activity. However, after the peak of the rebuilding activity, as economic and employment growth retracts below national growth, we are left with the question of how the underlying economy performs during large scale stimulus activity in the built environment. This paper assesses the performance of the underlying economy by quantifying the usual, demand-driven level of building activity at this time. Applying an Input–Output approach and excluding the economic benefit gained from the investment stimulus reveals the performance of the underlying economy. The results reveal a strong growing underlying economy, and while convergence was expected as the stimulus slowed down, the results found that growth had already crossed over for some time. The results reveal that the investment stimulus provides an initial 1.5% to 2% growth buffer from the underlying economy before the growth rates cross over. This supports short-term economic recovery and enables the underlying economy to transition away from a significant rebuild stimulus. Once the growth crosses over, five years after the disaster, economic growth in the underlying economy remains buoyant even if official regional economic data suggest otherwise.
On November 14, 2016 an earthquake struck the rural districts of Kaikōura and Hurunui on New Zealand’s South Island. The region—characterized by small dispersed communities, a local economy based on tourism and agriculture, and limited transportation connections—was severely impacted. Following the quake, road and rail networks essential to maintaining steady flows of goods, visitors, and services were extensively damaged, leaving agrifood producers with significant logistical challenges, resulting in reduced productivity and problematic market access. Regional tourism destinations also suffered with changes to the number, characteristics, and travel patterns of visitors. As the region recovers, there is renewed interest in the development and promotion of agrifood tourism and trails as a pathway for enhancing rural resilience, and a growing awareness of the importance of local networks. Drawing on empirical evidence and insights from a range of affected stakeholders, including food producers, tourism operators, and local government, we explore the significance of emerging agrifood tourism initiatives for fostering diversity, enhancing connectivity, and building resilience in the context of rural recovery. We highlight the motivation to diversify distribution channels for agrifood producers, and strengthen the region’s tourism place identity. Enhancing product offerings and establishing better links between different destinations within the region are seen as essential. While such trends are common in rural regions globally, we suggest that stakeholders’ shared experience with the earthquake and its aftermath has opened up new opportunities for regeneration and reimagination, and has influenced current agrifood tourism trajectories. In particular, additional funding for tourism recovery marketing and product development after the earthquake, and an emphasis on greater connectivity between the residents and communities through strengthening rural networks and building social capital within and between regions, is enabling more resilient and sustainable futures.
On 14 November 2016, a magnitude (Mw) 7.8 earthquake struck the small coastal settlement of Kaikōura, Aotearoa-New Zealand. With an economy based on tourism, agriculture, and fishing, Kaikōura was immediately faced with significant logistical, economic, and social challenges caused by damage to critical infrastructure and lifelines, essential to its main industries. Massive landslips cut offroad and rail access, stranding hundreds of tourists, and halting the collection, processing and distribution of agricultural products. At the coast, the seabed rose two metres, limiting harbour-access to high tide, with implications for whale watching tours and commercial fisheries. Throughout the region there was significant damage to homes, businesses, and farmland, leaving owners and residents facing an uncertain future. This paper uses qualitative case study analysis to explore post-quake transformations in a rural context. The aim is to gain insight into the distinctive dynamics of disaster response mechanisms, focusing on two initiatives that have emerged in direct response to the disaster. The first examines the ways in which agriculture, food harvesting, production and distribution are being reimagined with the potential to enhance regional food security. The second examines the rescaling of power in decision-making processes following the disaster, specifically examining the ways in which rural actors are leveraging networks to meet their needs and the consequences of that repositioning on rural (and national) governance arrangements. In these and other ways, the local economy is being revitalised, and regional resilience enhanced through diversification, capitalising not on the disaster but the region's natural, social, and cultural capital. Drawing on insights and experience of local stakeholders, policy- and decision-makers, and community representatives we highlight the diverse ways in which these endeavours are an attempt to create something new, revealing also the barriers which needed to be overcome to reshape local livelihoods. Results reveal that the process of transformation as part of rural recovery must be grounded in the lived reality of local residents and their understanding of place, incorporating and building on regional social, environmental, and economic characteristics. In this, the need to respond rapidly to realise opportunities must be balanced with the community-centric approach, with greater recognition given to the contested nature of the decisions to be made. Insights from the case examples can inform preparedness and recovery planning elsewhere, and provide a rich, real-time example of the ways in which disasters can create opportunities for reimagining resilient futures.
The urban environment influences the way people live and shape their everyday lives, and microclimate sensitive design can enhance the use of urban streets and public spaces. Innovative approaches to urban microclimate design will become more important as the world’s population becomes ever more urban, and climate change generates more variability and extremes in urban microclimatic conditions. However, established methods of investigation based upon conventions drawn from building services research and framed by physiological concepts of thermal comfort may fail to capture the social dynamics of urban activity and their interrelationship with microclimate. This research investigates the relationship between microclimate and urban culture in Christchurch, New Zealand, based upon the concept of urban comfort. Urban comfort is defined as the socio-cultural (therefore collective) adaptation to microclimate due to satisfaction with the urban environment. It involves consideration of a combination of human thermal comfort requirements and adaptive comfort circumstances, preferences and strategies. A main methodological challenge was to investigate urban comfort in a city undergoing rapid physical change following a series of major earthquakes (2010-2011), and that also has a strongly seasonal climate which accentuates microclimatic variability. The field investigation had to be suitable for rapidly changing settings as buildings were demolished and rebuilt, and be able to capture data relevant to a cycle of seasons. These local circumstances meant that Christchurch was valuable as an example of a city facing rapid and unpredictable change. An interpretive, integrative, and adaptive research strategy that combined qualitative social science methods with biophysical measures was adopted. The results are based upon participant observation, 86 in-depth interviews with Christchurch residents, and microclimate data measurements. The interviews were carried out in a variety of urban settings including established urban settings (places sustaining relatively little damage) and emerging urban settings (those requiring rebuilding) during 2011-2013. Results of this research show that urban comfort depends on adaptive strategies which in turn depend on culture. Adaptive strategies identified through the data analysis show a strong connection between natural and built landscapes, combined with the regional outdoor culture, the Garden City identity and the connections between rural and urban landscapes. The results also highlight that thermal comfort is an important but insufficient indicator of good microclimate design, as social and cultural values are important influences on climate experience and adaptation. Interpretive research is needed to fully understand urban comfort and to provide urban microclimate design solutions to enhance the use of public open spaces in cities undergoing change.
