Research in the governance of urban tourist spaces is characterized by a lack of argumentative inquiry and scant use of critical theory. This is evident, particularly, in the study of tourism and post-disaster urban recovery, with very few contributions assessing the phenomenon from a social theory perspective. This thesis examines the complex phenomenon of planning and governance for urban tourism spaces in contexts facing physical recovery from natural disasters. It does so by looking at the governance dynamics and the mechanism of decision- making put in place before and after triggering events like earthquakes and tsunamis. This thesis provides evidence from Christchurch, New Zealand, by focusing on the policies and strategies for the regeneration of the city centre put in place before and after the disruptive earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. The thesis looks at power relations, structures and ideologies through a Lukesian appraisal of pre-and-post disaster governance from two relevant urban tourist spaces located in the Christchurch central city area: the Arts Centre of Christchurch and the Town Hall and Performing Arts Precinct. The research strategy adopted for the study combined archival research, interviews with key stakeholders and fieldwork notes over a period of two years. The research deployed a comparative case study methodology that focuses on projects taking place within a spatially defined area of the city centre where special legislation was enacted as result of the earthquakes. The findings from the interviews and their triangulation with documents retrieved from national and local authorities suggest that the earthquakes affected the engagement among stakeholders and the mechanisms of decision-making. Also, the findings show patterns of disaster capitalism in post-earthquake governance for urban tourist spaces in the Christchurch CBD, with episodes of exclusion, lobbying and amendment of rules and legislation that directly benefited the interests of a narrow group of privileged stakeholders. Overall, the study shows that the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 accelerated neoliberal practices of site development in Christchurch, with the seismic events used as a pretext to implement market-oriented site projects in the CBD area.
"Lifelines in Earthquakes: Wellington Case Study was the topic of CAE's first major project, which was carried out in 1990/91. Lifelines are those services vital to the running of day-to-day life and include water, gas, electricity, telecommunications and transportation networks. The aim of the project was to assess the vulnerability of these lifelines, identify mitigation measures and raise awareness amongst lifeline managers. Although the project focused on Wellington, the findings are applicable to all urban centres within New Zealand and ongoing study groups have been established in Wellington and Christchurch since the project's completion."
"Lifelines in Earthquakes: Wellington Case Study was the topic of CAE's first major project, which was carried out in 1990/91. Lifelines are those services vital to the running of day-to-day life and include water, gas, electricity, telecommunications and transportation networks. The aim of the project was to assess the vulnerability of these lifelines, identify mitigation measures and raise awareness amongst lifeline managers. Although the project focused on Wellington, the findings are applicable to all urban centres within New Zealand and ongoing study groups have been established in Wellington and Christchurch since the project's completion."
The Canterbury region of New Zealand experienced four earthquakes greater than MW 6.0 between September 2010 and December 2011. This study employs system dynamics as well as hazard, recovery and organisational literature and brings together data collected via surveys, case studies and interviews with organisations affected by the earthquakes. This is to show how systemic interactions and interdependencies within and between industry and geographic sectors affect their recovery post-disaster. The industry sectors in the study are: construction for its role in the rebuild, information and communication technology which is a regional high-growth industry, trucking for logistics, critical infrastructure, fast moving consumer goods (e.g. supermarkets) and hospitality to track recovery through non-discretionary and discretionary spend respectively. Also in the study are three urban centres including the region’s largest Central Business District, which has been inaccessible since the earthquake of 22 February 2011 to the time of writing in February 2013. This work also highlights how earthquake effects propagated between sectors and how sectors collaborated to mitigate difficulties such as product demand instability. Other interacting factors are identified that influence the recovery trajectories of the different industry sectors. These are resource availability, insurance payments, aid from central government, and timely and quality recovery information. This work demonstrates that in recovering from disaster it is crucial for organisations to identify what interacting factors could affect their operations. Also of importance are efforts to reduce the organisation’s vulnerability and increase their resilience to future crises and in day-to-day operations. Lastly, the multi-disciplinary approach to understanding the recovery and resilience of organisations and industry sectors after disaster, leads to a better understanding of effects as well as more effective recovery policy.
Organisations locate strategically within Business Districts (CBDs) in order to cultivate their image, increase their profile, and improve access to customers, suppliers, and services. While CBDs offer an economic benefit to organisations, they also present a unique set of hazard vulnerabilities and planning challenges for businesses. As of May 2012, the Christchurch CBD has been partially cordoned off for over 14 months. Economic activity within the cordoned CBD, which previously contained 6,000 businesses and over 51,000 workers, has been significantly diminished and organisations have been forced to find new ways of operating. The vulnerabilities and resilience of CBDs not only influences outcomes for CBD organisations, but also the broader interconnected (urban/regional/national) system. A CBD is a hub of economic, social, and built infrastructure within a network of links and nodes. When the hub is disrupted all of the people, objects, and transactions that usually flow into and out of the hub must be redirected elsewhere. In an urban situation this means traffic jams in peripheries of the city, increased prices of commercial property, and capital flight; all of which are currently being faced in Canterbury. This report presents the lessons learned from organisations in CBDs affected by the Canterbury earthquakes. Here we focus on the Christchurch CBD; however, several urban town centres were extensively disrupted by the earthquakes. The statistics and discussion presented in this report are based on the results of an ongoing study conducted by Resilient Organisations (www.resorgs.org.nz). The data was captured using two questionnaire surveys of Canterbury organisations (issued November 2010 and May 2011), interviews with key informants, and in-depth case studies of organisations. Several industry sectors were sampled, and geographic samples of organisations in the Christchurch CBD, Lyttelton, and the Kaiapoi town centre were also collected. Results in this report describing “non-CBD organisations” refer to all organisations outside of the Christchurch CBD, Lyttelton, and Kaiapoi town centres.
Social and natural capital are fundamental to people’s wellbeing, often within the context of local community. Developing communities and linking people together provide benefits in terms of mental well-being, physical activity and other associated health outcomes. The research presented here was carried out in Christchurch - Ōtautahi, New Zealand, a city currently re-building, after a series of devastating earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. Poor mental health has been shown to be a significant post-earthquake problem, and social connection has been postulated as part of a solution. By curating a disparate set of community services, activities and facilities, organised into a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) database, we created i) an accessibility analysis of 11 health and well-being services, ii) a mobility scenario analysis focusing on 4 general well-being services and iii) a location-allocation model focusing on 3 primary health care and welfare location optimisation. Our results demonstrate that overall, the majority of neighbourhoods in Christchurch benefit from a high level of accessibility to almost all the services; but with an urban-rural gradient (the further away from the centre, the less services are available, as is expected). The noticeable exception to this trend, is that the more deprived eastern suburbs have poorer accessibility, suggesting social inequity in accessibility. The findings presented here show the potential of optimisation modelling and database curation for urban and community facility planning purposes.
Christchurch Ōtautahi, New Zealand, is a city of myriad waterways and springs. Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, have water quality at the core of their cultural values. The city’s rivers include the Avon/Ōtākaro, central to the city centre’s aesthetic appeal since early settlement, and the Heathcote/Ōpāwaho. Both have been degraded with increasing urbanisation. The destructive earthquake sequence that occurred during 2010/11 presented an opportunity to rebuild significant areas of the city. Public consultation identified enthusiasm to rebuild a sustainable city. A sustainable water sensitive city is one where development is constructed with the water environment in mind. Water sensitive urban design applies at all scales and is a holistic concept. In Christchurch larger-scale multi-value stormwater management solutions were incorporated into rapidly developed greenfield sites on the city’s outskirts and in satellite towns, as they had been pre-earthquake. Individual properties on greenfield sites and within the city, however, continued to be constructed without water sensitive features such as rainwater tanks or living roofs. This research uses semi-structured interviews, policy analysis, and findings from local and international studies to investigate the benefits of building-scale WSUD and the barriers that have resulted in their absence. Although several inter-related barriers became apparent, cost, commonly cited as a barrier to sustainable development in general, was strongly represented. However, it is argued that the issue is one of mindset rather than cost. Solutions are proposed, based on international and national experience, that will demonstrate the benefits of adopting water sensitive urban design principles including at the building scale, and thereby build public and political support. The research is timely - there is still much development to occur, and increasing pressures from urban densification, population growth and climate change to mitigate.
Study region: Christchurch, New Zealand. Study focus: Low-lying coastal cities worldwide are vulnerable to shallow groundwater salinization caused by saltwater intrusion and anthropogenic activities. Shallow groundwater salinization can have cascading negative impacts on municipal assets, but this is rarely considered compared to impacts of salinization on water supply. Here, shallow groundwater salinity was sampled at high spatial resolution (1.3 piezometer/km2 ), then mapped and spatially interpolated. This was possible due to a uniquely extensive set of shallow piezometers installed in response to the 2010–11 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence to assess liquefaction risk. The municipal assets located within the brackish groundwater areas were highlighted. New hydrological insights for the region: Brackish groundwater areas were centred on a spit of coastal sand dunes and inside the meander of a tidal river with poorly drained soils. The municipal assets located within these areas include: (i) wastewater and stormwater pipes constructed from steel-reinforced concrete, which, if damaged, are vulnerable to premature failure when exposed to chloride underwater, and (ii) 41 parks and reserves totalling 236 ha, within which salt-intolerant groundwater-dependent species are at risk. This research highlights the importance of determining areas of saline shallow groundwater in low-lying coastal urban settings and the co-located municipal assets to allow the prioritisation of sites for future monitoring and management.
Researchers have begun to explore the opportunity presented by blue-green infrastructure(a subset of nature-based solutions that provide blue and green space in urban infrastructure)as a response to the pressures of climate change. The 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence created a unique landscape within which there is opportunity to experiment with and invest in new solutions to climate change adaptation in urban centres. Constructed wetlands are an example of blue-green infrastructure that can potentially support resilience in urban communities. This research explores interactions between communities and constructed wetlands to understand how this may influence perceptions of community resilience. The regeneration of the Ōtākaro Avon River Corridor (OARC) provides a space to investigate these relationships. Seven stakeholders from the community, industry, and academia, each with experience in blue-green infrastructure in the OARC, participated in a series of semi-structured interviews. Each participant was given the opportunity to reflect on their perspectives of community, community resilience, and constructed wetlands and their interconnections. Interview questions aligned with the overarching research objectives to (1) understand perceptions around the role of wetlands in urban communities, (2) develop a definition for community resilience in the context of the Ōtākaro Avon community, and (3) reflect on how wetlands can contribute to (or detract from) community resilience. This study found that constructed wetlands can facilitate learning about the challenges and solutions needed to adapt to climate change. From the perspective of the community representatives, community resilience is linked to social capital. Strong social networks and a relationship with nature were emphasised as core components of a community’s ability to adapt to disruption. Constructed wetlands are therefore recognised as potentially contributing to community resilience by providing spaces for people to engage with each other and nature. Investment in constructed wetlands can support a wider response to climate change impacts. This research was undertaken with the support of the Ōtākaro Living Laboratory Trust, who are invested in the future of the OARC. The outcomes of this study suggest that there is an opportunity to use wetland spaces to establish programmes that explore the perceptions of constructed wetlands from a broader community definition, at each stage of the wetland life cycle, and at wider scales(e.g., at a city scale or beyond).
The development of Digital City technologies to manage and visualise spatial information has increasingly become a focus of the research community, and application by city authorities. Traditionally, the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Building Information Models (BIM) underlying Digital Cities have been used independently. However, integrating GIS and BIM into a single platform provides benefits for project and asset management, and is applicable to a range of issues. One of these benefits is the means to access and analyse large datasets describing the built environment, in order to characterise urban risk from and resilience to natural hazards. The aim of this thesis is to further explore methodologies of integration in two distinct areas. The first, integration through connectivity of heterogeneous datasets where GIS spatial infrastructure data is merged with 3D BIM building data to create a digital twin. Secondly, integration through analysis whereby data from the digital twin are extracted and integrated with computational models. To achieve this, a workflow was developed to identify the required datasets of a digital twin, and develop a process of integrating those datasets through a combination of; semi-autonomous conversion, translation and extension of data; and semantic web and services-based processes. Through use of a designed schema, the data were streamed in a homogenous format in a web-based platform. To demonstrate the value of this workflow with respect to urban risk and resilience, the process was applied to the Taiora: Queen Elizabeth II recreation and sports centre in eastern Christchurch, New Zealand. After integration of as-built GIS and BIM datasets, targeted data extraction was implemented, with outputs tailored for analysis in an infrastructure serviceability loss model, which assessed potable water network performance in the 22nd February 2011 Christchurch Earthquake. Using the same earthquake conditions as the serviceability loss model, performance of infrastructure assets in service at the time of the 22nd February 2011 Christchurch Earthquake was compared to new assets rebuilt at the site, post-earthquake. Due to improved potable water infrastructure resilience resulting from installation of ductile piles, a decrease of 35.5% in the probability of service loss was estimated in the serviceability loss model. To complete the workflow, the results from the external analysis were uploaded to the web-based platform. One of the more significant outcomes from the workflow was the identification of a lack of mandated metadata standards for fittings/valves connecting a building to private laterals. Whilst visually the GIS and BIM data show the building and pipes as connected, the semantic data does not include this connectivity relationship. This has no material impact on the current serviceability loss model as it is not one of the defined parameters. However, a proposed modification to the model would utilise the metadata to further assess the physical connection robustness, and increase the number of variables for estimating probability of service loss. This thesis has made a methodological contribution to urban resilience analysis by demonstrating how readily available up-to-date building and infrastructure data can be integrated, and with tailored extraction from a Digital City platform, be used for disaster impact analysis in an external computational engine, with results in turn imported and visualised in the Digital City platform. The workflow demonstrated that translation and integration of data would be more successful if a regional/national mandate was implemented for the submission of consent documentation in a specified standard BIM format. The results of this thesis have identified that the key to ensuring the success of an integrated tool lies in the initial workflow required to safeguard that all data can be either captured or translated in an interoperable format.
The development of Digital City technologies to manage and visualise spatial information has increasingly become a focus of the research community, and application by city authorities. Traditionally, the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Building Information Models (BIM) underlying Digital Cities have been used independently. However, integrating GIS and BIM into a single platform provides benefits for project and asset management, and is applicable to a range of issues. One of these benefits is the means to access and analyse large datasets describing the built environment, in order to characterise urban risk from and resilience to natural hazards. The aim of this thesis is to further explore methodologies of integration in two distinct areas. The first, integration through connectivity of heterogeneous datasets where GIS spatial infrastructure data is merged with 3D BIM building data to create a digital twin. Secondly, integration through analysis whereby data from the digital twin are extracted and integrated with computational models. To achieve this, a workflow was developed to identify the required datasets of a digital twin, and develop a process of integrating those datasets through a combination of; semi-autonomous conversion, translation and extension of data; and semantic web and services-based processes. Through use of a designed schema, the data were streamed in a homogenous format in a web-based platform. To demonstrate the value of this workflow with respect to urban risk and resilience, the process was applied to the Taiora: Queen Elizabeth II recreation and sports centre in eastern Christchurch, New Zealand. After integration of as-built GIS and BIM datasets, targeted data extraction was implemented, with outputs tailored for analysis in an infrastructure serviceability loss model, which assessed potable water network performance in the 22nd February 2011 Christchurch Earthquake. Using the same earthquake conditions as the serviceability loss model, performance of infrastructure assets in service at the time of the 22nd February 2011 Christchurch Earthquake was compared to new assets rebuilt at the site, post-earthquake. Due to improved potable water infrastructure resilience resulting from installation of ductile piles, a decrease of 35.5% in the probability of service loss was estimated in the serviceability loss model. To complete the workflow, the results from the external analysis were uploaded to the web-based platform. One of the more significant outcomes from the workflow was the identification of a lack of mandated metadata standards for fittings/valves connecting a building to private laterals. Whilst visually the GIS and BIM data show the building and pipes as connected, the semantic data does not include this connectivity relationship. This has no material impact on the current serviceability loss model as it is not one of the defined parameters. However, a proposed modification to the model would utilise the metadata to further assess the physical connection robustness, and increase the number of variables for estimating probability of service loss. This thesis has made a methodological contribution to urban resilience analysis by demonstrating how readily available up-to-date building and infrastructure data can be integrated, and with tailored extraction from a Digital City platform, be used for disaster impact analysis in an external computational engine, with results in turn imported and visualised in the Digital City platform. The workflow demonstrated that translation and integration of data would be more successful if a regional/national mandate was implemented for the submission of consent documentation in a specified standard BIM format. The results of this thesis have identified that the key to ensuring the success of an integrated tool lies in the initial workflow required to safeguard that all data can be either captured or translated in an interoperable format.
We present preliminary observations on three waters impacts from the Mw7.8 14th November 2016 Kaikōura Earthquake on wider metropolitan Wellington, urban and rural Marlborough, and in Kaikōura township. Three waters systems in these areas experienced widespread and significant transient ground deformation in response to seismic shaking, with localised permanent ground deformation via liquefaction and lateral spreading. In Wellington, potable water quality was impacted temporarily by increased turbidity, and significant water losses occurred due to damaged pipes at the port. The Seaview and Porirua wastewater treatment plants sustained damage to clarifier tanks from water seiching, and increased water infiltration to the wastewater system occurred. Most failure modes in urban Marlborough were similar to the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence; however some rural water tanks experienced rotational and translational movements, highlighting importance of flexible pipe connections. In Kaikōura, damage to reservoirs and pipes led to loss of water supply and compromised firefighting capability. Wastewater damage led to environmental contamination, and necessitated restrictions on greywater entry into the system to minimise flows. Damage to these systems necessitated the importation of tankered and bottled water, boil water notices and chlorination of the system, and importation of portaloos and chemical toilets. Stormwater infrastructure such as road drainage channels was also damaged, which could compromise condition of underlying road materials. Good operational asset management practices (current and accurate information, renewals, appreciation of criticality, good system knowledge and practical contingency plans) helped improve system resilience, and having robust emergency management centres and accurate Geographic Information System data allowed effective response coordination. Minimal damage to the wider built environment facilitated system inspections. Note Future research will include detailed geospatial assessments of seismic demand on these systems and attendant modes of failure, levels of service restoration, and collaborative development of resilience measures.
At 4.35am on Saturday 4 September 2010, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck near the township of Darfield in Canterbury leading to widespread damage in Christchurch and the wider central Canterbury region. Though it was reported no lives were lost, that was not entirely correct. Over 3,000 animals perished as a result of the earthquake and 99% of these deaths would have been avoidable if appropriate mitigation measures had been in place. Deaths were predominantly due to zoological vulnerability of birds in captive production farms. Other problems included lack of provision of animal welfare at evacuation centres, issues associated with multiple lost and found pet services, evacuation failure due to pet separation and stress impact on dairy herds and associated milk production. The Canterbury Earthquake has highlighted concerns over a lack of animal emergency welfare planning and capacity in New Zealand, an issue that is being progressed by the National Animal Welfare Emergency Management Group. As animal emergency management becomes better understood by emergency management and veterinary professionals, it is more likely that both sectors will have greater demands placed upon them by national guidelines and community expectations to ensure provisions are made to afford protection of animals in times of disaster. A subsequent and more devastating earthquake struck the region on Monday 22 February 2011; this article however is primarily focused on the events pertaining to the September 4 event.
On the second day of teaching for 2011, the University of Canterbury (UC) faced the most significant crisis of its 138-year history. After being shaken severely by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake on 4 September 2010, UC felt it was well along the pathway to getting back to ‘normal’. That all changed at 12:51pm on 22 February 2011, when Christchurch city was hit by an even more devastating event. A magnitude 6.3 (Modified Mercalli intensity ten – MM X) earthquake, just 13km south-east of the Christchurch city centre, caused vertical peak ground accelerations amongst the highest ever recorded in an urban environment, in some places more than twice the acceleration due to gravity. The earthquake caused immediate evacuation of the UC campus and resulted in significant damage to many buildings. Thankfully there were no serious injuries or fatalities on campus, but 185 people died in the city and many more suffered serious injuries. At the time of writing, eighteen months after the first earthquake in September, Christchurch is still experiencing regular earthquakes. Seismologists warn that the region may experience heightened seismicity for a decade or more. While writing this report we have talked with many different people from across the University. People’s experiences are different and we have not managed to talk with everyone, but we hope that by drawing together many different perspectives from across the campus that this report will serve two purposes; to retain our institutional memory of what we have learnt over the past eighteen months, and also to share our learnings with other organisations in New Zealand and around the world who, we hope, will benefit from learning about our experience.
The 2015 New Zealand strong-motion database provides a wealth of new strong motion data for engineering applications. An important component of this database is the compilation of new site metadata, describing the soil conditions and site response at GeoNet strong motion stations. We have assessed and compiled four key site parameters for the ~460 GeoNet stations that recorded significant historical ground motions. Parameters include: site classification (NZS1170.5), Vs30, fundamental site period (Tsite) and depth to bedrock (Z1.0, i.e. depth to material with Vs > 1000 m/s). In addition, we have assigned a quality estimate (Quality 1 – 3) to these parameters to provide a qualitative estimate of the uncertainty. New highquality Tsite estimates have largely been obtained from newly available HVSR amplification curves and spectral ratios from inversion of regional strong motion data that has been reconciled with available geological information. Good quality Vs30 estimates, typically in urban centres, have also been incorporated following recent studies. Where site-specific measurements of Vs30 are not available, Vs30 is estimated based on surface geology following national Vs30 maps. New Z1.0 values have been provided from 3D subsurface models for Canterbury and Wellington. This database will be used in efforts to guide development and testing of new and existing ground motion prediction models in New Zealand. In particular, it will allow reexamination of the most important site parameters that control and predict site response in a New Zealand setting. Furthermore, it can be used to provide information about suitable rock reference sites for seismological research, and as a guide to site-specific references in the literature. We discuss compilation of the database, preliminary insights so far, and future directions.
This study contains an evaluation of the seismic hazard associated with the Springbank Fault, a blind structure discovered in 1998 close to Christchurch. The assessment of the seismic hazard is approached as a deterministic process in which it is necessary to establish: 1) fault characteristics; 2) the maximum earthquake that the fault is capable of producing and 3) ground motions estimations. Due to the blind nature of the fault, conventional techniques used to establish the basic fault characteristics for seismic hazard assessments could not be applied. Alternative methods are used including global positioning system (GPS) surveys, morphometric analyses along rivers, shallow seismic reflection surveys and computer modelling. These were supplemented by using multiple empirical equations relating fault attributes to earthquake magnitude, and attenuation relationships to estimate ground motions in the near-fault zone. The analyses indicated that the Springbank Fault is a reverse structure located approximately 30 km to the northwest of Christchurch, along a strike length of approximately 16 km between the Eyre and Ashley River. The fault does not reach the surface, buy it is associated with a broad anticline whose maximum topographic expression offers close to the mid-length of the fault. Two other reverse faults, the Eyrewell and Sefton Faults, are inferred in the study area. These faults, together with the Springbank and Hororata Faults and interpreted as part of a sys of trust/reverse faults propagating from a decollement located at mid-crustal depths of approximately 14 km beneath the Canterbury Plains Within this fault system, the Springbank Fault is considered to behave in a seismically independent way, with a fault slip rate of ~0.2 mm/yr, and the capacity of producing a reverse-slip earthquake of moment magnitude ~6.4, with an earthquake recurrence of 3,000 years. An earthquake of the above characteristics represents a significant seismic hazard for various urban centres in the near-fault zone including Christchurch, Rangiora, Oxford, Amberley, Kaiapoi, Darfield, Rollestion and Cust. Estimated peak ground accelerations for these towns range between 0.14 g to 0.5 g.
The extent of liquefaction in the eastern suburbs of Christchurch (Aranui, Bexley, Avonside, Avonhead and Dallington) from the February 22 2011 Earthquake resulted in extensive damage to in-ground waste water pipe systems. This caused a huge demand for portable toilets (or port-a-loos) and companies were importing them from outside Canterbury and in some instances from Australia. However, because they were deemed “assets of importance” under legislation, their allocation had to be coordinated by Civil Defence and Emergency Management (CDEM). Consequently, companies supplying them had to ignore requests from residents, businesses and rest homes; and commitments to large events outside of the city such as the Hamilton 400 V8 Supercars and the Pasifika Festival in Auckland were impacted. Frustrations started to show as neighbourhoods questioned the equity of the port-a-loos distribution. The Prime Minister was reported as reassuring citizens in the eastern suburbs in the first week of March that1 “a report about the distribution of port-a-loos and chemical toilets shows allocation has been fair. Key said he has asked Civil Defence about the distribution process and where the toilets been sent. He said there aren’t enough for the scale of the event but that is quickly being rectified and the need for toilets is being reassessed all the time.” Nonetheless, there still remained a deep sense of frustration and exclusion over the equity of the port-a-loos distribution. This study took the simple approach of mapping where those port-a-loos were on 11-12 March for several areas in the eastern suburbs and this suggested that their distribution was not equitable and was not well done. It reviews the predictive tools available for estimating damage to waste water pipes and asks the question could this situation have been better planned so that pot-a-loo locations could have been better prioritised? And finally it reviews the integral roles of communication and monitoring as part of disaster management strategy. The impression from this study is that other New Zealand urban centres could or would also be at risk and that work is need to developed more rational management approaches for disaster planning.
On 14 November 2016, the Mw 7.8 Kaikōura earthquake caused widespread damage along the east coast of the South Island, New Zealand. Kaikōura town itself was isolated from the rest of the country by landslides blocking off major roads. While impacts from the Kaikōura earthquake on large, urban population centres have been generally well documented, this thesis aims to fill gaps in academic knowledge regarding small rural towns. This thesis investigates what, where and when critical infrastructure and lifeline service disruption occurred following the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake in a selection of small towns, and how the communities in these areas adapted to disruption. Following a robust review of literature and news media, four small rural towns were selected from North Canterbury (Culverden & Waiau) and Marlborough (Seddon & Ward) in the South Island, New Zealand. Semi-structured interview sessions with a special focus on these towns were held with infrastructure managers, emergency response and recovery officials, and organisation leaders with experience or expertise in the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake. Findings were supplemented with emergency management situation reports to produce hazard maps and infrastructure exposure maps. A more detailed analysis was conducted for Waiau involving interdependence analyses and a level of service timeline for select lifeline services. The earthquake impacted roads by blocking them with landslides, debris and surface rupture. Bridges where shaken off their abutments, breaking infrastructure links such as fibre landlines as they went. Water supplies and other forms of infrastructure relied heavily on the level of service of roads, as rough rural terrain left few alternatives. Adapting to an artificial loss of road service, some Waiau locals created their own detour around a road cordon in order to get home to family and farms. Performance of dwellings was tied to socioeconomic factors as much as proximity to the epicentre. Farmers who lost water access pulled out fences to allow stock to drink from rivers. Socioeconomic differences between farmland and township residents also contributed to resilience variations between the towns assessed in this study. Understanding how small rural towns respond and adapt to disaster allows emergency management officials and policy to be well informed and flexible with planning for multiple size classes of towns.
As the future of the world’s oil reserves becomes progressively more uncertain, it is becoming increasingly important that steps are taken to ensure that there are viable, attractive alternatives to travel by private motor vehicle. As with many of New Zealand’s major urban centres, Christchurch is still exceptionally reliant on private motor vehicles; although a significant proportion of the population indicate that they would like to cycle more, cycling is still an underutilised mode of transport. Following a series of fatal earthquakes that struck the city in 2010 and 2011, there has been the need to significantly redevelop much of the city’s horizontal infrastructure – subsequently providing the perfect platform for significant changes to be made to the road network. Many of the key planning frameworks governing the rebuild process have identified the need to improve Christchurch’s cycling facilities in order to boost cycling numbers and cyclist safety. The importance of considering future growth and travel patterns when planning for transport infrastructure has been highlighted extensively throughout literature. Accordingly, this study sought to identify areas where future cycle infrastructure development would be advantageous based on a number of population and employment projections, and likely future travel patterns throughout the city. Through the use of extensive GIS analysis, future population growth, employment and travel patterns for Christchurch city were examined in order to attain an understanding of where the current proposed major cycleways network could be improved, or extended. A range of data and network analysis were used to derive likely travel patterns throughout Christchurch in 2041. Trips were derived twice, once with a focus on simply finding the shortest route between each origin and destination, and then again with a focus on cyclist safety and areas where cyclists were unlikely to travel. It was found that although the proposed major cycleways network represents a significant step towards improving the cycling environment in Christchurch, there are areas of the city that will not be well serviced by the current proposed network in 2041. These include a number of key residential growth areas such as Halswell, Belfast and Prestons, along with a number of noteworthy key travel zones, particularly in areas close to the central city and key employment areas. Using network analysis, areas where improvements or extensions to the proposed network would be most beneficial were identified, and a number of potential extensions in a variety of areas throughout the city were added to the network of cycle ways. Although it has been found that filling small gaps in the network can have considerable positive outcomes, results from the prioritisation analysis suggested that initially in Christchurch demand is likely to be for more substantial extensions to the proposed major cycleways network.
Non-structural elements (NSEs) have frequently proven to contribute to significant losses sustained from earthquakes in the form of damage, downtime, injury and death. In New Zealand (NZ), the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES), the 2013 Seddon and Cook Strait earthquake sequence and the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake were major milestones in this regard as significant damage to building NSEs both highlighted and further reinforced the importance of NSE seismic performance to the resilience of urban centres. Extensive damage in suspended ceilings, partition walls, façades and building services following the CES was reported to be partly due to erroneous seismic design or installation or caused by intervening elements. Moreover, the low-damage solutions developed for structural systems sometimes allow for relatively large inter-story drifts -compared to conventional designs- which may not have been considered in the seismic design of NSEs. Having observed these shortcomings, this study on suspended ceilings was carried out with five main goals: i) Understanding the seismic performance of the system commonly used in NZ; ii) Understanding the transfer of seismic design actions through different suspended ceiling components, iii) Investigating potential low-damage solutions; iii) Evaluating the compatibility of the current ceiling system with other low-damage NSEs; and iv) Investigating the application of numerical analysis to simulate the response of ceiling systems. The first phase of the study followed a joint research work between the University of Canterbury (UC) in NZ, and the Politecnico Di Milano, in Italy. The experimental ceiling component fragility curves obtained in this existing study were employed to produce analytical fragility curves for a perimeter-fixed ceiling of a given size and weight, with grid acceleration as the intensity measure. The validity of the method was proven through comparisons between this proposed analytical approach with the recommended procedures in proprietary products design guidelines, as well as experimental fragility curves from other studies. For application to engineering design practice, and using fragility curves for a range of ceiling lengths and weights, design curves were produced for estimating the allowable grid lengths for a given demand level. In the second phase of this study, three specimens of perimeter-fixed ceilings were tested on a shake table under both sinusoidal and random floor motion input. The experiments considered the relationship between the floor acceleration, acceleration of the ceiling grid, the axial force induced in the grid members, and the effect of boundary conditions on the transfer of these axial forces. A direct correlation was observed between the axial force (recorded via load cells) and the horizontal acceleration measured on the ceiling grid. Moreover, the amplification of floor acceleration, as transferred through ceiling components, was examined and found (in several tests) to be greater than the recommended factor for the design of ceilings provided in the NZ earthquake loadings standard NZS1170.5. However, this amplification was found to be influenced by the pounding interactions between the ceiling grid members and the tiles, and this amplification diminished considerably when the high frequency content was filtered out from the output time histories. The experiments ended with damage in the ceiling grid connection at an axial force similar to the capacity of these joints previously measured through static tests in phase one. The observation of common forms of damage in ceilings in earthquakes triggered the monotonic experiments carried out in the third phase of this research with the objective of investigating a simple and easily applicable mitigation strategy for existing or new suspended ceilings. The tests focused on the possibility of using proprietary cross-shaped clip elements ordinarily used to provide seismic gap as a strengthening solution for the weak components of a ceiling. The results showed that the solution was effective under both tension and compression loads through increasing load bearing capacity and ductility in grid connections. The feasibility of a novel type of suspended ceiling called fully-floating ceiling system was investigated through shaking table tests in the next phase of this study with the main goal of isolating the ceiling from the surrounding structure; thereby arresting the transfer of associated seismic forces from the structure to the ceiling. The fully-floating ceiling specimen was freely hung from the floor above lacking any lateral bracing and connections with the perimeter. Throughout different tests, a satisfactory agreement between the fully-floating ceiling response and simple pendulum theory was demonstrated. The addition of isolation material in perimeter gaps was found effective in inducing extra damping and protecting the ceiling from pounding impact; resulting in much reduced ceiling displacements and accelerations. The only form of damage observed throughout the random floor motion tests and the sinusoidal tests was a panel dislodgement observed in a test due to successive poundings between the ceiling specimen and the surrounding beams at resonant frequencies. Partition walls as the first effective NSE in direct interaction with ceilings were the topic of the final experimental phase. Low-damage drywall partitions proposed in a previous study in the UC were tested with two common forms of suspended ceiling: braced and perimeter-fixed. The experiments investigated the in-plane and out-of-plane performance of the low-damage drywall partitions, as well as displacement compatibility between these walls and the suspended ceilings. In the braced ceiling experiment, where no connection was made between ceiling grids and surrounding walls no damage in the grid system or partitions was observed. However, at high drift values panel dislodgement was observed on corners of the ceiling where the free ends of grids were not restrained against spreading. This could be prevented by framing the grid ends using a perimeter angle that is riveted only to the grid members while keeping sufficient clearance from the perimeter walls. In the next set of tests with the perimeter-fixed ceiling, no damage was observed in the ceiling system or the drywalls. Based on the results of the experiments it was concluded that the tested ceiling had enough flexibility to accommodate the relative displacement between two perpendicular walls up to the inter-storey drifts achieved. The experiments on perimeter-fixed ceilings were followed by numerical simulations of the performance of these ceilings in a finite element model developed in the structural analysis software, SAP2000. This model was relatively simple and easy to develop and was able to replicate the experimental results to a reasonable degree. Filtering was applied to the experimental output to exclude the effect of high frequency noise and tile-grid impact. The developed model generally simulated the acceleration responses well but underestimated the peak ceiling grid accelerations. This was possibly because the peak values in time histories were affected by impact occurring at very short periods. The model overestimated the axial forces in ceiling grids which was assumed to be caused by the initial assumptions made about the tributary area or constant acceleration associated with each grid line in the direction of excitation. Otherwise, the overall success of the numerical modelling in replicating the experimental results implies that numerical modelling using conventional structural analysis software could be used in engineering practice to analyse alternative ceiling geometries proposed for application to varying structural systems. This however, needs to be confirmed through similar analyses on other ceiling examples from existing instrumented buildings during real earthquakes. As the concluding part of this research the final phase addressed the issues raised following the review of existing ceiling standards and guidelines. The applicability of the research findings to current practice and their implications were discussed. Finally, an example was provided for the design of a suspended ceiling utilising the new knowledge acquired in this research.
