Disaster recovery is significantly affected by funding availability. The timeliness and quality of recovery activities are not only impacted by the extent of the funding but also the mechanisms with which funding is prioritised, allocated and delivered. This research addresses the impact of funding mechanisms on the effectiveness and efficiency of post-disaster demolition and debris management programmes. A qualitative assessment of the impacts on recovery of different funding sources and mechanisms was carried out, using the 2010 Canterbury Earthquake as well as other recent international events as case studies. The impacts assessed include: timeliness, completeness, environmental, economic and social impacts. Of the case studies investigated, the Canterbury Earthquake was the only disaster response to rely solely on a privatised approach to insurance for debris management. Due to the low level of resident displacement and low level of hazard in the waste, this was a satisfactory approach, though not ideal. This approach has led to greater organisational complexity and delays. For many other events, the potential community wide impacts caused by the prolonged presence of disaster debris means that publicly funded and centrally facilitated programmes appear to be the most common and effective method of managing disaster waste.
In this paper we introduce CityViewAR, a mobile outdoor Augmented Reality (AR) application for providing AR information visualization on a city scale. The CityViewAR application was developed to provide geographical information about the city of Christchurch, which was hit by several major earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. The application provides information about destroyed buildings and historical sites that were affected by the earthquakes. The geo-located content is provided in a number of formats including 2D map views, AR visualization of 3D models of buildings on-site, immersive panorama photographs, and list views. The paper describes the iterative design and implementation details of the application, and gives one of the first examples of a study comparing user response to AR and non-AR viewing in a mobile tourism application. Results show that making such information easily accessible to the public in a number of formats could help people to have richer experience about cities. We provide guidelines that will be useful for people developing mobile AR applications for city-scale tourism or outdoor guiding, and discuss how the underlying technology could be used for applications in other areas.
This article examines the representation of Christchurch, New Zealand, student radio station RDU in the exhibition Alternative Radio at the Canterbury Museum in 2016. With the intention of ‘making visible what is invisible’ about radio broadcasting, the exhibition articulated RDU as a point of interconnection between the technical elements of broadcasting, the social and musical culture of station staff and volunteers, and the broader local and national music scenes. This paper is grounded in observations of the exhibitions and associated public programmes, and interviews with the key participants in the exhibition including the museum's exhibition designer and staff from RDU, who acted as independent practitioners in collaboration with the museum. Alternative Radio also addressed the aftermath of the major earthquake of 22 February 2011, when RDU moved into a customised horse truck after losing its broadcast studio. The exhibition came about because of the cultural resonance of the post-quake story, but also emphasised the long history of the station before that event, and located this small student radio station in the broader heritage discourse of the Canterbury museum, activating the historical, cultural, and personal memories of the station's participants and audiences.
Disasters that significantly affect people typically result in the production of documents detailing disaster lessons. This was the case in the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes, as government and emergency response agencies, community organisations, and the media, engaged in the practice of producing and reporting disaster lessons. This thesis examines the disaster lessons that were developed by emergent groups following the Canterbury earthquakes (4 September 2010 and 22 February 2011). It adopts a Foucauldian analysis approach to investigate both the construction of disaster lessons and to document how this practice has come to dominate postdisaster activity following the Canterbury earthquakes. The study involved an analysis of academic literature, public documents and websites and interviews with key members of a range of Canterbury based emergent community groups. This material was used to generate a genealogy of disaster lessons, which was given in order to generate an account of how disaster lessons emerged and have come to dominate as a practice of disaster management. The thesis then examines the genealogy through the concept of governmentality so as to demonstrate how this discourse of disaster lessons has come to be used as a governing rationale that shapes and guides the emergent groups conduct in postdisaster New Zealand.
Natural hazard disasters often have large area-wide impacts, which can cause adverse stress-related mental health outcomes in exposed populations. As a result, increased treatment-seeking may be observed, which puts a strain on the limited public health care resources particularly in the aftermath of a disaster. It is therefore important for public health care planners to know whom to target, but also where and when to initiate intervention programs that promote emotional wellbeing and prevent the development of mental disorders after catastrophic events. A large body of literature assesses factors that predict and mitigate disaster-related mental disorders at various time periods, but the spatial component has rarely been investigated in disaster mental health research. This thesis uses spatial and spatio-temporal analysis techniques to examine when and where higher and lower than expected mood and anxiety symptom treatments occurred in the severely affected Christchurch urban area (New Zealand) after the 2010/11 Canterbury earthquakes. High-risk groups are identified and a possible relationship between exposure to the earthquakes and their physical impacts and mood and anxiety symptom treatments is assessed. The main research aim is to test the hypothesis that more severely affected Christchurch residents were more likely to show mood and anxiety symptoms when seeking treatment than less affected ones, in essence, testing for a dose-response relationship. The data consisted of mood and anxiety symptom treatment information from the New Zealand Ministry of Health’s administrative databases and demographic information from the National Health Index (NHI) register, when combined built a unique and rich source for identifying publically funded stress-related treatments for mood and anxiety symptoms in almost the whole population of the study area. The Christchurch urban area within the Christchurch City Council (CCC) boundary was the area of interest in which spatial variations in these treatments were assessed. Spatial and spatio-temporal analyses were done by applying retrospective space-time and spatial variation in temporal trends analysis using SaTScan™ software, and Bayesian hierarchical modelling techniques for disease mapping using WinBUGS software. The thesis identified an overall earthquake-exposure effect on mood and anxiety symptom treatments among Christchurch residents in the context of the earthquakes as they experienced stronger increases in the risk of being treated especially shortly after the catastrophic 2011 Christchurch earthquake compared to the rest of New Zealand. High-risk groups included females, elderly, children and those with a pre-existing mental illness with elderly and children especially at-risk in the context of the earthquakes. Looking at the spatio-temporal distribution of mood and anxiety symptom treatments in the Christchurch urban area, a high rates cluster ranging from the severely affected central city to the southeast was found post-disaster. Analysing residential exposure to various earthquake impacts found that living in closer proximity to more affected areas was identified as a risk factor for mood and anxiety symptom treatments, which largely confirms a dose-response relationship between level of affectedness and mood and anxiety symptom treatments. However, little changes in the spatial distribution of mood and anxiety symptom treatments occurred in the Christchurch urban area over time indicating that these results may have been biased by pre-existing spatial disparities. Additionally, the post-disaster mobility activity from severely affected eastern to the generally less affected western and northern parts of the city seemed to have played an important role as the strongest increases in treatment rates occurred in less affected northern areas of the city, whereas the severely affected eastern areas tended to show the lowest increases. An investigation into the different effects of mobility confirmed that within-city movers and temporary relocatees were generally more likely to receive care or treatment for mood or anxiety symptoms, but moving within the city was identified as a protective factor over time. In contrast, moving out of the city from minor, moderately or severely damaged plain areas of the city, which are generally less affluent than Port Hills areas, was identified as a risk factor in the second year post-disaster. Moreover, residents from less damaged plain areas of the city showed a decrease in the likelihood of receiving care or treatment for mood or anxiety symptoms compared to those from undamaged plain areas over time, which also contradicts a possible dose-response relationship. Finally, the effects of the social and physical environment, as well as community resilience on mood and anxiety symptom treatments among long-term stayers from Christchurch communities indicate an exacerbation of pre-existing mood and anxiety symptom treatment disparities in the city, whereas exposure to ‘felt’ earthquake intensities did not show a statistically significant effect. The findings of this thesis highlight the complex relationship between different levels of exposure to a severe natural disaster and adverse mental health outcomes in a severely affected region. It is one of the few studies that have access to area-wide health and impact information, are able to do a pre-disaster / post-disaster comparison and track their sample population to apply spatial and spatio-temporal analysis techniques for exposure assessment. Thus, this thesis enhances knowledge about the spatio-temporal distribution of adverse mental health outcomes in the context of a severe natural disaster and informs public health care planners, not only about high-risk groups, but also where and when to target health interventions. The results indicate that such programs should broadly target residents living in more affected areas as they are likely to face daily hardship by living in a disrupted environment and may have already been the most vulnerable ones before the disaster. Special attention should be focussed on women, elderly, children and people with pre-existing mental illnesses as they are most likely to receive care or treatment for stress-related mental health symptoms. Moreover, permanent relocatees from affected areas and temporarily relocatees shortly after the disaster may need special attention as they face additional stressors due to the relocation that may lead to the development of adverse mental health outcomes needing treatment.
Following a major earthquake event, essential public amenities such as medical facilities and transport networks need to remain functional - not only to fulfil their ongoing role in serving the community but also to cope with the added and immediate demand of a population affected by a natural disaster. Furthermore, the economic implications of wide spread damage to housing and commercial facilities should not be discounted. A shift in design approach is required that is consistent with current trends towards performance based building design. The present aim is to achieve seismic energy dissipation during the earthquake event, without the aftermath of damage to structural elements, whilst maintaining design economies. Structures permitted to rock on their foundations and provide recoverable rotations at the beam-column interfaces offer significant advantages over those using conventional ductile detailing. A jointed construction philosophy can be applied whereby structural elements are connected with unbonded prestressing tendons. Supplemental damping is provided by replaceable flexural steel components designed to deform inelastically. For this research a multi-storey test building of one quarter scale has been constructed and tested on an earthquake simulator at the University of Canterbury. A computer model has been developed and a set ofpreliminary design procedures proposed.
Recycling is often employed as part of a disaster waste management system. However, the feasibility, method and effectiveness of recycling varies between disaster events. This qualitative study is based on literature reviews, expert interviews and active participatory research of five international disaster events in developed countries (2009 Victorian Bushfires, Australia; 2009 L’Aquila earthquake, Italy; 2005 Hurricane Katrina, United States; 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes, New Zealand; 2011 Great East Japan earthquake) to answer three questions: What are the main factors that affect the feasibility of recycling post-disaster? When is on-site or off-site separation more effective? What management approaches improve recycling effectiveness? Seven disaster-specific factors need to be assessed to determine the feasibility of disaster waste recycling programmes: volume of waste; degree of mixing of waste; human and environmental health hazards; areal extent of the waste; community priorities; funding mechanisms; and existing and disaster-specific regulations. The appropriateness of on or off-site waste separation depends on four factors: time constraints; resource availability; degree of mixing of waste and human and public health hazards. Successful recycling programmes require good management including clear and well enforced policies (through good contracts or regulations) and pre-event planning. Further research into post-disaster recycling markets, funding mechanisms and recycling in developing countries is recommended.
The Townsend Observatory is located in the Arts Centre of Christchurch, in what used to be Canterbury College (now University of Canterbury). The Townsend telescope itself is a historic 6-inch Cooke refractor built in 1864 for early Christchurch colonist, Mr James Townsend, and gifted by him to Christchurch College in 1891. At the same time, the Canterbury Astronomical Society handed over its funds to the College to help erect an observatory. The College used this, and money it had set aside for a medical school, to build a biological laboratory with an attached observatory tower, which was completed in 1896. The Biology Building and Observatory Tower was the last major design by architect Benjamin Mountfort. Mr Walter Kitson was appointed custodian of the telescope and regular public open nights commenced. and continued until 2010, with the telescope being operated by students of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury. The Observatory Tower was badly damaged in the 4 September 2010 earthquake and collapsed in the 22 February 2011 earthquake. The telescope was badly damaged by the collapse, but, amazingly, the optics were found entirely intact. The Department of Physics and Astronomy plans to restore the Townsend Telescope so that it can be returned to a replica Observatory Tower in its central city home, enabling the people of Christchurch, and visitors, to enjoy views of the night sky through this beautiful and historic telescope once again.
This research attempts to understand whether community resilience and perceived livability are influenced by housing typologies in Christchurch, New Zealand. Using recent resident surveys undertaken by the Christchurch City Council, two indexes were created to reflect livability and community resilience. Indicators used to create both indexes included (1) enjoyment living in neighbourhood (2) satisfaction with local facilities (3) safety walking and (4) safety using public transport, (5) sense of community (6) neighbour interactions, (7) home ownership and (8) civic engagement. Scores were attributed to 72 neighbourhoods across Christchurch –and each neighbourhood was classified in one of the following housing typologies; (1) earthquake damaged, (2) relatively undamaged, (3) medium density and (4) greenfield developments. Spatial analysis of index scores and housing classifications suggest housing typologies do influence resident’s perceived livability and community bonds to an extent. It was found that deprivation also had a considerable influence on these indexes as well as residential stability. These additional influences help explain why neighbourhoods within the same housing classification differ in their index scores. Based on these results, several recommendations have been made to the CCC in relation to future research, urban development strategies and suburb specific renewal projects. Of chief importance, medium density neighbourhoods and deprived neighbourhoods require conscious efforts to foster community resilience. Results indicate that community resilience might be more important than livability in having a positive influence on the lived experience of residents. While thoughtful design and planning are important, this research suggests geospatial research tools could enable better community engagement outcomes and planning outcomes, and this could be interwoven into proactive and inclusive planning approaches like placemaking.
Following devastating earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 in Christchurch, there is an opportunity to use sustainable urban design variables to redevelop the central city in order to address climate change concerns and reduce CO₂ emissions from land transport. Literature from a variety of disciplines establishes that four sustainable urban design variables; increased density, mixed-use development, street layout and city design, and the provision of sustainable public transport, can reduce car dependency and vehicle kilometres travelled within urban populations- widely regarded as indicators of the negative environmental effects of transport. The key question for the research is; to what extent has this opportunity been seized by NZ’s Central Government who are overseeing the central city redevelopment? In order to explore this question the redevelopment plans for the central city of Christchurch are evaluated against an adapted urban design matrix to determine whether a reduction in CO₂ emissions from land transport is likely to be achieved through their implementation. Data obtained through interviews with experts is used to further explore the extent to which sustainable urban design variables can be employed to enhance sustainability and reduce CO₂ emissions. The analysis of this data shows that the four urban design variables will feature in the Central Government’s redevelopment plans although the extent to which they are employed and their likely success in reducing CO₂ emissions will vary. Ultimately, the opportunity to redevelop the central city of Christchurch to reduce CO₂ emissions from land transport will be undermined due to timeframe, co-ordination, and leadership barriers.
Disasters can create the equivalent of 20 years of waste in only a few days. Disaster waste can have direct impacts on public health and safety, and on the environment. The management of such waste has a great direct cost to society in terms of labor, equipment, processing, transport and disposal. Disaster waste management also has indirect costs, in the sense that slow management can slow down a recovery, greatly affecting the ability of commerce and industry to re-start. In addition, a disaster can lead to the disruption of normal solid waste management systems, or result in inappropriate management that leads to expensive environmental remediation. Finally, there are social impacts implicit in disaster waste management decisions because of psychological impact we expect when waste is not cleared quickly or is cleared too quickly. The paper gives an overview of the challenge of disaster waste management, examining issues of waste quantity and composition; waste treatment; environmental, economic, and social impacts; health and safety matters; and planning. Christchurch, New Zealand, and the broader region of Canterbury were impacted during this research by a series of shallow earthquakes. This has led to the largest natural disaster emergency in New Zealand’s history, and the management of approximately 8 million tons of building and infrastructure debris has become a major issue. The paper provides an overview of the status of disaster waste management in Christchurch as a case study. A key conclusion is the vital role of planning in effective disaster waste management. In spite of the frequency of disasters, in most countries the ratio of time spent on planning for disaster waste management to the time spent on normal waste management is extremely low. Disaster waste management also requires improved education or training of those involved in response efforts. All solid waste professionals have a role to play to respond to the challenges of disaster waste management.
This thesis examines the closing of Aranui High School in 2016, a low socio-economic secondary school in eastern Christchurch, New Zealand, and reflects on its history through the major themes of innovation and the impact of central government intervention. The history is explored through the leadership of the school principals, and the necessity for constant adaptation by staff to new ways of teaching and learning, driven by the need to accommodate a more varied student population – academically, behaviourally and culturally – than most other schools in wider Christchurch. Several extreme changes, following a neoliberal approach to education policies at a national government level, impacted severely on the school’s ability to thrive and even survive over the 57 years of its existence, with the final impact of the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes leading indirectly to Aranui High’s closure. The earthquakes provided the National government with the impetus to advocate for change to education in Christchurch; changes which impacted negatively on many schools in Christchurch, including Aranui High School. The announcement of the closure of Aranui High shocked many staff and students, who were devastated that the school would no longer exist. Aranui High School, Aranui Primary School, Wainoni Primary School and Avondale Primary School were all closed to make way for Haeata Community Campus, a year 1 to 13 school, which was built on the Aranui High site. Aranui High School served the communities of eastern Christchurch for 57 years from 1960 and deserves acknowledgment and remembrance, and my hope is that this thesis will provide a fair representation of the school’s story, including its successes and challenges, while also explaining the reasons behind the eventual closure. This thesis contributes to New Zealand public history and uses mixed research methods to examine Aranui High School’s role as a secondary school in eastern Christchurch. I argue that the closure of Aranui High School in 2016 was an unjustified act by the Ministry of Education.
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought to the foreground the importance of social connectedness for wellbeing, at the individual, community and societal level. Within the context of the local community, pro-connection facilities are fundamental to foster community development, resilience and public health. Through identifying the gap in social connectedness literature for Māori, this has created space for new opportunities and to reflect on what is already occurring in Ōtautahi. It is well documented that Māori experience unequal societal impacts across all health outcomes. Therefore, narrowing the inequities between Māori and non-Māori across a spectrum of dimensions is a priority. Evaluating the #WellconnectedNZ project, which explores the intersections between social connection and wellbeing is one way to trigger these conversations. This was achieved by curating a dissimilar set of community pro-connection facilities and organizing them into a Geographic Information System (GIS). Which firstly involved, the collecting and processing of raw data, followed by spatial analysis through creating maps, this highlighted the alignment between the distribution of places, population and social data. Secondly, statistical analysis focusing on the relationship between deprivation and accessibility. Finally, semi-structured interviews providing perceptions of community experience. This study describes findings following a kaupapa Māori research approach. Results demonstrated that, in general some meshblocks in Ōtautahi benefit from a high level of accessibility to pro-connection facilities; but with an urban-rural gradient (as is expected, further from the central business district (CBD) are less facilities). Additionally, more-deprived meshblocks in the Southern and Eastern suburbs of Christchurch have poorer accessibility, suggesting underlying social and spatial inequalities, likely exacerbated by Covid-19 and the Christchurch earthquakes. In this context, it is timely to (re)consider pro-connection places and their role in the development of social infrastructure for connected communities, in the community facility planning space. ‘We are all interwoven, we just need to make better connections’.
This paper reports on a service-learning public journalism project in which postgraduate journalism students explore ways to engage with and report on diverse communities. Media scholars have argued that news media, and local newspapers in particular, must re-engage with their communities. Likewise, journalism studies scholars have urged educators to give journalism students greater opportunities to reflect on their work by getting out among journalism’s critics, often consumers or citizens concerned about content and the preparation of future journalists. The challenge for journalism educators is to prepare students for working in partnership with communities while also developing their ability to operate reflectively and critically within the expectations of the news media industry and wider society. The aim of this project has been to help students find ways to both listen and lead in a community, and also reflect on the challenges and critiques of community journalism practices. The project began in 2013 with stories about residents’ recovery following the devastating 2011 Canterbury earthquakes, and aimed to create stories that could contribute to community connection and engagement, and thereby resilience and recovery. The idea was inspired by research about post-disaster renewal that indicated that communities with strong social capital and social networks were more resilient and recovered more quickly and strongly. The project’s longer-term aim has been to explore community journalism practices that give greater power to citizens and communities by prioritising listening and processes of engagement. Over several months, students network with a community group to identify subjects with whom they will co-create a story, and then complete a story on which they must seek the feedback of their subject. Community leaders have described the project as a key example of how to do things “with people not to people”, and an outstanding contribution to the community-led component of Canterbury’s recovery. Analysis of student reflections, which are a key part of each year’s project, reveals the process of engaging with communities has helped students to map community dynamics, think more critically about source relationships, editorial choices and objectivity norms, and to develop a perspective on the diverse ways they can go about their journalism in the future. Each year, students partner with different groups and organisations, addressing different themes each time the project runs. For 2016, the programme proposes to develop the project in a new way, by not just exploring a community’s stories but also exploring its media needs and it aims to work with Christchurch’s new migrant Filipino community to develop the groundwork for a community media and/or communication platform, which Filipino community leaders say is a pressing need. For this iteration, journalism students will be set further research tasks aimed at deepening their ‘public listening’: they will conduct a survey of community members’ media use and needs as well as qualitative research interviews. It is hoped that the data collected will strengthen students’ understanding of their own journalism practice, as well as form the basis for work on developing media tools for minority groups who are generally poorly represented in mainstream media. In 2015, the journalism programme surveyed its community partners and held follow-up interviews with 13 of 18 story subjects to elicit further feedback on its news content and thereby deepen understanding of different community viewpoints. The survey and interview data revealed the project affected story subjects in a number of positive and interesting ways. Subjects said they appreciated the way student reporters took their time to build relationships and understand the context of the community groups with which they were involved, and contrasted this with their experience of professional journalists who had held pre-conceived assumptions about stories and/or rushed into interviews. As a direct consequence of the students’ approach, participants said they better trusted the student journalists to portray them accurately and fairly. Most were also encouraged by the positive recognition stories brought and several said the engagement process had helped their personal development, all of which had spin-offs for their community efforts. The presentation night that wraps up each year’s project, where community groups, story subjects and students come together to network and share the final stories, was cited as a significant positive aspect of the project and a great opportunity for community partners to connect with others doing similar work. Community feedback will be sought in future projects to inform and improve successive iterations.
Research on human behaviour during earthquake shaking has identified three main influences of behaviour: the environment the individual is located immediately before and during the earthquake, in terms of where the individual is and who the individual is with at the time of the earthquake; individual characteristics, such as age, gender, previous earthquake experience, and the intensity and duration of earthquake shaking. However, little research to date has systematically analysed the immediate observable human responses to earthquake shaking, mostly due to data constraints and/or ethical considerations. Research on human behaviour during earthquakes has relied on simulations or post-event, reflective interviews and questionnaire studies, often performed weeks to months or even years following the event. Such studies are therefore subject to limitations such as the quality of the participant's memory or (perceived) realism of a simulation. The aim of this research was to develop a robust coding scheme to analyse human behaviour during earthquake shaking using video footage captured during an earthquake event. This will allow systematic analysis of individuals during real earthquakes using a previously unutilized data source, thus help develop guidance on appropriate protective actions. The coding scheme was developed in a two-part process, combining a deductive and inductive approach. Previous research studies of human behavioral response during earthquake shaking provided the basis for the coding scheme. This was then iteratively refined by applying the coding scheme to a broad range of video footage of people exposed to strong shaking during the Canterbury earthquake sequence. The aim of this was to optimise coding scheme content and application across a broad range of scenarios, and to increase inter-coder reliability. The methodology to code data will enhance objective observation of video footage to allow cross-event analysis and explore (among others): reaction time, patterns of behaviour, and social, environmental and situational influences of behaviour. This can provide guidance for building configuration and design, and evidence-based recommendations for public education about injury-preventing behavioural responses during earthquake shaking.
The aim of this thesis was to examine the spatial and the temporal patterns of anxiety and chest pain resulting from the Canterbury, New Zealand earthquaeks. Three research objectives were identified: examine any spatial or termporal clusters of anxiety and chest pain; examine the associations between anxiety, chest pain and damage to neighbourhood; and determine any statistically significant difference in counts of anxiety and chest pain after each earthquake or aftershock which resulted in severe damage. Measures of the extent of liquefaction the location of CERA red-zones were used as proxy measures for earthquake damage. Cases of those who presented to Christchurch Public Hospital Emergency Department with either anxiety or chest pain between May 2010 and April 2012 were aggregated to census area unit (CAU) level for analysis. This thesis has taken a unique approach to examining the spatial and spatio-temporal variations of anxiety and chest pain after an earthquake and offers unique results. This is the first study of its kind to use a GIS approach when examining Canterbury specific earthquake damage and health variables at a CAU level after the earthquakes. Through the use of spatio-termporal scan modelling, negative and linear regression modelling and temporal linear modelling with dummy variables this research was able to conclude there are significant spatial and temporal variations in anxiety and chest pain resulting from the earthquakes. The spatio-termporal scan modelling identified a hot cluster of both anxiety and chest pain within Christchurch at the same time the earthquakes occurred. The negative binomial model found liquefaction to be a stronger predictor of anxiety than the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority's (CERA) land zones. The linear regression model foun chest pain to be positively associated with all measures of earthquake damage with the exception of being in the red-zone. The temporal modelling identified a significant increase in anxiety cases one month after a major earthquake, and chest pain cases spiked two weeks after an earthquake and gradually decreased over the following five weeks. This research was limited by lack of control period data, limited measures of earthquake damage, ethical restrictions, and the need for population tracking data. The findings of this research will be useful in the planning and allocation of mental wellbeing resources should another similar event like the Canterbury Earthquakes occur in New Zealand.
From 2010, Canterbury, a province of Aotearoa New Zealand, experienced three major disaster events. This study considers the socio-ecological impacts on cross-sectoral suicide prevention agencies and their service users of the 2010 – 2016 Canterbury earthquake sequence, the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic in Canterbury. This study found the prolonged stress caused by these events contributed to a rise in suicide risk factors including anxiety, fear, trauma, distress, alcohol misuse, relationship breakdown, childhood adversity, economic loss and deprivation. The prolonged negative comment by the media on wellbeing in Canterbury was also unhelpful and affected morale. The legacy of these impacts was a rise in referrals to mental health services that has not diminished. This adversity in the socio-ecological system also produced post-traumatic growth, allowing Cantabrians to acquire resilience and help-seeking abilities to support them psychologically through the COVID-19 pandemic. Supporting parental and teacher responses, intergenerational support and targeted public health campaigns, as well as Māori family-centred programmes, strengthened wellbeing. The rise in suicide risk led to the question of what services were required and being delivered in Canterbury and how to enable effective cross-sectoral suicide prevention in Canterbury, deemed essential in all international and national suicide prevention strategies. Components from both the World Health Organisation Suicide Prevention Framework (WHO, 2012; WHO 2021) and the Collective Impact model (Hanleybrown et al., 2012) were considered by participants. The effectiveness of dynamic leadership and the essential conditions of resourcing a supporting agency were found as were the importance of processes that supported equity, lived experience and the partnership of Māori and non-Māori stakeholders. Cross-sectoral suicide prevention was found to enhance the wellbeing of participants, hastening learning, supporting innovation and raising awareness across sectors which might lower stigma. Effective communication was essential in all areas of cross-sectoral suicide prevention and clear action plans enabled measurement of progress. Identified components were combined to create a Collective Impact Suicide Prevention framework that strengthens suicide prevention implementation and can be applied at a local, regional and national level. This study contributes to cross-sectoral suicide prevention planning by considering the socio- ecological, policy and practice mitigations required to lower suicide risk and to increase wellbeing and post-traumatic growth, post-disaster. This study also adds to the growing awareness of the contribution that social work can provide to suicide prevention and conceptualises an alternative governance framework and practice and policy suggestions to support effective cross-sectoral suicide prevention.
In the last century, seismic design has undergone significant advancements. Starting from the initial concept of designing structures to perform elastically during an earthquake, the modern seismic design philosophy allows structures to respond to ground excitations in an inelastic manner, thereby allowing damage in earthquakes that are significantly less intense than the largest possible ground motion at the site of the structure. Current performance-based multi-objective seismic design methods aim to ensure life-safety in large and rare earthquakes, and to limit structural damage in frequent and moderate earthquakes. As a result, not many recently built buildings have collapsed and very few people have been killed in 21st century buildings even in large earthquakes. Nevertheless, the financial losses to the community arising from damage and downtime in these earthquakes have been unacceptably high (for example; reported to be in excess of 40 billion dollars in the recent Canterbury earthquakes). In the aftermath of the huge financial losses incurred in recent earthquakes, public has unabashedly shown their dissatisfaction over the seismic performance of the built infrastructure. As the current capacity design based seismic design approach relies on inelastic response (i.e. ductility) in pre-identified plastic hinges, it encourages structures to damage (and inadvertently to incur loss in the form of repair and downtime). It has now been widely accepted that while designing ductile structural systems according to the modern seismic design concept can largely ensure life-safety during earthquakes, this also causes buildings to undergo substantial damage (and significant financial loss) in moderate earthquakes. In a quest to match the seismic design objectives with public expectations, researchers are exploring how financial loss can be brought into the decision making process of seismic design. This has facilitated conceptual development of loss optimisation seismic design (LOSD), which involves estimating likely financial losses in design level earthquakes and comparing against acceptable levels of loss to make design decisions (Dhakal 2010a). Adoption of loss based approach in seismic design standards will be a big paradigm shift in earthquake engineering, but it is still a long term dream as the quantification of the interrelationships between earthquake intensity, engineering demand parameters, damage measures, and different forms of losses for different types of buildings (and more importantly the simplification of the interrelationship into design friendly forms) will require a long time. Dissecting the cost of modern buildings suggests that the structural components constitute only a minor portion of the total building cost (Taghavi and Miranda 2003). Moreover, recent research on seismic loss assessment has shown that the damage to non-structural elements and building contents contribute dominantly to the total building loss (Bradley et. al. 2009). In an earthquake, buildings can incur losses of three different forms (damage, downtime, and death/injury commonly referred as 3Ds); but all three forms of seismic loss can be expressed in terms of dollars. It is also obvious that the latter two loss forms (i.e. downtime and death/injury) are related to the extent of damage; which, in a building, will not just be constrained to the load bearing (i.e. structural) elements. As observed in recent earthquakes, even the secondary building components (such as ceilings, partitions, facades, windows parapets, chimneys, canopies) and contents can undergo substantial damage, which can lead to all three forms of loss (Dhakal 2010b). Hence, if financial losses are to be minimised during earthquakes, not only the structural systems, but also the non-structural elements (such as partitions, ceilings, glazing, windows etc.) should be designed for earthquake resistance, and valuable contents should be protected against damage during earthquakes. Several innovative building technologies have been (and are being) developed to reduce building damage during earthquakes (Buchanan et. al. 2011). Most of these developments are aimed at reducing damage to the buildings’ structural systems without due attention to their effects on non-structural systems and building contents. For example, the PRESSS system or Damage Avoidance Design concept aims to enable a building’s structural system to meet the required displacement demand by rocking without the structural elements having to deform inelastically; thereby avoiding damage to these elements. However, as this concept does not necessarily reduce the interstory drift or floor acceleration demands, the damage to non-structural elements and contents can still be high. Similarly, the concept of externally bracing/damping building frames reduces the drift demand (and consequently reduces the structural damage and drift sensitive non-structural damage). Nevertheless, the acceleration sensitive non-structural elements and contents will still be very vulnerable to damage as the floor accelerations are not reduced (arguably increased). Therefore, these concepts may not be able to substantially reduce the total financial losses in all types of buildings. Among the emerging building technologies, base isolation looks very promising as it seems to reduce both inter-storey drifts and floor accelerations, thereby reducing the damage to the structural/non-structural components of a building and its contents. Undoubtedly, a base isolated building will incur substantially reduced loss of all three forms (dollars, downtime, death/injury), even during severe earthquakes. However, base isolating a building or applying any other beneficial technology may incur additional initial costs. In order to provide incentives for builders/owners to adopt these loss-minimising technologies, real-estate and insurance industries will have to acknowledge the reduced risk posed by (and enhanced resilience of) such buildings in setting their rental/sale prices and insurance premiums.
The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 finds that, despite progress in disaster risk reduction over the last decade “evidence indicates that exposure of persons and assets in all countries has increased faster than vulnerability has decreased, thus generating new risk and a steady rise in disaster losses” (p.4, UNISDR 2015). Fostering cooperation among relevant stakeholders and policy makers to “facilitate a science-policy interface for effective decisionmaking in disaster risk management” is required to achieve two priority areas for action, understanding disaster risk and enhancing disaster preparedness (p. 13, p. 23, UNISDR 2015). In other topic areas, the term science-policy interface is used interchangeably with the term boundary organisation. Both terms are usually used refer to systematic collaborative arrangements used to manage the intersection, or boundary, between science and policy domains, with the aim of facilitating the joint construction of knowledge to inform decision-making. Informed by complexity theory, and a constructivist focus on the functions and processes that minimize inevitable tensions between domains, this conceptual framework has become well established in fields where large complex issues have significant economic and political consequences, including environmental management, biodiversity, sustainable development, climate change and public health. To date, however, there has been little application of this framework in the disaster risk reduction field. In this doctoral project the boundary management framework informs an analysis of the research response to the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence, focusing on the coordination role of New Zealand’s national Natural Hazards Research Platform. The project has two aims. It uses this framework to tell the nuanced story of the way this research coordination role evolved in response to both the complexity of the unfolding post-disaster environment, and to national policy and research developments. Lessons are drawn from this analysis for those planning and implementing arrangements across the science-policy boundary to manage research support for disaster risk reduction decision-making, particularly after disasters. The second aim is to use this case study to test the utility of the boundary management framework in the disaster risk reduction context. This requires that terminology and concepts are explained and translated in terms that make this analysis as accessible as possible across the disciplines, domains and sectors involved in disaster risk reduction. Key findings are that the focus on balance, both within organisations, and between organisations and domains, and the emphasis on systemic effects, patterns and trends, offer an effective and productive alternative to the more traditional focus on individual or organisational performance. Lessons are drawn concerning the application of this framework when planning and implementing boundary organisations in the hazard and disaster risk management context.
Smart cities utilise new and innovative technology to improve the function of the city for governments, citizens and businesses. This thesis offers an in-depth discussion on the concept of the smart city and sets the context of smart cities internationally. It also examines how to improve a smart city through public engagement, as well as, how to implement participatory research in a smart city project to improve the level of engagement of citizens in the planning and implementation of smart projects. This thesis shows how to incentivise behaviour change with smart city technology and projects, through increasing participation in the planning and implementation of smart technology in a city. Meaningful data is created through this process of participation for citizens in the city, by engaging the citizens in the creation of the data, therefore the information created through a smart city project is created by and for the citizens themselves. To improve engagement, a city must understand its specific context and its residents. Using Christchurch, New Zealand, and the Christchurch City Council (CCC) Smart City Project as a case study, this research engages CCC stakeholders in the Smart City Project through a series of interviews, and citizens in Christchurch through a survey and focus groups. A thorough literature review has been conducted, to illuminate the different definitions of the smart city in academia, business and governments respectively, and how these definitions vary from one another. It provides details of a carefully selected set of relevant smart cities internationally and will discuss how the Christchurch Earthquake Sequence of 2010 and 2011 has affected the CCC Smart City Project. The research process, alongside the literature review, shows diverse groups of citizens in the city should be acknowledged in this process. The concept of the smart city is redefined to incorporate the context of Christchurch, its citizens and communities. Community perceptions of smart cities in Christchurch consider the post-disaster environment and this event and subsequent rebuild process should be a focus of the smart city project. The research identified that the CCC needs to focus on participatory approaches in the planning and implementation of smart projects, and community organisations in Christchurch offer an opportunity to understand community perspectives on new smart technology and that projects internationally should consider how the context of the city will affect the participation of its residents. This project offers ideas to influence the behaviour change of citizens through a smart city project. Further research should consider other stakeholders, for instance, innovation and technology-focused business in the city, and to fully engage citizens, future research must continue the process of participatory engagement, and target diverse groups in the city, including but not limited to minority groups, older and younger generations, and those with physical and mental disabilities.
Christchurch was struck by a 6.3 magnitude earthquake on the 22 February 2011. The quake devastated the city, taking lives and causing widespread damage to the inner city and suburban homes. The central city lost over half its buildings and over 7000 homes were condemned throughout Christchurch. The loss of such a great number of homes has created the requirement for new housing to replace those that were lost. Many of which were located in the eastern, less affluent, suburbs. The response to the housing shortage is the planned creation of large scale subdivisions on the outskirts of the city. Whilst this provides the required housing it creates additional sprawl to a city that does not need it. The extension of Christchurch’s existing suburban sprawl puts pressure on roading and pushes residents further out of the city, creating a disconnection between them. Christchurch’s central city had a very small residential population prior to the earthquakes with very few options for dense inner city living. The proposed rebuild of the inner city calls for a new ‘dense, vibrant and diverse central hub’. Proposing the introduction of new residential units within the central city. However the placement of the low-rise housing in a key attribute of the rebuild, the eastern green ‘Frame’, diminishes its value as open green space. The proposed housing will also be restrictive in its target market and therefore the idea of a ‘vibrant’ inner city is difficult to achieve. This thesis acts as response to the planned rebuild of inner Christchurch. Proposing the creation of a model for inner city housing which provides an alternative option to the proposed housing and existing and ongoing suburban sprawl. The design options were explored through a design-led process were the options were critiqued and developed. The ‘final’ proposal is comprises of three tall towers, aptly named the Triple Towers, which condense the proposed low-rise housing from an 11000 square metre footprint to combined footprint of 1500 square metres. The result is an expansion of the publicly available green space along the proposed eastern frame of the city. The height of the project challenges the height restrictions and is provocative in its proposal and placement. The design explores the relationships between the occupants, the building, the ‘Frame’ and the central city. The project is discussed through an exploration of the architecture of Rem Koolhaas, Renzo Piano and Oscar Niemeyer. Rather than their architecture being taken as a direct influence on which the design is based the discussion revolves around how and why each piece of comparative architecture is relevant to the designs desired outcome.
Land cover change information in urban areas supports decision makers in dealing with public policy planning and resource management. Remote sensing has been demonstrated as an efficient and accurate way to monitor land cover change over large extents. The Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES) caused massive damage in Christchurch, New Zealand and resulted in significant land cover change over a short time period. This study combined two types of remote sensing data, aerial imagery (RGB) and LiDAR, as the basis for quantifying land cover change in Christchurch between 2011 – 2015, a period corresponding to the five years immediately following the 22 February 2011 earthquake, which was part of the CES. An object based image analysis (OBIA) approach was adopted to classify the aerial imagery and LiDAR data into seven land cover types (bare land, building, grass, shadow, tree and water). The OBIA approach consisted of two steps, image segmentation and object classification. For the first step, this study used multi-level segmentation to better segment objects. For the second step, the random forest (RF) classifier was used to assign a land cover type to each object defined by the segmentation. Overall classification accuracies for 2011 and 2015 were 94.0% and 94.32%, respectively. Based on the classification result, land cover changes between 2011 and 2015 were then analysed. Significant increases were found in road and tree cover, while the land cover types that decreased were bare land, grass, roof, water. To better understand the reasons for those changes, land cover transitions were calculated. Canopy growth, seasonal differences and forest plantation establishment were the main reasons for tree cover increase. Redevelopment after the earthquake was the main reason for road area growth. By comparing the spatial distribution of these transitions, this study also identified Halswell and Wigram as the fastest developing suburbs in Christchurch. These results provided quantitative information for the effects of CES, with respect to land cover change. They allow for a better understanding for the current land cover status of Christchurch. Among those land cover changes, the significant increase in tree cover aroused particularly interest as urban forests benefit citizens via ecosystem services, including health, social, economic, and environmental benefits. Therefore, this study firstly calculated the percentages of tree cover in Christchurch’s fifteen wards in order to provide a general idea of tree cover change in the city extent. Following this, an automatic individual tree detection and crown delineation (ITCD) was undertaken to determine the feasibility of automated tree counting. The accuracies of the proposed approach ranged between 56.47% and 92.11% in thirty different sample plots, with an overall accuracy of 75.60%. Such varied accuracies were later found to be caused by the fixed tree detection window size and misclassifications from the land cover classification that affected the boundary of the CHM. Due to the large variability in accuracy, tree counting was not undertaken city-wide for both time periods. However, directions for further study for ITCD in Christchurch could be exploring ITCD approaches with variable window size or optimizing the classification approach to focus more on producing highly accurate CHMs.
Recent global tsunami events have highlighted the importance of effective tsunami risk management strategies (including land-use planning, structural and natural defences, warning systems, education and evacuation measures). However, the rarity of tsunami means that empirical data concerning reactions to tsunami warnings and tsunami evacuation behaviour is rare when compared to findings about evacuations to avoid other sources of hazard. To date empirical research into tsunami evacuations has focused on evacuation rates, rather than other aspects of the evacuation process. More knowledge is required about responses to warnings, pre-evacuation actions, evacuation dynamics and the return home after evacuations. Tsunami evacuation modelling has the potential to inform evidence-based tsunami risk planning and response. However to date tsunami evacuation models have largely focused on timings of evacuations, rather than evacuation behaviours. This Masters research uses a New Zealand case study to reduce both of these knowledge gaps. Qualitative survey data was gathered from populations across coastal communities in Banks Peninsula and Christchurch, New Zealand, required to evacuate due to the tsunami generated by the November 14th 2016 Kaikōura Earthquake. Survey questions asked about reactions to tsunami warnings, actions taken prior to evacuating and movements during the 2016 tsunami evacuation. This data was analysed to characterise trends and identify factors that influenced evacuation actions and behaviour. Finally, it was used to develop an evacuation model for Banks Peninsula. Where appropriate, the modelling inputs were informed by the survey data. Three key findings were identified from the results of the evacuation behaviour survey. Although 38% of the total survey respondents identified the earthquake shaking as a natural cue for the tsunami, most relied on receiving official warnings, including sirens, to prompt evacuations. Respondents sought further official information to inform their evacuation decisions, with 39% of respondents delaying their evacuation in order to do so. Finally, 96% of total respondents evacuated by car. This led to congestion, particularly in more densely populated Christchurch city suburbs. Prior to this research, evacuation modelling had not been completed for Banks Peninsula. The results of the modelling showed that if evacuees know how to respond to tsunami warnings and where and how to evacuate, there are no issues. However, if there are poor conditions, including if people do not evacuate immediately, if there are issues with the roading network, or if people do not know where or how to evacuate, evacuation times increase with there being more bottlenecks leading out of the evacuation zones. The results of this thesis highlight the importance of effective tsunami education and evacuation planning. Reducing exposure to tsunami risk through prompt evacuation relies on knowledge of how to interpret tsunami warnings, and when, where and how to evacuate. Recommendations from this research outline the need for public education and engagement, and the incorporation of evacuation signage, information boards and evacuation drills. Overall these findings provide more comprehensive picture of tsunami evacuation behaviour and decision making based on empirical data from a recent evacuation, which can be used to improve tsunami risk management strategies. This empirical data can also be used to inform evacuation modelling to improve the accuracy and realism of the evacuation models.
Cats all over the world hunt wild animals and can contribute to the extinction of threatened species. In New Zealand, around half of all households have at least one cat. When cats live close to a natural area, such as a wetland, they may have impacts on native species. A previous study on the movements and hunting behaviour of domestic (house) cats around the Travis Wetland, Christchurch, New Zealand during 2000-2001 raised concerns about the effects of cats on the local skink population, as skinks were a frequent prey item. My study is a comparison to the prior study, to determine if impacts have changed alongside changes in human populations in the area post-earthquake. The domestic cat population in the area was estimated by a household survey in March-April 2018. For a 6 month period from March-September 2018, 26 households recorded prey brought home by their 41 cats. During April-July 2018, 14 cats wore Global Positioning System (GPS) devices for 7 days each to track their movements. Skink abundance was measured with pitfall trapping over 20 days in February 2018. There were more households in the area in 2018 than there were in 2000, but the numbers of cats had decreased. In the 196 ha study area around Travis Wetland, the domestic cat population was estimated at 429 cats, down from the previous 494. Most of the cats were free roaming, but the majority had been desexed and many were mostly seen at home. A total of 42 prey items were reported from 26 households and 41 cats over 6 months. Of these, 62% were rodents, 26% were exotic birds, and 12% were native birds. There were no native skinks, other mammals, or other vertebrates such as fish and amphibians (invertebrates were not included in this study). Eight male and six female cats were tracked by GPS. Home range sizes for the 100% minimum convex polygons (MCPs) ranged from 1.34 to 9.68 ha (mean 4.09 ha, median 3.54 ha). There were 9/14 (64%) cats that entered the edge of the wetland. Males had significantly larger home range areas at night and in general compared with females. However, age and distance of the cat’s household to the wetland did not have a significant effect on home range size and there was no significant correlation between home range size and prey retrieved. In 20 days of skink trapping, 11 Oligosoma polychroma were caught. The estimated catch rate was not significantly different from an earlier study on skink abundance in Travis Wetland. The apparently low abundance of skinks may have been the result of successful wetland restoration creating less suitable skink habitat, or of other predators other than cats. In the future, increased education should be provided to the public about ways to increase wildlife in their area. This includes creating lizard friendly habitat in their gardens and increasing management for cats. Generally, only a few cats bring home prey often, and these select cats should be identified in initial surveys and included in further studies. In New Zealand, until management programmes can target all predators in urban areas, domestic cats could stay out at night and inside during the day to help decrease the abundance of rodents at night and reduce the number of birds and lizards caught during the day.
It is not a matter of if a major earthquake will happen in New Zealand, it is when. Earthquakes wreak havoc, cut off power and water supply, lines of communication, sewer, supply chains, and transport infrastructure. People get injured and whole communities can get cut off the rest of the country for extended periods of time. Countries taking measures to increase the population's preparedness tend to suffer less severe consequences than those that do not. Disaster management authorities deliver comprehensive instructions and preparation guidance, yet communities remain grossly underprepared. There are multiple factors that influence motivation for preparedness. Personal experience is one of the most significant factors that influence preparedness motivation. Not many people will experience a severe and damaging earthquake in their lifetime. A serious game (SG) that is a computer simulation of an earthquake is a tool that can let participants experience the earthquake and its aftermath from the safety of their computer. The main result of this research is a positive answer to the question: Can a serious game motivate people to prepare for earthquakes at least just as good as a personal experience of at least a moderate earthquake? There are different levels of immersion this serious game can be implemented at. In this thesis the same earthquake experience scenario – SG “ShakeUp” is implemented as a desktop application and a virtual reality (VR) application. A user study is conducted with the aim of comparing the motivation level achieved by the two versions of the SG “ShakeUp”. In this study no benefits of using VR over traditional desktop application were found: participants trying both versions of the SG “ShakeUp” reported similar levels of motivation to prepare for earthquakes immediately after the experiment. This means that both versions of the experience were equally effective in motivating participants to prepare for earthquakes. An additional benefit of this result is that the cheaper and easier to deliver desktop version can be widely used in various education campaigns. Participants reported being more motivated to prepare for earthquakes by either version of the SG “ShakeUp” than by any other contributing factor, including their previous earthquake experience or participation in a public education campaign. Both versions of the SG “ShakeUp” can successfully overcome personal bias, unrealistic optimism, pessimism, lack of perceived control over one’s earthquake preparation actions, fatalism, and sense of helplessness in the face of the earthquakes and motivate the individual to prepare for earthquakes. Participants without the prior earthquake experience benefit most from the SG “ShakeUp” regardless of the version tried, compared to the participants who had experienced an earthquake: significantly more of them will reconsider their current level of earthquake preparedness; about 24% more of them attribute their increased level of motivation to prepare for earthquakes to the SG “ShakeUp”. For every earthquake preparation action there is about 25% more people who felt motivated to do it after trying the SG “ShakeUp” than those who have done this preparation action before the experiment. After trying either version of the SG “ShakeUp”, people who live in a free standing house and those who live in a rental property reported highest levels of intent to carry on with the preparation actions. The proposed application prototype has been discussed with the University of Canterbury Earthquake Centre and received very positive feedback as having potential for practical use by various disaster management authorities and training institutions. The research shows that the SG “ShakeUp” motivates people to prepare for earthquakes as good as a personal earthquake experience and can be successfully used in various education campaigns.
With origins in the South Bronx area of New York in the early 1970s, hip-hop culture is now produced and consumed globally. While hip-hop activities can be varied, hip-hop is generally considered to have four forms or “elements”: DJing, MCing, b-boying/b-girling, and graffiti. Although all four elements of hip-hop have become a part of many youth work initiatives across the globe, public debate and controversy continue to surround hip-hop activities. Very little research and literature has explored the complexities involved in the assembling of hip-hop activities in youth work sites of practice using these hip-hop elements. This study attends to the gap in hip-hop and human service literature by tracing how hip-hop activities were assembled in several sites of youth work activity in Christchurch, New Zealand. Actor-network theory (ANT) is the methodological framework used to map the assemblage of hip-hop-youth work activities in this study. ANT follows how action is distributed across both human and non-human actors. By recognising the potential agency of “things”, this research traces the roles played by human actors, such as young people and youth workers, together with those of non-human actors such as funding documents, social media, clothing, and youth venue equipment. This ethnographic study provides rich descriptions or “snapshots” of some of the key socio-material practices that shaped the enactment of hip-hop-youth work activities. These are derived from fieldwork undertaken between October 2009 and December 2011, where participant observation took place across a range of sites of hip-hop-youth work activity. In addition to this fieldwork, formal interviews were undertaken with 22 participants, the majority being youth workers, young people, and youth trust administrators. The ANT framework reveals the complexity of the task of assembling hip-hop in youth work worlds. The thesis traces the work undertaken by both human and non-human actors in generating youth engagement in hip-hop-youth work activities. Young people’s hip-hop interests are shown to be varied, multiple, and continually evolving. It is also shown how generating youth interest in hip-hop-youth work activities involved overcoming young people’s indifference or lack of awareness of the hip-hop resources a youth trust had on offer. Furthermore, the study highlights where hip-hop activities were edited or “tinkered” with to avoid hip-hop “bads”. The thesis also unpacks how needed resources were enlisted, and how funders’ interests were translated into supporting hip-hop groups and activities. By tracing the range of actors mobilised to enact hip-hop-youth work activities, this research reveals how some youth trusts could avoid having to rely on obtaining government funds for their hip-hop activities. The thesis also includes an examination of one youth trust’s efforts to reconfigure its hip-hop activities after the earthquakes that struck Christchurch city in 2010 and 2011. Working both in and on the world, the text that is this thesis is also understood as an intervention. This study constitutes a deliberate attempt to strengthen understandings of hip-hop as a complex, multiple, and fluid entity. It therefore challenges traditional media and literature representations that simplify and thus either stigmatise or celebrate hip-hop. As such, this study opens up possibilities to consider the opportunities, as well as the complexities of assembling hip-hop in youth work sites of practice.
The increase of the world's population located near areas prone to natural disasters has given rise to new ‘mega risks’; the rebuild after disasters will test the governments’ capabilities to provide appropriate responses to protect the people and businesses. During the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes (2010-2012) that destroyed much of the inner city, the government of New Zealand set up a new partnership between the public and private sector to rebuild the city’s infrastructure. The new alliance, called SCIRT, used traditional risk management methods in the many construction projects. And, in hindsight, this was seen as one of the causes for some of the unanticipated problems. This study investigated the risk management practices in the post-disaster recovery to produce a specific risk management model that can be used effectively during future post-disaster situations. The aim was to develop a risk management guideline for more integrated risk management and fill the gap that arises when the traditional risk management framework is used in post-disaster situations. The study used the SCIRT alliance as a case study. The findings of the study are based on time and financial data from 100 rebuild projects, and from surveying and interviewing risk management professionals connected to the infrastructure recovery programme. The study focussed on post-disaster risk management in construction as a whole. It took into consideration the changes that happened to the people, the work and the environment due to the disaster. System thinking, and system dynamics techniques have been used due to the complexity of the recovery and to minimise the effect of unforeseen consequences. Based on an extensive literature review, the following methods were used to produce the model. The analytical hierarchical process and the relative importance index have been used to identify the critical risks inside the recovery project. System theory methods and quantitative graph theory have been used to investigate the dynamics of risks between the different management levels. Qualitative comparative analysis has been used to explore the critical success factors. And finally, causal loop diagrams combined with the grounded theory approach has been used to develop the model itself. The study identified that inexperienced staff, low management competency, poor communication, scope uncertainty, and non-alignment of the timing of strategic decisions with schedule demands, were the key risk factors in recovery projects. Among the critical risk groups, it was found that at a strategic management level, financial risks attracted the highest level of interest, as the client needs to secure funding. At both alliance-management and alliance-execution levels, the safety and environmental risks were given top priority due to a combination of high levels of emotional, reputational and media stresses. Risks arising from a lack of resources combined with the high volume of work and the concern that the cost could go out of control, alongside the aforementioned funding issues encouraged the client to create the recovery alliance model with large reputable construction organisations to lock in the recovery cost, at a time when the scope was still uncertain. This study found that building trust between all parties, clearer communication and a constant interactive flow of information, established a more working environment. Competent and clear allocation of risk management responsibilities, cultural shift, risk prioritisation, and staff training were crucial factors. Finally, the post-disaster risk management (PDRM) model can be described as an integrated risk management model that considers how the changes which happened to the environment, the people and their work, caused them to think differently to ease the complexity of the recovery projects. The model should be used as a guideline for recovery systems, especially after an earthquake, looking in detail at all the attributes and the concepts, which influence the risk management for more effective PDRM. The PDRM model is represented in Causal Loops Diagrams (CLD) in Figure 8.31 and based on 10 principles (Figure 8.32) and 26 concepts (Table 8.1) with its attributes.
Sewerage systems convey sewage, or wastewater, from residential or commercial buildings through complex reticulation networks to treatment plants. During seismic events both transient ground motion and permanent ground deformation can induce physical damage to sewerage system components, limiting or impeding the operability of the whole system. The malfunction of municipal sewerage systems can result in the pollution of nearby waterways through discharge of untreated sewage, pose a public health threat by preventing the use of appropriate sanitation facilities, and cause serious inconvenience for rescuers and residents. Christchurch, the second largest city in New Zealand, was seriously affected by the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES) in 2010-2011. The CES imposed widespread damage to the Christchurch sewerage system (CSS), causing a significant loss of functionality and serviceability to the system. The Christchurch City Council (CCC) relied heavily on temporary sewerage services for several months following the CES. The temporary services were supported by use of chemical and portable toilets to supplement the damaged wastewater system. The rebuild delivery agency -Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (SCIRT) was created to be responsible for repair of 85 % of the damaged horizontal infrastructure (i.e., water, wastewater, stormwater systems, and roads) in Christchurch. Numerous initiatives to create platforms/tools aiming to, on the one hand, support the understanding, management and mitigation of seismic risk for infrastructure prior to disasters, and on the other hand, to support the decision-making for post-disaster reconstruction and recovery, have been promoted worldwide. Despite this, the CES in New Zealand highlighted that none of the existing platforms/tools are either accessible and/or readable or usable by emergency managers and decision makers for restoring the CSS. Furthermore, the majority of existing tools have a sole focus on the engineering perspective, while the holistic process of formulating recovery decisions is based on system-wide approach, where a variety of factors in addition to technical considerations are involved. Lastly, there is a paucity of studies focused on the tools and frameworks for supporting decision-making specifically on sewerage system restoration after earthquakes. This thesis develops a decision support framework for sewerage pipe and system restoration after earthquakes, building on the experience and learning of the organisations involved in recovering the CSS following the CES in 2010-2011. The proposed decision support framework includes three modules: 1) Physical Damage Module (PDM); 2) Functional Impact Module (FIM); 3) Pipeline Restoration Module (PRM). The PDM provides seismic fragility matrices and functions for sewer gravity and pressure pipelines for predicting earthquake-induced physical damage, categorised by pipe materials and liquefaction zones. The FIM demonstrates a set of performance indicators that are categorised in five domains: structural, hydraulic, environmental, social and economic domains. These performance indicators are used to assess loss of wastewater system service and the induced functional impacts in three different phases: emergency response, short-term recovery and long-term restoration. Based on the knowledge of the physical and functional status-quo of the sewerage systems post-earthquake captured through the PDM and FIM, the PRM estimates restoration time of sewer networks by use of restoration models developed using a Random Forest technique and graphically represented in terms of restoration curves. The development of a decision support framework for sewer recovery after earthquakes enables decision makers to assess physical damage, evaluate functional impacts relating to hydraulic, environmental, structural, economic and social contexts, and to predict restoration time of sewerage systems. Furthermore, the decision support framework can be potentially employed to underpin system maintenance and upgrade by guiding system rehabilitation and to monitor system behaviours during business-as-usual time. In conjunction with expert judgement and best practices, this framework can be moreover applied to assist asset managers in targeting the inclusion of system resilience as part of asset maintenance programmes.
Fine grained sediment deposition in urban environments during natural hazard events can impact critical infrastructure and properties (urban terrain) leading to reduced social and economic function and potentially adverse public health effects. Therefore, clean-up of the sediments is required to minimise impacts and restore social and economic functionality as soon as possible. The strategies employed to manage and coordinate the clean-up significantly influence the speed, cost and quality of the clean-up operation. Additionally, the physical properties of the fine grained sediment affects the clean-up, transport, storage and future usage of the sediment. The goals of the research are to assess the resources, time and cost required for fine grained sediment clean-up in an urban environment following a disaster and to determine how the geotechnical properties of sediment will affect urban clean-up strategies. The thesis focuses on the impact of fine grained sediment (<1 mm) deposition from three liquefaction events during the Canterbury earthquake sequence (2010-2011) on residential suburbs and transport networks in Christchurch. It also presents how geotechnical properties of the material may affect clean-up strategies and methods by presenting geotechnical analysis of tephra material from the North Island of New Zealand. Finally, lessons for disaster response planning and decision making for clean-up of sediment in urban environments are presented. A series of semi-structured interviews of key stakeholders supported by relevant academic literature and media reports were used to record the clean-up operation coordination and management and to make a preliminary qualification of the Christchurch liquefaction ejecta clean-up (costs breakdown, time, volume, resources, coordination, planning and priorities). Further analysis of the costs and resources involved for better accuracy was required and so the analysis of Christchurch City Council road management database (RAMM) was done. In order to make a transition from general fine sediment clean-up to specific types of fine disaster sediment clean-up, adequate information about the material properties is required as they will define how the material will be handled, transported and stored. Laboratory analysis of young volcanic tephra from the New Zealand’s North Island was performed to identify their geotechnical properties (density, granulometry, plasticity, composition and angle of repose). The major findings of this research were that emergency planning and the use of the coordinated incident management system (CIMS) system during the emergency were important to facilitate rapid clean-up tasking, management of resources and ultimately recovery from widespread and voluminous liquefaction ejecta deposition in eastern Christchurch. A total estimated cost of approximately $NZ 40 million was calculated for the Christchurch City clean-up following the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence with a partial cost of $NZ 12 million for the Southern part of the city, where up to 33% (418 km) of the road network was impacted by liquefaction ejecta and required clearing of the material following the 22 February 2011 earthquake. Over 500,000 tonnes of ejecta has been stockpiled at Burwood landfill for all three liquefaction inducing earthquake events. The average cost per kilometre for the event clean-up was $NZ 5,500/km (4 September 2010), $NZ 11,650/km (22 February 2011) and $NZ 11,185/km (13 June 2011). The duration of clean-up time of residential properties and the road network was approximately two to three months for each of the three liquefaction ejecta events; despite events volumes and spatial distribution of ejecta. Interviews and quantitative analysis of RAMM data revealed that the experience and knowledge gained from the Darfield earthquake (4 September 2010) clean-up increased the efficiency of the following Christchurch earthquake induced liquefaction ejecta clean-up events. Density, particle size, particle shape, clay content and moisture content, are the important geotechnical properties that need to be considered when planning for a clean-up method that incorporates collection, transport and disposal or storage. The geotechnical properties for the tephra samples were analysed to increase preparedness and reaction response of potentially affected North Island cities from possible product from the active volcanoes in their region. The geotechnical results from this study show that volcanic tephra could be used in road or construction material but the properties would have to be further investigated for a New Zealand context. Using fresh volcanic material in road, building or flood control construction requires good understanding of the material properties and precaution during design and construction to extra care, but if well planned, it can be economically beneficial.
Deconstruction, at the end of the useful life of a building, produces a considerable amount of materials which must be disposed of, or be recycled / reused. At present, in New Zealand, most timber construction and demolition (C&D) material, particularly treated timber, is simply waste and is placed in landfills. For both technical and economic reasons (and despite the increasing cost of landfills), this position is unlikely to change in the next 10 – 15 years unless legislation dictates otherwise. Careful deconstruction, as opposed to demolition, can provide some timber materials which can be immediately re-used (eg. doors and windows), or further processed into other components (eg. beams or walls) or recycled (‘cascaded’) into other timber or composite products (e.g. fibre-board). This reusing / recycling of materials is being driven slowly in NZ by legislation, the ‘greening’ of the construction industry and public pressure. However, the recovery of useful material can be expensive and uneconomic (as opposed to land-filling). In NZ, there are few facilities which are able to sort and separate timber materials from other waste, although the soon-to-be commissioned Burwood Resource Recovery Park in Christchurch will attempt to deal with significant quantities of demolition waste from the recent earthquakes. The success (or otherwise) of this operation should provide good information as to how future C&D waste will be managed in NZ. In NZ, there are only a few, small scale facilities which are able to burn waste wood for energy recovery (e.g. timber mills), and none are known to be able to handle large quantities of treated timber. Such facilities, with constantly improving technology, are being commissioned in Europe (often with Government subsidies) and this indicates that similar bio-energy (co)generation will be established in NZ in the future. However, at present, the NZ Government provides little assistance to the bio-energy industry and the emergence worldwide of shale-gas reserves is likely to push the economic viability of bio-energy further into the future. The behaviour of timber materials placed in landfills is complex and poorly understood. Degrading timber in landfills has the potential to generate methane, a potent greenhouse gas, which can escape to the atmosphere and cancel out the significant benefits of carbon sequestration during tree growth. Improving security of landfills and more effective and efficient collection and utilisation of methane from landfills in NZ will significantly reduce the potential for leakage of methane to the atmosphere, acting as an offset to the continuing use of underground fossil fuels. Life cycle assessment (LCA), an increasingly important methodology for quantifying the environmental impacts of building materials (particularly energy, and global warming potential (GWP)), will soon be incorporated into the NZ Green Building Council Greenstar rating tools. Such LCA studies must provide a level playing field for all building materials and consider the whole life cycle. Whilst the end-of-life treatment of timber by LCA may establish a present-day base scenario, any analysis must also present a realistic end-of-life scenario for the future deconstruction of any 6 new building, as any building built today will be deconstructed many years in the future, when very different technologies will be available to deal with construction waste. At present, LCA practitioners in NZ and Australia place much value on a single research document on the degradation of timber in landfills (Ximenes et al., 2008). This leads to an end-of-life base scenario for timber which many in the industry consider to be an overestimation of the potential negative effects of methane generation. In Europe, the base scenario for wood disposal is cascading timber products and then burning for energy recovery, which normally significantly reduces any negative effects of the end-of-life for timber. LCA studies in NZ should always provide a sensitivity analysis for the end-of-life of timber and strongly and confidently argue that alternative future scenarios are realistic disposal options for buildings deconstructed in the future. Data-sets for environmental impacts (such as GWP) of building materials in NZ are limited and based on few research studies. The compilation of comprehensive data-sets with country-specific information for all building materials is considered a priority, preferably accounting for end-of-life options. The NZ timber industry should continue to ‘champion’ the environmental credentials of timber, over and above those of the other major building materials (concrete and steel). End-of-life should not be considered the ‘Achilles heel’ of the timber story.
