Background: We are in a period of history where natural disasters are increasing in both frequency and severity. They are having widespread impacts on communities, especially on vulnerable communities, those most affected who have the least ability to prepare or respond to a disaster. The ability to assemble and effectively manage Interagency Emergency Response Teams (IERTs) is critical to navigating the complexity and chaos found immediately following disasters. These teams play a crucial role in the multi-sectoral, multi-agency, multi-disciplinary, and inter-organisational response and are vital to ensuring the safety and well-being of vulnerable populations such as the young, aged, and socially and medically disadvantaged in disasters. Communication is key to the smooth operation of these teams. Most studies of the communication in IERTs during a disaster have been focussed at a macro-level of examining larger scale patterns and trends within organisations. Rarely found are micro-level analyses of interpersonal communication at the critical interfaces between collaborating agencies. This study set out to understand the experiences of those working at the interagency interfaces in an IERT set up by the Canterbury District Health Board to respond to the needs of the vulnerable people in the aftermath of the destructive earthquakes that hit Canterbury, New Zealand, in 2010-11. The aim of the study was to gain insights about the complexities of interpersonal communication (micro-level) involved in interagency response coordination and to generate an improved understanding into what stabilises the interagency communication interfaces between those agencies responding to a major disaster. Methods: A qualitative case study research design was employed to investigate how interagency communication interfaces were stabilised at the micro-level (“the case”) in the aftermath of the destructive earthquakes that hit Canterbury in 2010-11 (“the context”). Participant recruitment was undertaken by mapping which agencies were involved within the IERT and approaching representatives from each of these agencies. Data was collected via individual interviews using a semi-structured interview guide and was based on the “Critical Incident Technique”. Subsequently, data was transcribed verbatim and subjected to inductive analysis. This was underpinned theoretically by Weick’s “Interpretive Approach” and supported by Nvivo qualitative data analysis software. Results: 19 participants were interviewed in this study. Out of the inductive analysis emerged two primary themes, each with several sub-factors. The first major theme was destabilising/disruptive factors of interagency communication with five sub-factors, a) conflicting role mandates, b) rigid command structures, c) disruption of established communication structures, d) lack of shared language and understanding, and e) situational awareness disruption. The second major theme stabilising/steadying factors in interagency communication had four sub-factors, a) the establishment of the IERT, b) emergent novel communication strategies, c) establishment of a liaison role and d) pre-existing networks and relationships. Finally, there was a third sub-level identified during inductive analysis, where sub-factors from both primary themes were noted to be uniquely interconnected by emergent “consequences” arising out of the disaster context. Finally, findings were synthesised into a conceptual “Model of Interagency Communication at the Micro-level” based on this case study of the Canterbury earthquake disaster response. Discussion: The three key dimensions of The People, The Connections and The Improvisations served as a framework for the discussion of what stabilises interagency communication interfaces in a major disaster. The People were key to stabilising the interagency interfaces through functioning as a flexible conduit, guiding and navigating communication at the interagency interfaces and improving situational awareness. The Connections provided the collective competence, shared decision-making and prior established relationships that stabilised the micro-level communication at interagency interfaces. And finally, The Improvisations i.e., novel ideas and inventiveness that emerge out of rapidly changing post-disaster environments, also contributed to stabilisation of micro-level communication flows across interagency interfaces in the disaster response. “Command and control” hierarchical structures do provide clear processes and structures for teams working in disasters to follow. However, improvisations and novel solutions are also needed and often emerge from first responders (who are best placed to assess the evolving needs in a disaster where there is a high degree of uncertainty). Conclusion: This study highlights the value of incorporating an interface perspective into any study that seeks to understand the processes of IERTs during disaster responses. It also strengthens the requirement for disaster management frameworks to formally plan for and to allow for the adaptive responsiveness of local teams on the ground, and legitimise and recognise the improvisations of those in the role of emergent boundary spanners in a disaster response. This needs to be in addition to existing formal disaster response mechanisms. This study provides a new conceptual model that can be used to guide future case studies exploring stability at the interfaces of other IERTs and highlights the centrality of communication in the experiences of members of teams in the aftermath of a disaster. Utilising these new perspectives on stabilising communication at the interagency interfaces in disaster responses will have practical implications in the future to better serve the needs of vulnerable people who are at greatest risk of adverse outcomes in a disaster.
Depending on their nature and severity, disasters can create large volumes of debris and waste. Waste volumes from a single event can be the equivalent of many times the annual waste generation rate of the affected community. These volumes can overwhelm existing solid waste management facilities and personnel. Mismanagement of disaster waste can affect both the response and long term recovery of a disaster affected area. Previous research into disaster waste management has been either context specific or event specific, making it difficult to transfer lessons from one disaster event to another. The aim of this research is to develop a systems understanding of disaster waste management and in turn develop context- and disaster-transferrable decision-making guidance for emergency and waste managers. To research this complex and multi-disciplinary problem, a multi-hazard, multi-context, multi-case study approach was adopted. The research focussed on five major disaster events: 2011 Christchurch earthquake, 2009 Victorian Bushfires, 2009 Samoan tsunami, 2009 L’Aquila earthquake and 2005 Hurricane Katrina. The first stage of the analysis involved the development of a set of ‘disaster & disaster waste’ impact indicators. The indicators demonstrate a method by which disaster managers, planners and researchers can simplify the very large spectra of possible disaster impacts, into some key decision-drivers which will likely influence post-disaster management requirements. The second stage of the research was to develop a set of criteria to represent the desirable environmental, economic, social and recovery effects of a successful disaster waste management system. These criteria were used to assess the effectiveness of the disaster waste management approaches for the case studies. The third stage of the research was the cross-case analysis. Six main elements of disaster waste management systems were identified and analysed. These were: strategic management, funding mechanisms, operational management, environmental and human health risk management, and legislation and regulation. Within each of these system elements, key decision-making guidance (linked to the ‘disaster & disaster waste’ indicators) and management principles were developed. The ‘disaster & disaster waste’ impact indicators, the effects assessment criteria and management principles have all been developed so that they can be practically applied to disaster waste management planning and response in the future.
This report examines and compares case studies of labour market policy responses in APEC economies to natural disasters. It first reviews the policies and practice within APEC economies and internationally in managing the labour market effects of natural disasters. By using comparative case studies, the report then compares recent disaster events in the Asia-Pacific region, including: - the June 2013 Southern Alberta floods in Canada; - the 2010 and 2011 Queensland floods in Australia; - the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes in New Zealand; - the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan; and - the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China.
Case study analysis of the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES), which particularly impacted Christchurch City, New Zealand, has highlighted the value of practical, standardised and coordinated post-earthquake geotechnical response guidelines for earthquake-induced landslides in urban areas. The 22nd February 2011 earthquake, the second largest magnitude event in the CES, initiated a series of rockfall, cliff collapse and loess failures around the Port Hills which severely impacted the south-eastern part of Christchurch. The extensive slope failure induced by the 22nd February 200 earthquake was unprecedented; and ground motions experienced significantly exceeded the probabilistic seismic hazard model for Canterbury. Earthquake-induced landslides initiated by the 22nd February 2011 earthquake posed risk to life safety, and caused widespread damage to dwellings and critical infrastructure. In the immediate aftermath of the 22nd February 2011 earthquake, the geotechnical community responded by deploying into the Port Hills to conduct assessment of slope failure hazards and life safety risk. Coordination within the voluntary geotechnical response group evolved rapidly within the first week post-earthquake. The lack of pre-event planning to guide coordinated geotechnical response hindered the execution of timely and transparent management of life safety risk from coseismic landslides in the initial week after the earthquake. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with municipal, management and operational organisations involved in the geotechnical response during the CES. Analysis of interview dialogue highlighted the temporal evolution of priorities and tasks during emergency response to coseismic slope failure, which was further developed into a phased conceptual model to inform future geotechnical response. Review of geotechnical responses to selected historical earthquakes (Northridge, 1994; Chi-Chi, 1999; Wenchuan, 2008) has enabled comparison between international practice and local response strategies, and has emphasised the value of pre-earthquake preparation, indicating the importance of integration of geotechnical response within national emergency management plans. Furthermore, analysis of the CES and international earthquakes has informed pragmatic recommendations for future response to coseismic slope failure. Recommendations for future response to earthquake-induced landslides presented in this thesis include: the integration of post-earthquake geotechnical response with national Civil Defence and Emergency Management; pre-earthquake development of an adaptive management structure and standard slope assessment format for geotechnical response; and emergency management training for geotechnical professionals. Post-earthquake response recommendations include the development of geographic sectors within the area impacted by coseismic slope failure, and the development of a GIS database for analysis and management of data collected during ground reconnaissance. Recommendations provided in this thesis aim to inform development of national guidelines for geotechnical response to earthquake-induced landslides in New Zealand, and prompt debate concerning international best practice.
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.
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.
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There has been little discussion of what archival accounting evidence can contribute to an understanding of a society’s response to a natural disaster. This article focuses on two severe earthquakes which struck New Zealand in 1929 and 1931 and makes two main contributions to accounting history. First, by discussing evidence from archival sources, it contributes to the literature on accounting in a disaster. This provides a basis for future theory building and for future comparative research related to the response to more recent natural disasters such as the 2010–11 Canterbury earthquakes. Secondly, it questions the conclusions of recently published research concerning the role of central and local government in this and recent earthquakes.
Small, tight-knit communities, are complex to manage from outside during a disaster. The township of Lyttelton, New Zealand, and the communities of Corsair Bay, Cass Bay, and Rapaki to the east, are especially more so difficult due to the terrain that encloses them, which caused them to be cut-off from Christchurch, the largest city in the South Island, barely 10 km away, after the Mw 7.1 Darfield Earthquake and subsequent Canterbury Earthquake Sequence. Lyttelton has a very strong and deep-rooted community spirit that draws people to want to be a part of Lyttelton life. It is predominantly residential on the slopes, with retail space, service and light industry nestled near the harbour. It has heritage buildings stretching back to the very foundation of Canterbury yet hosts the largest, modern deep-water port for the region. This study contains two surveys: one circulated shortly before the Darfield Earthquake and one circulated in July 2011, after the Christchurch and Sumner Earthquakes. An analytical comparison of the participants’ household preparedness for disaster before the Darfield Earthquake and after the Christchurch and Sumner Earthquakes was performed. A population spatiotemporal distribution map was produced that shows the population in three-hourly increments over a week to inform exposure to vulnerability to natural hazards. The study went on to analyse the responses of the participants in the immediate period following the Chrsitchurch and Sumner Earthquakes, including their homeward and subsequent journeys, and the decision to evacuate or stay in their homes. Possible predictors to a decision to evacuate some or all members of the household were tested. The study also asked participants’ views on the events since September 2010 for analysis.
Disasters are rare events with major consequences; yet comparatively little is known about managing employee needs in disaster situations. Based on case studies of four organisations following the devastating earthquakes of 2010 - 2011 in Christchurch, New Zealand, this paper presents a framework using redefined notions of employee needs and expectations, and charting the ways in which these influence organisational recovery and performance. Analysis of in-depth interview data from 47 respondents in four organisations highlighted the evolving nature of employee needs and the crucial role of middle management leadership in mitigating the effects of disasters. The findings have counterintuitive implications for human resource functions in a disaster, suggesting that organisational justice forms a central framework for managing organisational responses to support and engage employees for promoting business recovery.
This study sought to investigate employee burnout within a post-disaster context by exploring teachers’ burnout perceptions and workplace attitudes in the aftermath of the 2010-2011 Christchurch earthquakes. The study hypothesised that burnout dimensions (emotional exhaustion and cynicism) would be related with the extent to which individuals and schools were impacted by the earthquakes, and with the quality of school support for staff and students (i.e., personal disaster impact, school disaster impact and school responsiveness to the disaster), with perceptions of role conflict and role overload, and with turnover intentions. Additionally, a Teacher Burnout Model was proposed whereby emotional exhaustion and cynicism were hypothesised to mediate the relationships between the independent variables (i.e., the disaster-related and role-related variables) and turnover intentions. 125 primary, intermediate and secondary school teachers from the city of Christchurch completed an online survey. Results revealed that high role overload, high role conflict, high school disaster impact, and schools’ ineffective disaster coping responses, were associated with increased levels of emotional exhaustion and cynicism. Although greater impact of earthquakes on teachers’ personal lives was related to higher levels of emotional exhaustion, results revealed a non-significant relationship between personal disaster impact and cynicism. In the Teacher Burnout Model, the relationships between both role stress variables and turnover intentions were mediated by perceptions of emotional exhaustion. This study contributes novel findings to the burnout literature, and provides implications for schools and organisations operating within a disaster context.
Blended learning plays an important role in many tertiary institutions but little has been written about the implementation of blended learning in times of adversity, natural disaster or crisis. This paper describes how, in the wake of the 22 February Canterbury earthquake, five teacher educators responded to crisis-driven changing demands and changing directions. Our narratives describe how blended learning provided students in initial teacher education programmes with some certainty and continuity during a time of civil emergency. The professional learning generated from our experiences provides valuable insights for designing and preparing for blended learning in times of crisis, as well as developing resilient blended learning programmes for the future.
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.
Natural disasters are increasingly disruptive events that affect livelihoods, organisations, and economies worldwide. Research has identified the impacts and responses of organisations to different types of natural disasters, and have outlined factors, such as industry sector, that are important to organisational vulnerability and resilience. One of the most costly types of natural disasters in recent years has been earthquakes, and yet to date, the majority of studies have focussed on the effects of earthquakes in urban areas, while rural organisational impact studies have primarily focused on the effects of meteorological and climatic driven hazards. As a result, the likely impacts of an earthquake on rural organisations in a developed context is unconstrained in the literature. In countries like New Zealand, which have major earthquakes and agricultural sectors that are significant contributors to the economy, it is important to know what impacts an earthquake event would have on the rural industries, and how these impacts compare to that of a more commonly analysed, high-frequency event. In September of 2010, rural organisations in Canterbury experienced the 4 September 2010 Mw 7.1 `Darfield' earthquake and the associated aftershocks, which came to be known as the Canterbury earth- quake sequence. The earthquake sequence caused intense ground shaking, creating widespread critical service outages, structural and non-structural damage to built infrastructure, as well as ground surface damage from ooding, liquefaction and surface rupture. Concurrently on September 18 2010, rural organisations in Southland experienced an unseasonably late snowstorm and cold weather snap that brought prolonged sub-zero temperatures, high winds and freezing rain, damaging structures in the City of Invercargill and causing widespread livestock losses and production decreases across the region. This thesis documents the effects of the Canterbury earthquake sequence and Southland snowstorm on farming and rural non-farming organisations, utilizing comparable methodologies to analyse rural organisational impacts, responses and recovery strategies to natural disasters. From the results, a short- term impact assessment methodology is developed for multiple disasters. Additionally, a regional asset repair cost estimation model is proposed for farming organisations following a major earthquake event, and the use of social capital in rural organisational recovery strategies following natural disasters is analysed.
We estimate the causal effects of a large unanticipated natural disaster on high schoolers’ university enrolment decisions and subsequent medium-term labour market outcomes. Using national administrative data after a destructive earthquake in New Zealand, we estimate that the disaster raises tertiary education enrolment of recent high school graduates by 6.1 percentage points. The effects are most pronounced for males, students who are academically weak relative to their peers, and students from schools directly damaged by the disaster. As relatively low ability males are overrepresented in sectors of the labour market helped by the earthquake, greater demand for university may stem from permanent changes in deeper behavioural parameters such as risk aversion or time preference, rather than as a coping response to poor economic opportunities.
This study followed two similarly affected, but socio-economically disparate suburbs as residents responded to and attempted to recover from the devastating 6.3 magnitude earthquake that struck Christchurch, New Zealand, on February 22, 2011. More specifically, it focuses on the role of local churches, community-based organisations (CBOs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), here referred to broadly as civil society, in meeting the immediate needs of local residents and assisting with the longer-term recovery of each neighbourhood. Despite considerable socioeconomic differences between the two neighbourhoods, civil society in both suburbs has been vital in addressing the needs of locals in the short and long term following the earthquake. Institutions were able to utilise local knowledge of both residents and the extent of damage in the area to a) provide a swifter local response than government or civil defence and then help direct the relief these agencies provided locally; b) set up central points for distribution of supplies and information where locals would naturally gather; c) take action on what were perceived to be unmet needs; and d) act as a way of bridging locals to a variety of material, informational, and emotional resources. However the findings also support literature which indicates that other factors are also important in understanding neighbourhood recovery and the role of civil society, including: local leadership; a shared, place-based identity; the type and form of civil society organizations; social capital; and neighbourhood- and household-level indicators of relative vulnerability and inequality. The intertwining of these various factors seems to influence how these neighbourhoods have coped with and taken steps in recovering from this disaster. It is recommended that future research be directed at developing a better understanding of how this occurs. It is suggested that a model similar to Yasui’s (2007) Community Vulnerability and Capacity model be developed as a useful way to approach future research in this area.
This thesis set out to explore the experiences of clients and counsellors in immediate crisis intervention shortly after a major earthquake. It explored the experiences and perceptions of change during counselling for both clients and counsellor, all of which were exposed to the disaster. This study supported the idea of counsellors needing to adapt to the context of post-disaster counselling and addressing client’s immediate needs. Having both been through the same disaster meant counsellors were often going through similar experiences and emotions as their clients during this time. This led counsellors to develop a greater sense of connection and understanding of their client, as well as showing more emotional responsivity and self-disclosure. This was experienced as different to their normal therapy engagement. The implications of these counsellor responses were seen to be helpful, but at times had the potential to be hindering for counselling. Clients valued their counsellor’s techniques and personal qualities but often failed to identify what contribution they, themselves, made to change processes. The differing nature of counselling in post-disaster areas, as gauged by this study may help inform expectations and experiences regarding provision of post-disaster acute interventions.
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.
Social media have changed disaster response and recovery in the way people inform themselves, provide community support and make sense of unfolding and past events online. During the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter became part of the story of the quakes in the region, as well as a basis for ongoing public engagement during the rebuild efforts in Christchurch. While a variety of research has been conducted on the use of social media in disaster situations (Bruns & Burgess, 2012; Potts, Seitzinger, Jones, & Harrison, 2011; Shklovski, Palen, & Sutton, 2008), studies about their uses in long-term disaster recovery and across different platforms are underrepresented. This research analyses networked practices of sensemaking around the Canterbury earthquakes over the course of disaster response, recovery and rebuild, focussing on Facebook and Twitter. Following a mixed methodological design data was gathered in interviews with people who started local Facebook pages, and through digital media methods of data collection and computational analysis of public Facebook pages and a historical Twitter dataset gathered around eight different earthquake-related events between 2010 and 2013. Data is further analysed through discursive and narrative tools of inquiry. This research sheds light on communication practices in the drawn-out process of disaster recovery on the ground in connecting different modes of discourse. Examining the ongoing negotiation of networked identities through technologically mediated social practices during Canterbury’s rebuild, the connection between online environments and the city of Christchurch, as a physical place, is unpacked. This research subsequently develops a new methodology to study social media platforms and provide new and detailed information on both the communication practices in issue-based online publics and the ongoing negotiation of the impact of the Canterbury earthquakes through networked digital means.
This thesis looks at the protocols museums and galleries adopt for the safeguarding of art, artefacts and cultural heritage. In particular, it analyses these procedures in relation to the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes in Christchurch, and considers how these events shaped the preventative conservation measures in place in museum and gallery institutions. Through gathering, assessing, and comparing this information about Christchurch’s institutions to disaster management best practices in national and international organisations, this thesis gauges the extent to which disaster management was changed in response to the events in Christchurch. This thesis first considers the growth in disaster management as a field, before examining what are considered best practices within this sector. Finally, it looks at specific institutions in Christchurch, including the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, Canterbury Museum, and the Air Force Museum of New Zealand.
Following a natural disaster, children are prone to various reactions and maladaptive responses as a result of exposure to a highly stressful and potentially traumatic event. Children’s responses can range from an acute stress response to post-traumatic-stress disorder or may fall somewhere in between. While responses to highly stressful events vary, a common finding is that children will develop sleep problems. This was found following the Christchurch September 2010 and February 2011 earthquakes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the context and phenomenology of the sleep problems of a small number of children experiencing these and the 2016 Kaikoura earthquakes, including possible mechanisms of effect. Participants were four families, including four mothers, one father and four children. The design of this study was unique. Interview data was subjected to a content analysis, extracted themes were organised according to an ecological-transactional framework and then the factors were subject to an analysis, based on the principles of clinical reasoning, in order to identify possible mechanisms of effect. Parents reported 16 different sleep problems across children, as well as other behaviours possibly indicative of post-traumatic stress response. In total, 34 themes and 26 interactions were extracted in relation to factors identified across participants about the children’s sleep and the families’ earthquake experiences. This demonstrated how complex it is to explore the development of sleep problems in the context of disaster. Key factors identified by parents that likely played a key role in the development and perpetuation of sleep problems included earthquake related anxiety, parental mental health and conflict, the child’s emotional and behavioural problems and other negative life events following the earthquakes. The clinical implications of the analysis included being aware that such families, may not have had access to specialized support around their children’s sleep. This was much needed due to the strain such problems place on the family, especially in a post-disaster community such as Christchurch.
Interagency Emergency Response Teams (IERTs) play acrucial role in times of disasters. Therefore it is crucial to understand more thoroughly the communication roles and responsibilities of interagency team members and to examine how individual members communicate within a complex, evolving, and unstable environment. It is also important to understand how different organisational identities and their spatial geographies contribute to the interactional dynamics. Earthquakes hit the Canterbury region on September, 2010 and then on February 2011 a more devastating shallow earthquake struck resulting in severe damage to the Aged Residential Care (ARC) sector. Over 600 ARC beds were lost and 500 elderly and disabled people were displaced. Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) set up an interagency emergency response team to address the issues of vulnerable people with significant health and disability needs who were unable to access their normal supports due to the effects of the earthquake. The purpose of this qualitative interpretive study is to focus on the case study of the response and evacuation of vulnerable people by interagencies responding to the event. Staff within these agencies were interviewed with a focus on the critical incidents that either stabilised or negatively influenced the outcome of the response. The findings included the complexity of navigating multiple agencies communication channels; understanding the different hierarchies and communication methods within each agency; data communication challenges when infrastructures were severely damaged; the importance of having the right skills, personal attributes and understanding of the organisations in the response; and the significance of having a liaison in situ representing and communicating through to agencies geographically dispersed from Canterbury. It is hoped that this research will assist in determining a future framework for interagency communication best practice and policy.
INTRODUCTION: After the 2011 Canterbury earthquake, the provision of school social work was extended into a larger number of schools in the greater Christchurch region to support discussions of their practice priorities and responses in post-earthquake schools. FINDINGS: Two main interpretations of need are reflected in the school social workers’ accounts of their work with children and families. Firstly, hardship-focused need, which represented children as adversely influenced by their home circumstances; the interventions were primarily with parents. These families were mainly from schools in low socioeconomic areas. Secondly, anxiety-based need, a newer practice response, which emphasised children who were considered particularly susceptible to the impacts of the disaster event. This article considers how these practitioners conceptualised and responded to the needs of the children and their families in this context. METHOD: A qualitative study examining recovery policy and school social work practice following the earthquakes including 12 semi-structured interviews with school social workers. This article provides a Foucauldian analysis of the social worker participants’ perspectives on emotional and psychological issues for children, particularly those from middle-class families; the main interventions were direct therapeutic work with children themselves. Embedded within these practice accounts are moments in which the social workers contested the predominant, individualising conceptualisations of need to enable more open-ended, negotiable, interconnected relationships in post-earthquake schools. IMPLICATIONS: In the aftermath of disasters, school social workers can reflect on their preferred practice responses and institutional influences in schools to offer children and families opportunities to reject the prevalent norms of risk and vulnerability.
Organisations play a vital role in assisting communities to recover from disasters. They are the key providers of goods and services needed in both response and recovery efforts. They provide the employment which both anchors people to place and supports the taxation base to allow for necessary recovery spending. Finally, organisations are an integral part of much day to day functioning contributing immensely to people’s sense of ‘normality’ and psychological wellbeing. Yet, despite their overall importance in the recovery process, there are significant gaps in our existing knowledge with regard to how organisations respond and recover following disaster. This research fills one part of this gap by examining collaboration as an adaptive strategy enacted by organisations in the Canterbury region of New Zealand, which was heavily impacted by a series of major earthquakes, occurring in 2010 and 2011. Collaboration has been extensively investigated in a variety of settings and from numerous disciplinary perspectives. However, there are few studies that investigate the role of collaborative approaches to support post-disaster business recovery. This study investigates the type of collaborations that have occurred and how they evolved as organisations reacted to the resource and environmental change caused by the disaster. Using data collected through semi-structured interviews, survey and document analysis, a rich and detailed picture of the recovery journey is created for 26 Canterbury organisations including 14 collaborators, six non-traders, five continued traders and one new business. Collaborations included two or more individual businesses collaborating along with two multi-party, place based projects. Comparative analysis of the organisations’ experiences enabled the assessment of decisions, processes and outcomes of collaboration, as well as insight into the overall process of business recovery. This research adopted a primarily inductive, qualitative approach, drawing from both grounded theory and case study methodologies in order to generate theory from this rich and contextually situated data. Important findings include the importance of creating an enabling context which allows organisations to lead their own recovery, the creation of a framework for effective post-disaster collaboration and the importance of considering both economic and other outcomes. Collaboration is found to be an effective strategy enabling resumption of trade at a time when there seemed few other options available. While solving this need, many collaborators have discovered significant and unexpected benefits not just in terms of long term strategy but also with regard to wellbeing. Economic outcomes were less clear-cut. However, with approximately 70% of the Central Business District demolished and rebuilding only gaining momentum in late 2014, many organisations are still in a transition stage moving towards a new ‘normal’.
This thesis explores how social entrepreneurship develops following a crisis. A review of literature finds that despite more than 15 years of academic attention, a common definition of social entrepreneurship remains elusive, with the field lacking the unified framework to set it apart as a specialised field of study. There are a variety of different conceptualisations of how social entrepreneurship works, and what it aims to achieve. The New Zealand context for social entrepreneurship is explored, finding that it receives little attention from the government and education sectors, despite its enormous potential. A lack of readily available information on social entrepreneurship leads most studies to investigate it as a phenomenon, and given the unique context of this research, it follows suit. Following from several authors’ recommendations that social entrepreneurship be subjected to further exploration, this is an exploratory, inductive study. A multiple case study is used to explore how social entrepreneurship develops following a natural disaster, using the example of the February 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. With little existing theory in this research area, this method is used to provide interesting examples of how the natural disaster, recognised as a crisis, can lead to business formation. Findings revealed the crisis initially triggered an altruistic response from social entrepreneurs, leading them to develop newly highlighted opportunities that were related to fields in which they had existing skills and expertise. In the process of developing these opportunities, initial altruistic motivations faded, with a new focus on the pursuit of a social mission and aims for survival and growth. The social missions addressed broad issues, and while they did address the crisis to differing extents, they were not confined to addressing its consequences. A framework is presented to explain how social entrepreneurship functions, once triggered in response to crisis. This framework supports existing literature that depicts social entrepreneurship as a continuous process, and illustrates the effects of a crisis as the catalyst for social business formation. In the aftermath of a crisis, when resources are likely to be scarce, social entrepreneurs play a significant role in the recovery process and their contributions should be highly valued both by government and relevant disaster response bodies. Policies that support social entrepreneurs and their ventures should be considered in the same way as commercial ventures.
In September 2010 and February 2011, the Canterbury region experienced devastating earthquakes with an estimated economic cost of over NZ$40 billion (Parker and Steenkamp, 2012; Timar et al., 2014; Potter et al., 2015). The insurance market played an important role in rebuilding the Canterbury region after the earthquakes. Homeowners, insurance and reinsurance markets and New Zealand government agencies faced a difficult task to manage the rebuild process. From an empirical and theoretic research viewpoint, the Christchurch disaster calls for an assessment of how the insurance market deals with such disasters in the future. Previous studies have investigated market responses to losses in global catastrophes by focusing on the insurance supply-side. This study investigates both demand-side and supply-side insurance market responses to the Christchurch earthquakes. Despite the fact that New Zealand is prone to seismic activities, there are scant previous studies in the area of earthquake insurance. This study does offer a unique opportunity to examine and document the New Zealand insurance market response to catastrophe risk, providing results critical for understanding market responses after major loss events in general. A review of previous studies shows higher premiums suppress demand, but how higher premiums and a higher probability of risk affect demand is still largely unknown. According to previous studies, the supply of disaster coverage is curtailed unless the market is subsidised, however, there is still unsettled discussion on why demand decreases with time from the previous disaster even when the supply of coverage is subsidised by the government. Natural disaster risks pose a set of challenges for insurance market players because of substantial ambiguity associated with the probability of such events occurring and high spatial correlation of catastrophe losses. Private insurance market inefficiencies due to high premiums and spatially concentrated risks calls for government intervention in the provision of natural disaster insurance to avert situations of noninsurance and underinsurance. Political economy considerations make it more likely for government support to be called for if many people are uninsured than if few people are uninsured. However, emergency assistance for property owners after catastrophe events can encourage most property owners to not buy insurance against natural disaster and develop adverse selection behaviour, generating larger future risks for homeowners and governments. On the demand-side, this study has developed an intertemporal model to examine how demand for insurance changes post-catastrophe, and how to model it theoretically. In this intertemporal model, insurance can be sought in two sequential periods of time, and at the second period, it is known whether or not a loss event happened in period one. The results show that period one demand for insurance increases relative to the standard single period model when the second period is taken into consideration, period two insurance demand is higher post-loss, higher than both the period one demand and the period two demand without a period one loss. To investigate policyholders experience from the demand-side perspective, a total of 1600 survey questionnaires were administered, and responses from 254 participants received representing a 16 percent response rate. Survey data was gathered from four institutions in Canterbury and is probably not representative of the entire population. The results of the survey show that the change from full replacement value policy to nominated replacement value policy is a key determinant of the direction of change in the level of insurance coverage after the earthquakes. The earthquakes also highlighted the plight of those who were underinsured, prompting policyholders to update their insurance coverage to reflect the estimated cost of re-building their property. The survey has added further evidence to the existing literature, such as those who have had a recent experience with disaster loss report increased risk perception if a similar event happens in future with females reporting a higher risk perception than males. Of the demographic variables, only gender has a relationship with changes in household cover. On the supply-side, this study has built a risk-based pricing model suitable to generate a competitive premium rate for natural disaster insurance cover. Using illustrative data from the Christchurch Red-zone suburbs, the model generates competitive premium rates for catastrophe risk. When the proposed model incorporates the new RMS high-definition New Zealand Earthquake Model, for example, insurers can find the model useful to identify losses at a granular level so as to calculate the competitive premium. This study observes that the key to the success of the New Zealand dual insurance system despite the high prevalence of catastrophe losses are; firstly the EQC’s flat-rate pricing structure keeps private insurance premiums affordable and very high nationwide homeowner take-up rates of natural disaster insurance. Secondly, private insurers and the EQC have an elaborate reinsurance arrangement in place. By efficiently transferring risk to the reinsurer, the cost of writing primary insurance is considerably reduced ultimately expanding primary insurance capacity and supply of insurance coverage.
The Canterbury earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 caused significant damage and disruption to the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. A Royal Commission was established to report on the causes of building failure as a result of the earthquakes as well as look at the legal and best-practice requirements for buildings in New Zealand Central Business Districts. The Royal Commission made 189 recommendations on a variety of matters including managing damaged buildings after an earthquake, the adequacy of building codes and standards, and the processes of seismic assessments of existing buildings to determine their earthquake vulnerability. In response the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, the agency responsible for administering building regulation in New Zealand, established a work programme to assist with the Canterbury rebuild and to implement the lessons learned throughout New Zealand. The five primary work streams in the programme are: • Facilitating the Canterbury Rebuild • Structural Performance and Design Standards • Geotechnical and structural guidance • Existing Building Resilience • Post Disaster Building Management This paper provides more detail on each of the work streams. There has been significant collaboration between the New Zealand Government and the research community, technical societies, and engineering consultants, both within New Zealand and internationally, to deliver the programme and improve the resilience of the New Zealand built environment. This has presented major challenges for an extremely busy industry in the aftermath of the Canterbury earthquakes. The paper identifies the items of work that have been completed and the work that is still in progress at the time of writing.
We’ll never know why the thirteen people whose corpses were discovered in Pompeii’s Garden of the Fugitives hadn’t fled the city with the majority of the population when Vesuvius turned deadly in AD79. But surely, thanks to 21st century technology, we know just about everything there is to know about the experiences of the people who went through the Canterbury Earthquakes. Or has the ubiquity of digital technology, combined with seemingly massive online information flows and archives, created a false sense that Canterbury’s earthquake stories, images and media are being secured for posterity? In this paper Paul Millar makes reference to issues experienced while creating the CEISMIC Canterbury Earthquakes Digital Archive (www.ceismic.org.nz) to argue that rather than having preserved all the information needed to fully inform recovery, the record of the Canterbury earthquakes’ impacts, and the subsequent response, is incomplete and unrepresentative. While CEISMIC has collected and curated over a quarter of a million earthquake-related items, Millar is deeply concerned about the material being lost. Like Pompeii, this disaster has its nameless, faceless, silenced victims; people whose stories must be heard, and whose issues must be addressed, if recovery is to be meaningful.
The 2010 and 2011 earthquakes in the region of Canterbury, New Zealand caused widespread damage and the deaths of 185 people. Suburbs on the eastern side of Christchurch and in the satellite town of Kaiapoi, 20 kilometres north of Christchurch, were badly damaged by liquefaction. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA), a government organisation set up in the wake of the earthquakes, began to systematically zone all residential land in 2011. Based on the possibility for land remediation, 7860 houses in Christchurch and Kaiapoi were zoned red. Those who were in this zone were compensated and had to buy or build elsewhere. The other zone examined within this research – that of TC3 – lies within the green zone. Residents, in this zone, were able to stay in their houses but land was moderately damaged and required site-specific geotechnical investigations. This research sought to understand how residents’ senses of home were impacted by a disaster and the response efforts. Focusing on the TC3 and red zone of the eastern suburbs and the satellite town of Kaiapoi, this study interviewed 29 residents within these zones. The concept of home was explored with the respondents at three scales: home as a household; home as a community; and home as a city. There was a large amount of resistance to the zoning process and the handling of claims by insurance companies and the Earthquake Commission (EQC) after the earthquakes. Lack of transparency and communication, as well as extremely slow timelines were all documented as failings of these agencies. This research seeks to understand how participant’s sense of home changed on an individual level and how it was impacted by outside agencies. Homemaking techniques were also focused on showing that a changed sense of home will impact on how a person interacts with a space.
Natural hazard reviews reveal increases in disaster impacts nowhere more pronounced than in coastal settlements. Despite efforts to enhance hazard resilience, the common trend remains to keep producing disaster prone places. This paper explicitly explores hazard versus multi-hazard concepts to illustrate how different conceptualizations can enhance or reduce settlement resilience. Understandings gained were combined with onthe-ground lessons from earthquake and flooding experiences to develop of a novel ‘first cut’ approach for analyzing key multi-hazard interconnections, and to evaluate resilience enhancing opportunities. Traditional disaster resilience efforts often consider different hazard types discretely. However, recent events in Christchurch, a New Zealand city that is part of the 100 Resilient Cities network, highlight the need to analyze the interrelated nature of different hazards, especially for enhancing lifelines system resilience. Our overview of the Christchurch case study demonstrates that seismic, hydrological, shallow-earth, and coastal hazards can be fundamentally interconnected, with catastrophic results where such interconnections go unrecognized. In response, we have begun to develop a simple approach for use by different stakeholders to support resilience planning, pre and post disaster, by: drawing attention to natural and built environment multi-hazard links in general; illustrating a ‘first cut’ tool for uncovering earthquake-flooding multi-hazard links in particular; and providing a basis for reviewing resilience strategy effectiveness in multi-hazard prone environments. This framework has particular application to tectonically active areas exposed to climate-change issues.
