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Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

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.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

The lived reality of the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes and its implications for the Waimakariri District, a small but rapidly growing district (third tier of government in New Zealand) north of Christchurch, can illustrate how community well-being, community resilience, and community capitals interrelate in practice generating paradoxical results out of what can otherwise be conceived as a textbook ‘best practice’ case of earthquake recovery. The Waimakariri District Council’s integrated community based recovery framework designed and implemented post-earthquakes in the District was built upon strong political, social, and moral capital elements such as: inter-institutional integration and communication, participation, local knowledge, and social justice. This approach enabled very positive community outputs such as artistic community interventions of the urban environment and communal food forests amongst others. Yet, interests responding to broader economic and political processes (continuous central government interventions, insurance and reinsurance processes, changing socio-cultural patterns) produced a significant loss of community capitals (E.g.: social fragmentation, participation exhaustion, economic leakage, etc.) which simultaneously, despite local Council and community efforts, hindered community well-being in the long term. The story of the Waimakariri District helps understand how resilience governance operates in practice where multi-scalar, non-linear, paradoxical, dynamic, and uncertain outcomes appear to be the norm that underpins the construction of equitable, transformative, and sustainable pathways towards the future.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Capacity design and hierarchy of strength philosophies at the base of modern seismic codes allow inelastic response in case of severe earthquakes and thus, in most traditional systems, damage develops at well-defined locations of reinforced concrete (RC) structures, known as plastic hinges. The 2010 and 2011 Christchurch earthquakes have demonstrated that this philosophy worked as expected. Plastic hinges formed in beams, in coupling beams and at the base of columns and walls. Structures were damaged permanently, but did not collapse. The 2010 and 2011 Christchurch earthquakes also highlighted a critical issue: the reparability of damaged buildings. No methodologies or techniques were available to estimate the level of subsequent earthquakes that RC buildings could still sustain before collapse. No repair techniques capable of restoring the initial condition of buildings were known. Finally, the cost-effectiveness of an eventual repair intervention, when compared with a new building, was unknown. These aspects, added to nuances of New Zealand building owners’ insurance coverage, encouraged the demolition of many buildings. Moreover, there was a perceived strong demand from government and industry to develop techniques for assessing damage to steel reinforcement bars embedded in cracked structural concrete elements. The most common questions were: “Have the steel bars been damaged in correspondence to the concrete cracks?”, “How much plastic deformation have the steel bars undergone?”, and “What is the residual strain capacity of the damaged bars?” Minimally invasive techniques capable of quantifying the level and extent of plastic deformation and residual strain capacity are not yet available. Although some studies had been recently conducted, a validated method is yet to be widely accepted. In this thesis, a least-invasive method for the damage-assessment of steel reinforcement is developed. Based on the information obtained from hardness testing and a single tensile test, it is possible to estimate the mechanical properties of earthquake-damaged rebars. The reduction in the low-cycle fatigue life due to strain ageing is also quantified. The proposed damage assessment methodology is based on empirical relationships between hardness and strain and residual strain capacity. If damage is suspected from in situ measurements, visual inspection or computer analysis, a bar may be removed and more accurate hardness measurements can be obtained using the lab-based Vickers hardness methodology. The Vickers hardness profile of damaged bars is then compared with calibration curves (Vickers hardness versus strain and residual strain capacity) previously developed for similar steel reinforcement bars extracted from undamaged locations. Experimental tests demonstrated that the time- and temperature-dependent strain-ageing phenomenon causes changes in the mechanical properties of plastically deformed steels. In particular, yield strength and hardness increases, whereas ductility decreases. The changes in mechanical properties are quantified and their implications on the hardness method are highlighted. Low-cycle fatigue (LCF) failures of steel reinforcing bars have been observed in laboratory testing and post-earthquake damage inspections. Often, failure might not occur during a first seismic event. However, damage is accumulated and the remaining fatigue life is reduced. Failure might therefore occur in a subsequent seismic event. Although numerous studies exist on the LCF behaviour of steel rebars, no studies had been conducted on the strain-ageing effects on the remaining fatigue life. In this thesis, the reduction in fatigue life due to this phenomenon is determined through a number of experimental tests.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

The NMIT Arts & Media Building is the first in a new generation of multistorey timber structures. It employs an advanced damage avoidance earthquake design that is a world first for a timber building. Aurecon structural engineers are the first to use this revolutionary Pres-Lam technology developed at the University of Canterbury. This technology marks a fundamental change in design philosophy. Conventional seismic design of multi-storey structures typically depends on member ductility and the acceptance of a certain amount of damage to beams, columns and walls. The NMIT seismic system relies on pairs of coupled LVL shear walls that incorporate high strength steel tendons post-tensioned through a central duct. The walls are centrally fixed allowing them to rock during a seismic event. A series of U-shaped steel plates placed between the walls form a coupling mechanism, and act as dissipators to absorb seismic energy. The design allows the primary structure to remain essentially undamaged while readily replaceable connections act as plastic fuses. In this era where sustainability is becoming a key focus, the extensive use of timber and engineered-wood products such as LVL make use of a natural resource all grown and manufactured within a 100km radius of Nelson. This project demonstrates that there are now cost effective, sustainable and innovative solutions for multi-story timber buildings with potential applications for building owners in seismic areas around the world.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Impact between structures of bridge sections can play a major, unexpected role in seismic structural damage. Linear and non-linear models are developed to analyze structural impact and response of two single-degree-of-freedom structures, representing adjacent buildings or bridge sections. The analyses presented assess probability of impact, displacement change due to impact, and the probability of increased displacement due to impact. These are assessed over a matrix of structural periods for each degree-of-freedom, different impact coefficients of restitution, and a probabilistically scaled suite of earthquake events. Linear versus non-linear effects are assessed using a Ramberg-Osgood non-linear model for column inelasticity. The normalized distance, or gap-ratio (GR), defined as a percentage of the summed spectral displacements, is used to create probabilistic design requirements. Increasing GR and structural periods that are similar (T2/T1~0.8-1.25) significantly decrease the likelihood of impact, and vice-versa. Including column inelasticity and decreasing coefficient of restitution decrease displacement increases due to impact and thus reduce potential damage. A minimum GR~0.5-0.9 ensures that any displacement increases will be less than 10% for 90% of ground motions over all structural period combinations (0.2-5.0sec). These results enable probabilistic design guidelines to manage undesirable effects of impact– an important factor during the recent Canterbury, New Zealand Earthquakes.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Science education research shows that a traditional, stand-and-deliver lecture format is less effective than teaching strategies that are learner-centred and that promote active engagement. The Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI) has used this research to develop resources to improve learning in university science courses. We report on a successful adaptation and implementation of CWSEI in the New Zealand university context. This two-year project at Massey University and the University of Canterbury began by using perception and concept surveys before and after undergraduate science courses to measure students’ attitudes towards science as well as their knowledge. Using these data, and classroom observations of student engagement and corroborating focus groups, the research team worked with lecturers to create interventions to enhance student engagement and learning in those courses. Results show several positive changes related to these interventions and they suggest several recommendations for lecturers and course coordinators. The recommendations include:1. Make learning outcomes clear, both for the lecturer and the students; this helps to cull extraneous material and scaffold student learning. 2. Use interactive activities to improve engagement, develop deeper levels of thinking, and improve learning. 3. Intentionally foster “expert-like thinking” amongst students in the first few semesters of the degree programme. 4. Be flexible because one size does not fit all and contextual events are beyond anyone’s control.In addition to these recommendations, data collected at the Canterbury site during the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes reinforced the understanding that the most carefully designed teaching innovations are subject to contextual conditions beyond the control of academics.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

In recent work on commons and commoning, scholars have argued that we might delink the practice of commoning from property ownership, while paying attention to modes of governance that enable long-term commons to emerge and be sustained. Yet commoning can also occur as a temporary practice, in between and around other forms of use. In this article we reflect on the transitional commoning practices and projects enabled by the Christchurch post-earthquake organisation Life in Vacant Spaces, which emerged to connect and mediate between landowners of vacant inner city demolition sites and temporary creative or entrepreneurial users. While these commons are often framed as transitional or temporary, we argue they have ongoing reverberations changing how people and local government in Christchurch approach common use. Using the cases of the physical space of the Victoria Street site “The Commons” and the virtual space of the Life in Vacant Spaces website, we show how temporary commoning projects can create and sustain the conditions of possibility required for nurturing commoner subjectivities. Thus despite their impermanence, temporary commoning projects provide a useful counter to more dominant forms of urban development and planning premised on property ownership and “permanent” timeframes, in that just as the physical space of the city being opened to commoning possibilities, so too are the expectations and dispositions of the city’s inhabitants, planners, and developers.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Predicting building collapse due to seismic motion is critical in design and more so after a major event. Damaged structures can appear sound, but collapse under following major events. There can thus be significant risk in decision making after a major seismic event concerning the safe occupation of a building or surrounding areas, versus the unknown impact of unknown major aftershocks. Model-based pushover analyses are effective if the structural properties are well understood, which is not valid post-event when this risk information is most useful. This research combines Hysteresis Loop Analysis (HLA) structural health monitoring (SHM) and Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) methods to determine collapse capacity and probability of collapse for a specific structure, at any time, a range of earthquake excitations to ensure robustness. The nonlinear dynamic analysis method presented enables constant updating of building performance predictions using post-event SHM results. The resulting combined methods provide near real-time updating of collapse fragility curves as events progress, quantifying the change of collapse probability or seismic induced losses for decision-making - a novel, higher resolution risk analysis than previously available. The methods are not computationally expensive and there is no requirement for a validated numerical model. Results show significant potential benefits and a clear evolution of risk. They also show clear need for extending SHM toward creating improved predictive models for analysis of subsequent events, where the Christchurch series of 2010-2011 had significant post-event aftershocks after each main event. Finally, the overall method is generalisable to any typical engineering demand parameter.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Triple P parenting programmes have provided promising results for children and families in recent years. The aim of the current project was to explore the experiences of families leading up to participating in a Teen Triple P programme three years following the Christchurch earthquakes and their need for assistance in the management of their teenagers. Parents were interviewed prior to the commencement of the Teen Triple P programme and after its completion. Parents were also asked to complete a journal entry or engage in two brief telephone conversations with the researcher outlining their experiences with the Teen Triple P programme. These outlined the perceived fit of the programme to the needs of the family. Parents provided insight into their family’s experiences of the Christchurch 2010 and 2011 series of earthquakes and the perceived impact this had on their lives and the management of their teenagers. The results indicated that parents felt more positively about their parenting behaviours post-programme and were able to identify changes in their teen and/or family that they felt were as a response to participation in Teen Triple P. Parents provided rich descriptions of their earthquake experiences and the immediate and long-term impacts they endured both individually and as a family. Parents did not feel that the earthquakes fed into their decision to do a Teen Triple P Programme. The results helped improve our understanding of the effectiveness of Teen Triple P as a parenting programme as well increased our understanding of the challenges and needs of families in post-earthquake Christchurch.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

In recent work on commons and commoning, scholars have argued that we might delink the practice of commoning from property ownership, while paying attention to modes of governance that enable long-term commons to emerge and be sustained. Yet commoning can also occur as a temporary practice, in between and around other forms of use. In this article we reflect on the transitional commoning practices and projects enabled by the Christchurch post-earthquake organisation Life in Vacant Spaces, which emerged to connect and mediate between landowners of vacant inner city demolition sites and temporary creative or entrepreneurial users. While these commons are often framed as transitional or temporary, we argue they have ongoing reverberations changing how people and local government in Christchurch approach common use. Using the cases of the physical space of the Victoria Street site “The Commons” and the virtual space of the Life in Vacant Spaces website, we show how temporary commoning projects can create and sustain the conditions of possibility required for nurturing commoner subjectivities. Thus despite their impermanence, temporary commoning projects provide a useful counter to more dominant forms of urban development and planning premised on property ownership and “permanent” timeframes, in that just as the physical space of the city being opened to commoning possibilities, so too are the expectations and dispositions of the city’s inhabitants, planners, and developers.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

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.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

The 2010-2011 Christchurch earthquakes generated damage in several Reinforced Concrete (RC) buildings, which had RC walls as the principal resistant element against earthquake demand. Despite the agreement between structural engineers and researchers in an overall successfully performance there was a lack of knowledge about the behaviour of the damaged structures, and even deeper about a repaired structure, which triggers arguments between different parties that remains up to these days. Then, it is necessary to understand the capacity of the buildings after the earthquake and see how simple repairs techniques improve the building performance. This study will assess the residual capacity of ductile slender RC walls according to current standards in New Zealand, NZS 3101.1 2006 A3. First, a Repaired RC walls Database is created trying to gather previous studies and to evaluate them with existing international guidelines. Then, an archetype building is designed, and the wall is extracted and scaled. Four half-scale walls were designed and will be constructed and tested at the Structures Testing Laboratory at The University of Auckland. The overall dimensions are 3 [m] height, 2 [m] length and 0.175 [m] thick. All four walls will be identical, with differences in the loading protocol and the presence or absence of a repair technique. Results are going to be useful to assess the residual capacity of a damaged wall compare to the original behaviour and also the repaired capacity of walls with simpler repair techniques. The expected behaviour is focussed on big changes in stiffness, more evident than in previously tested RC beams found in the literature.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

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.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

A linear and non-linear model are developed to analyze the structural impact and response of two single degree of freedom structures, representing adjacent buildings or bridge sections. Different impact coefficients of restitution, normalized distances between structures and a range of different structural periods are considered. The probability of impact and the displacement changes that can result from these collisions are computed. The likelihood of an increase in displacement is quantified in a probabilistic sense. A full matrix of response simulations are performed to individually investigate and delineate the effects of inter-structure gap-ratio, period ratios, structural non-linearity and impact elasticity. Column inelasticity is incorporated through the use of a Ramberg-Osgood type hysteresis rule. The minimum normalized distance, or gap-ratio, required between two structures to ensure that the likelihood of increased displacement of more than 10% for either structure for 90% of the given earthquake ground motions is assessed as one of many possible design risk bounds. Increased gap ratio, defined as a percentage of spectral displacement, is shown to reduce the likelihood of impact, as well as close structural periods. Larger differences in the relative periods of the two structures were seen to significantly increase the likelihood of impact. Inclusion of column inelasticity and higher plasticity of impact reduce displacement increases from impact and thus possible further damage to the structures. Such information can be used as a guideline to manage undesirable effects of impact in design - a factor that has been observed to be very important during the recent Canterbury, New Zealand Earthquakes.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

On the second day of teaching for 2011, the University of Canterbury (UC) faced the most significant crisis of its 138-year history. After being shaken severely by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake on 4 September 2010, UC felt it was well along the pathway to getting back to ‘normal’. That all changed at 12:51pm on 22 February 2011, when Christchurch city was hit by an even more devastating event. A magnitude 6.3 (Modified Mercalli intensity ten – MM X) earthquake, just 13km south-east of the Christchurch city centre, caused vertical peak ground accelerations amongst the highest ever recorded in an urban environment, in some places more than twice the acceleration due to gravity. The earthquake caused immediate evacuation of the UC campus and resulted in significant damage to many buildings. Thankfully there were no serious injuries or fatalities on campus, but 185 people died in the city and many more suffered serious injuries. At the time of writing, eighteen months after the first earthquake in September, Christchurch is still experiencing regular earthquakes. Seismologists warn that the region may experience heightened seismicity for a decade or more. While writing this report we have talked with many different people from across the University. People’s experiences are different and we have not managed to talk with everyone, but we hope that by drawing together many different perspectives from across the campus that this report will serve two purposes; to retain our institutional memory of what we have learnt over the past eighteen months, and also to share our learnings with other organisations in New Zealand and around the world who, we hope, will benefit from learning about our experience.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

We examined changes in psychological distress experienced by residents of Christchurch following two catastrophic earthquakes in late 2010 and early 2011, using data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (NZAVS), a national probability panel study of New Zealand adults. Analyses focused on the 267 participants (172 women, 95 men) who were living in central Christchurch in 2009 (i.e., before the Christchurch earthquakes), and who also provided complete responses to our yearly panel questionnaire conducted in late 2010 (largely between the two major earthquakes), late 2011, and late 2012. Levels of psychological distress were similar across the different regions of central Christchurch immediately following the September 2010 earthquake, and remained comparable across regions in 2011. By late 2012, however, average levels of psychological distress in the regions had diverged as a function of the amount of property damage experienced within each given region. Specifically, participants in the least damaged region (i.e., the Fendalton-Waimairi and Riccarton-Wigram wards) experienced greater drops in psychological distress than did those in the moderately damaged region (i.e., across the Spreydon-Heathcote and Hagley- Ferrymead wards). However, the level of psychological distress reported by participants in the most damaged region (i.e., across Shirley-Papanui and Burwood-Pegasus) were not significantly different to those in the least damaged region of central Christchurch. These findings suggest that different patterns of psychological recovery emerged across the different regions of Christchurch, with the moderately damaged region faring the worst, but only after the initial shock of the destruction had passed.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

The New Zealand city of Christchurch suffered a series of devastating earthquakes in 2010-11 that changed the urban landscape forever. A new rebuilt city is now underway, largely based on the expressed wishes of the populace to see Christchurch return to being a more people-oriented, cycle-friendly city that it was known for in decades past. Currently 7% of commuters cycle to work, supported by a 200km network of mostly conventional on-road painted cycle lanes and off-road shared paths. The new "Major Cycleways" plan aims to develop approximately 100km of high-quality cycling routes throughout the city in 5-7 years. The target audience is an unaccompanied 10-year-old cycling, which requires more separated cycleways and low-volume/speed "neighbourhood greenways" to meet this standard. This presentation summarises the steps undertaken to date to start delivering this network. Various pieces of research have helped to identify the types of infrastructure preferred by those currently not regularly cycling, as well as helping to assess the merits of different route choices. Conceptual cycleway guidelines have now been translated into detailed design principles for the different types of infrastructure being planned. While much of this work is based on successful designs from overseas, including professional advice from Dutch practitioners, an interesting challenge has been to adapt these designs as required to suit local road environments and road user expectations. The first parts of the new network are being rolled out now, with the hope that this will produce an attractive and resilient network for the future population that leads to cycling being a major part of the local way of life.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

In this dissertation it is argued that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act 2011 and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority were both necessary and inevitable given the trends and traditions of civil defence emergency management (CDEM) in New Zealand. The trends and traditions of civil defence are such that principles come before practice, form before function, and change is primarily brought about through crisis and criticism. The guiding question of the research was why were a new governance system and law made after the Canterbury earthquakes in 2010 and 2011? Why did this outcome occur despite the establishment of a modern emergency management system in 2002 which included a recovery framework that had been praised by international scholars as leading edge and a model for other countries? The official reason was the unprecedented scale and demands of the recovery – but a disaster of such scale is the principle reason for having a national emergency management system. Another explanation is the lack of cooperation among local authorities – but that raises the question of whether the CDEM recovery framework would have been successful in another locality. Consequentially, the focus of this dissertation is on the CDEM recovery framework and how New Zealand came to find itself making disaster law during a disaster. Recommendations include a review of emergency powers for recovery, a review of the capabilities needed to fulfil the mandate of Recovery Managers, and the establishment of a National Recovery Office with a cadre of Recovery Managers that attend every recovery to observe, advise, or assume control as needed. CDEM Group Recovery Managers would be seconded to the National Recovery Office which would allow for experience in recovery management to be developed and institutionalised through regular practice.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

The Canterbury Earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 and subsequent re-organisation and rebuilding of schools in the region is initiating a rapid transitioning from traditional classrooms and individual teaching to flexible learning spaces (FLS’s) and co-teaching. This transition is driven by the Ministry of Education property division who have specific guidelines for designing new schools, re-builds and the five and ten year property plan requirements. Boards of Trustees, school leaders and teachers are faced with the challenge of reconceptualising teaching and learning from private autonomous learning environments to co-teaching in Flexible Learning Spaces provisioned for 50 to 180 children and two to six teachers in a single space. This process involves risks and opportunities especially for teachers and children. This research project investigates the key components necessary to create effective co-teaching relationships and environments. It explores the lessons learnt from the 1970’s open plan era and the views of 40 experienced practitioners and leaders with two or more years’ experience working in collaborative teaching and learning environments in sixteen New Zealand and Australian schools. The research also considers teacher collaboration and co-teaching as evidenced in literature. The findings lead to the identification of eight key components required to create effective collaborative teaching and learning environments which are discussed using three themes of student centeredness, effective pedagogy and collaboration. Six key recommendations are provided to support the effective co-teaching in a flexible learning space: 1. Situate learners at the centre 2. Develop shared understanding about effective pedagogy in a FLS 3. Develop skills of collaboration 4. Implement specific co-teaching strategies 5. Analyse the impact of co-teaching strategies 6. Strategically prepare for change and the future

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

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.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

The Canterbury region of New Zealand experienced a sequence of strong earthquakes during 2010-2011. Responses included government acquisition of many thousands of residential properties in the city of Christchurch in areas with severe earthquake effects. A large and contiguous tract of this ‘red zoned’ land lies in close proximity to the Ōtākaro / Avon River and is known as the Avon-Ōtākaro Red Zone (AORZ). The focus of this study was to provide an overview of the floodplain characteristics of the AORZ and review of international experience in ecological restoration of similar river margin and floodplain ecosystems to extract restoration principles and associated learnings. Compared to pre-earthquake ground levels, the dominant trend in the AORZ is subsidence, together with lateral movement especially in the vicinity of waterway. An important consequence of land subsidence in the lower Ōtākaro / Avon River is greater exposure to flooding and the effects of sea level rise. Scenario modelling for sea level rise indicates that much of the AORZ is exposed to inundation within a 100 year planning horizon based on a 1 m sea level rise. As with decisions on built infrastructure, investments in nature-based ‘green infrastructure’ also require a sound business case including attention to risks posed by climate change. Future-proofing of the expected benefits of ecological restoration must therefore be secured by design. Understanding and managing the hydrology and floodplain dynamics are vital to the future of the AORZ. However, these characteristics are shared by other floodplain and river restoration projects worldwide. Identifying successful approaches provides a useful a source of useful information for floodplain planning in the AORZ. This report presents results from a comparative case study of three international examples to identify relevant principles for large-scale floodplain management at coastal lowland sites.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Christchurch Ōtautahi, New Zealand, is a city of myriad waterways and springs. Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, have water quality at the core of their cultural values. The city’s rivers include the Avon/Ōtākaro, central to the city centre’s aesthetic appeal since early settlement, and the Heathcote/Ōpāwaho. Both have been degraded with increasing urbanisation. The destructive earthquake sequence that occurred during 2010/11 presented an opportunity to rebuild significant areas of the city. Public consultation identified enthusiasm to rebuild a sustainable city. A sustainable water sensitive city is one where development is constructed with the water environment in mind. Water sensitive urban design applies at all scales and is a holistic concept. In Christchurch larger-scale multi-value stormwater management solutions were incorporated into rapidly developed greenfield sites on the city’s outskirts and in satellite towns, as they had been pre-earthquake. Individual properties on greenfield sites and within the city, however, continued to be constructed without water sensitive features such as rainwater tanks or living roofs. This research uses semi-structured interviews, policy analysis, and findings from local and international studies to investigate the benefits of building-scale WSUD and the barriers that have resulted in their absence. Although several inter-related barriers became apparent, cost, commonly cited as a barrier to sustainable development in general, was strongly represented. However, it is argued that the issue is one of mindset rather than cost. Solutions are proposed, based on international and national experience, that will demonstrate the benefits of adopting water sensitive urban design principles including at the building scale, and thereby build public and political support. The research is timely - there is still much development to occur, and increasing pressures from urban densification, population growth and climate change to mitigate.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

By closely examining the performance of a 22-storey steel framed building in Christchurch subject to various earthquakes over the past seven years, it is shown that a number of lessons can be learnt regarding the cost-effective consideration of non-structural elements. The first point in this work is that non-structural elements significantly affected the costs associated with repairing steel eccentrically braced frame (EBF) links. The decommissioning or rerouting of non-structural elements in the vicinity of damaged links in the case study building attributed to approximately half the total cost of their repair. Such costs could be significantly reduced if the original positioning of non-structural elements took account of the potential need to repair the EBF links. The second point highlighted is the role that pre-cast cladding apparently played on the distribution and type of damage in the building. Loss estimates obtained following the FEMA P-58 framework vary considerably when cladding is or isnt modelled, both because of changes to drift demands up the height of the building and because certain types of subsequent damage are likely to be cheaper to repair than others. Finally, costly repairs to non-structural partition walls were required not only after the moment magnitude 7.1 earthquake in 2010 but also in multiple aftershocks in the years that followed. Repair costs associated with aftershock events exceeded those from the main event, emphasizing the need to consider aftershocks within modern performance-based earthquake engineering and also the opportunity that exists to make more cost-effective repair strategies following damaging earthquakes.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

One of the great challenges facing human systems today is how to prepare for, manage, and adapt successfully to the profound and rapid changes wreaked by disasters. Wellington, New Zealand, is a capital city at significant risk of devastating earthquake and tsunami, potentially requiring mass evacuations with little or short notice. Subsequent hardship and suffering due to widespread property damage and infrastructure failure could cause large areas of the Wellington Region to become uninhabitable for weeks to months. Previous research has shown that positive health and well-being are associated with disaster-resilient outcomes. Preventing adverse outcomes before disaster strikes, through developing strengths-based skill sets in health-protective attitudes and behaviours, is increasingly advocated in disaster research, practise, and management. This study hypothesised that well-being constructs involving an affective heuristic play vital roles in pathways to resilience as proximal determinants of health-protective behaviours. Specifically, this study examined the importance of health-related quality of life and subjective well-being in motivating evacuation preparedness, measured in a community sample (n=695) drawn from the general adult population of Wellington’s isolated eastern suburbs. Using a quantitative epidemiological approach, the study measured the prevalence of key quality of life indicators (physical and mental health, emotional well-being or “Sense of Coherence”, spiritual well-being, social well-being, and life satisfaction) using validated psychometric scales; analysed the strengths of association between these indicators and the level of evacuation preparedness at categorical and continuous levels of measurement; and tested the predictive power of the model to explain the variance in evacuation preparedness activity. This is the first study known to examine multi-dimensional positive health and global well-being as resilient processes for engaging in evacuation preparedness behaviour. A cross-sectional study design and quantitative survey were used to collect self-report data on the study variables; a postal questionnaire was fielded between November 2008 and March 2009 to a sampling frame developed through multi-stage cluster randomisation. The survey response rate was 28.5%, yielding a margin of error of +/- 3.8% with 95% confidence and 80% statistical power to detect a true correlation coefficient of 0.11 or greater. In addition to the primary study variables, data were collected on demographic and ancillary variables relating to contextual factors in the physical environment (risk perception of physical and personal vulnerability to disaster) and the social environment (through the construct of self-determination), and other measures of disaster preparedness. These data are reserved for future analyses. Results of correlational and regression analyses for the primary study variables show that Wellingtonians are highly individualistic in how their well-being influences their preparedness, and a majority are taking inadequate action to build their resilience to future disaster from earthquake- or tsunami-triggered evacuation. At a population level, the conceptual multi-dimensional model of health-related quality of life and global well-being tested in this study shows a positive association with evacuation preparedness at statistically significant levels. However, it must be emphasised that the strength of this relationship is weak, accounting for only 5-7% of the variability in evacuation preparedness. No single dimension of health-related quality of life or well-being stands out as a strong predictor of preparedness. The strongest associations for preparedness are in a positive direction for spiritual well-being, emotional well-being, and life satisfaction; all involve a sense of existential meaningfulness. Spiritual well-being is the only quality of life variable making a statistically significant unique contribution to explaining the variance observed in the regression models. Physical health status is weakly associated with preparedness in a negative direction at a continuous level of measurement. No association was found at statistically significant levels for mental health status and social well-being. These findings indicate that engaging in evacuation preparedness is a very complex, holistic, yet individualised decision-making process, and likely involves highly subjective considerations for what is personally relevant. Gender is not a factor. Those 18-24 years of age are least likely to prepare and evacuation preparedness increases with age. Multidimensional health and global well-being are important constructs to consider in disaster resilience for both pre-event and post-event timeframes. This work indicates a need for promoting self-management of risk and building resilience by incorporating a sense of personal meaning and importance into preparedness actions, and for future research into further understanding preparedness motivations.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

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.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

The nonlinear dynamic soil-foundation-structure interaction (SFSI) can signifi cantly affect the seismic response of buildings, causing additional deformation modes, damage and repair costs. Because of nonlinear foundation behaviour and interactions, the seismic demand on the superstructure may considerably change, and also permanent deformations at the foundation level may occur. Although SFSI effects may be benefi cial to the superstructure performance, any advantage would be of little structural value unless the phenomenon can be reliably controlled and exploited. Detrimental SFSI effects may also occur, including acceleration and displacement response ampli cation and differential settlements, which would be unconservative to neglect. The lack of proper understanding of the phenomenon and the limited available simpli ed tools accounting for SFSI have been major obstacles to the implementation of integrated design and assessment procedures into the everyday practice. In this study concepts, ideas and practical tools (inelastic spectra) for the seismic design and assessment of integrated foundation-superstructure systems are presented, with the aim to explicitly consider the impact of nonlinearities occurring at the soil-foundation interface on the building response within an integrated approach, where the foundation soil and superstructure are considered as part of an integrated system when evaluating the seismic response, working synergically for the achievement of a target global performance. A conceptual performance-based framework for the seismic design and assessment of integrated foundation-superstructure systems is developed. The framework is based on the use of peak and residual response parameters for both the superstructure and the foundation, which are then combined to produce the system performance matrix. Each performance matrix allows for worsening of the performance when different contributions are combined. An attempt is made to test the framework by using case histories from the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, which are previously shown to have been severely affected by nonlinear SFSI. The application highlights the framework sensitivity to the adopted performance limit states, which must be realistic for a reliable evaluation of the system performance. Constant ductility and constant strength inelastic spectra are generated for nonlinear SFSI systems (SDOF nonlinear superstructure and 3DOF foundation allowing for uplift and soil yielding), representing multistorey RC buildings with shallow rigid foundations supported by cohesive soils. Different ductilities/strengths, hysteretic rules (Bi-linear, Takeda and Flag-Shape), soil stiffness and strength and bearing capacity factors are considered. Footings and raft foundations are investigated, characterized respectively by constant (3 and 8) and typically large bearing capacity factors. It is confi rmed that when SFSI is considered, the superstructure yielding force needed to satisfy a target ductility for a new building changes, and that similarly, for an existing building, the ductility demand on a building of a given strength varies. The extent of change of seismic response with respect to xed-base (FB) conditions depends on the class of soils considered, and on the bearing capacity factor (SF). For SF equal to 3, the stiffer soils enhance the nonlinear rotational foundation behaviour and are associated with reduced settlement, while the softer ones are associated with increased settlement response but not signi ficant rotational behaviour. On average terms, for the simplifi ed models considered, SFSI is found to be bene cial to the superstructure performance in terms of acceleration and superstructure displacement demand, although exceptions are recorded due to ground motion variability. Conversely, in terms of total displacement, a signi cant response increase is observed. The larger the bearing capacity factor, the more the SFSI response approaches the FB system. For raft foundation buildings, characterized by large bearing capacity factors, the impact of foundation response is mostly elastic, and the system on average approaches FB conditions. Well de fined displacement participation factors to the peak total lateral displacement are observed for the different contributions (i.e. peak foundation rotation and translation and superstructure displacement). While the superstructure and foundation rotation show compensating trends, the foundation translation contribution varies as a function of the moment-to-shear ratio, becoming negligible in the medium-to-long periods. The longer the superstructure FB period, the less the foundation response is signifi cant. The larger the excitation level and the less ductile the superstructure, the larger the foundation contribution to the total lateral displacement, and the less the superstructure contribution. In terms of hysteretic behaviour, its impact is larger when the superstructure response is more signifi cant, i.e. for the softer/weaker soils and larger ductilities. Particularly, for the Flag Shape rule, larger superstructure displacement participation factors and smaller foundation contributions are recorded. In terms of residual displacements, the total residual-to-maximum ratios are similar in amplitudes and trends to the corresponding FB system responses, with the foundation and superstructure contributions showing complementary trends. The impact of nonlinear SFSI is especially important for the Flag Shape hysteresis rule, which would not otherwise suffer of any permanent deformations. By using the generated peak and residual inelastic spectra (i.e. inelastic acceleration/ displacement modifi cation factor spectra, and/or participation factor and residual spectra), conceptual simplifi ed procedures for the seismic design and assessment of integrated foundation-superstructure systems are presented. The residual displacements at both the superstructure and foundation levels are explicitly considered. Both the force- and displacement-based approaches are explored. The procedures are de fined to be complementary to the previously proposed integrated performance-based framework. The use of participation factor spectra allows the designer to easily visualize the response of the system components, and could assist the decision making process of both the design and assessment of SFSI systems. The presented numerical results have been obtained using simpli ed models, assuming rigid foundation behaviour and neglecting P-Delta effects. The consideration of more complex systems including asymmetry in stiffness, mass, axial load and ground conditions with a exible foundation layout would highlight detrimental SFSI effects as related to induced differential settlements, while accounting for PDelta effects would further amplify the displacement response. Also, the adopted acceleration records were selected and scaled to match conventional design spectra, thus not representing any response ampli cation in the medium-to-long period range which could as well cause detrimental SFSI effects. While these limitations should be the subject of further research, this study makes a step forward to the understanding of SFSI phenomenon and its incorporation into performance-based design/assessment considerations.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

This thesis is about many things, not least of all the September 4th 2010 and February 22nd 2011 earthquakes that shook Christchurch, New Zealand. A city was shaken, events which worked to lay open the normally invisible yet vital objects, processes and technologies which are the focus of inquiry: the sewers, pipes, pumps, the digital technologies, the land and politics which constitute the Christchurch wastewater networks. The thesis is an eclectic mix drawing together methods and concepts from Bruno Latour, John Law, Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Nigel Thrift, Donna Haraway and Patrick Joyce. It is an exploration of how the technologies and objects of sanitation perform the city, and how such things which are normally hidden and obscured, are made visible. The question of visibility is also turned toward the research itself: how does one observe, and describe? How are sociological visibilities constructed? Through the research, the encountering of objects in the field, the processes of method, the pedagogy of concepts, and the construction of risk, the thesis comes to be understood as a particular kind of social scientific artefact which assembles four different accounts: the first regards the construction of visibility; the second explores Christchurch city from the control room where the urban sanitary infrastructures are monitored; the third chapter looks at the formatted and embodied practices which emerge with the correlation of the city and sanitation; the fourth looks at the changing politics of a city grappling with severely damaged essential services, land and structures. The final chapter considers how the differences between romantic and baroque sensibilities mean that these four accounts elicit knowing not through smoothness or uniformity, but in partiality and non-coherence. This thesis is about pipes, pump stations, and treatment plants; about the effluent of a city; about the messiness of social science when confronted by the equally messy world of wastewater.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

© 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature. Prediction of building collapse due to significant seismic motion is a principle objective of earthquake engineers, particularly after a major seismic event when the structure is damaged and decisions may need to be made rapidly concerning the safe occupation of a building or surrounding areas. Traditional model-based pushover analyses are effective, but only if the structural properties are well understood, which is not the case after an event when that information is most useful. This paper combines hysteresis loop analysis (HLA) structural health monitoring (SHM) and incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) methods to identify and then analyse collapse capacity and the probability of collapse for a specific structure, at any time, a range of earthquake excitations to ensure robustness. This nonlinear dynamic analysis enables constant updating of building performance predictions following a given and subsequent earthquake events, which can result in difficult to identify deterioration of structural components and their resulting capacity, all of which is far more difficult using static pushover analysis. The combined methods and analysis provide near real-time updating of the collapse fragility curves as events progress, thus quantifying the change of collapse probability or seismic induced losses very soon after an earthquake for decision-making. Thus, this combination of methods enables a novel, higher-resolution analysis of risk that was not previously available. The methods are not computationally expensive and there is no requirement for a validated numerical model, thus providing a relatively simpler means of assessing collapse probability immediately post-event when such speed can provide better information for critical decision-making. Finally, the results also show a clear need to extend the area of SHM toward creating improved predictive models for analysis of subsequent events, where the Christchurch series of 2010–2011 had significant post-event aftershocks.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

In the aftermath of the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES), the location of Christchurch-City on the coast of the Canterbury Region (New Zealand) has proven crucial in determining the types of- and chains of hazards that impact the city. Very rapidly, the land subsidence of up to 1 m (vertical), and the modifications of city’s waterways – bank sliding, longitudinal profile change, sedimentation and erosion, engineered stop-banks… - turned rainfall and high-tides into unprecedented floods, which spread across the eastern side of the city. Within this context, this contribution presents two modeling results of potential floods: (1) results of flood models and (2) the effects of further subsidence-linked flooding – indeed if another similar earthquake was to strike the city, what could be the scenarios of further subsidence and then flooding. The present research uses the pre- and post-CES LiDAR datasets, which have been used as the boundary layer for the modeling. On top of simple bathtub model of inundation, the river flood model was conducted using the 2-D hydrodynamic code NAYS-2D developed at the University of Hokkaido (Japan), using a depth-averaged resolution of the hydrodynamic equations. The results have shown that the area the most at risk of flooding are the recent Holocene sedimentary deposits, and especially the swamplands near the sea and in the proximity of waterways. As the CES drove horizontal and vertical displacement of the land-surface, the surface hydrology of the city has been deeply modified, increasing flood risks. However, it seems that scientists and managers haven’t fully learned from the CES, and no research has been looking at the potential future subsidence in further worsening subsidence-related floods. Consequently, the term “coastal quake”, coined by D. Hart is highly topical, and most especially because most of our modern cities and mega-cities are built on estuarine Holocene sediments.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Farming and urban regions are impacted by earthquake disasters in different ways, and feature a range of often different recovery requirements. In New Zealand, and elsewhere, most earthquake impact and recovery research is urban focused. This creates a research deficit that can lead to the application of well-researched urban recovery strategies in rural areas to suboptimal effect. To begin to reduce this deficit, in-depth case studies of the earthquake impacts and recovery of three New Zealand farms severely impacted by the 14th November 2016, M7.8 Hurunui-Kaikōura earthquake were conducted. The initial earthquake, its aftershocks and coseismic hazards (e.g., landslides, liquefaction, surface rupture) affected much of North Canterbury, Marlborough and the Wellington area. The three case study farms were chosen to broadly represent the main types of farming and topography in the Hurunui District in North Canterbury. The farms were directly and indirectly impacted by earthquakes and related hazards. On-farm infrastructure (e.g., woolsheds, homesteads) and essential services (e.g., water, power), frequently sourced from distributed networks, were severely impacted. The earthquake occurred after two years of regional drought had already stressed farm systems and farmers to restructuring or breaking point. Cascading interlinked hazards stemming from the earthquakes and coseismic hazards continued to disrupt earthquake recovery over a year after the initial earthquake. Semi-structured interviews with the farmers were conducted nine and fourteen months after the initial earthquake to capture the timeline of on-going impacts and recovery. Analysis of both geological hazard data and interview data resulted in the identification of key factors influencing farm level earthquake impact and recovery. These include pre-existing conditions (e.g., drought); farm-specific variations in recovery timelines; and resilience strategies for farm recovery resources. The earthquake recovery process presented all three farms with opportunities to change their business plans and adapt to mitigate on-going and future risk.