Christchurch City Council (Council) is undertaking the Land Drainage Recovery Programme in order to assess the effects of the earthquakes on flood risk to Christchurch. In the course of these investigations it has become better understood that floodplain management should be considered in a multi natural hazards context. Council have therefore engaged the Jacobs, Beca, University of Canterbury, and HR Wallingford project team to investigate the multihazards in eastern areas of Christchurch and develop flood management options which also consider other natural hazards in that context (i.e. how other hazards contribute to flooding both through temporal and spatial coincidence). The study has three stages: Stage 1 Gap Analysis – assessment of information known, identification of gaps and studies required to fill the gaps. Stage 2 Hazard Studies – a gap filling stage with the studies identified in Stage 1. Stage 3 Collating, Optioneering and Reporting – development of options to manage flood risk. This present report is to document findings of Stage 1 and recommends the studies that should be completed for Stage 2. It has also been important to consider how Stage 3 would be delivered and the gaps are prioritised to provide for this. The level of information available and hazards to consider is extensive; requiring this report to be made up of five parts each identifying individual gaps. A process of identifying information for individual hazards in Christchurch has been undertaken and documented (Part 1) followed by assessing the spatial co-location (Part 2) and probabilistic presence of multi hazards using available information. Part 3 considers multi hazard presence both as a temporal coincidence (e.g. an earthquake and flood occurring at one time) and as a cascade sequence (e.g. earthquake followed by a flood at some point in the future). Council have already undertaken a number of options studies for managing flood risk and these are documented in Part 4. Finally Part 5 provides the Gap Analysis Summary and Recommendations to Council. The key findings of Stage 1 gap analysis are: - The spatial analysis showed eastern Christchurch has a large number of hazards present with only 20% of the study area not being affected by any of the hazards mapped. Over 20% of the study area is exposed to four or more hazards at the frequencies and data available. - The majority of the Residential Red Zone is strongly exposed to multiple hazards, with 86% of the area being exposed to 4 or more hazards, and 24% being exposed to 6 or more hazards. - A wide number of gaps are present; however, prioritisation needs to consider the level of benefit and risks associated with not undertaking the studies. In light of this 10 studies ranging in scale are recommended to be done for the project team to complete the present scope of Stage 3. - Stage 3 will need to consider a number of engineering options to address hazards and compare with policy options; however, Council have not established a consistent policy on managed retreat that can be applied for equal comparison; without which substantial assumptions are required. We recommend Council undertake a study to define a managed retreat framework as an option for the city. - In undertaking Stage 1 with floodplain management as the focal point in a multi hazards context we have identified that Stage 3 requires consideration of options in the context of economics, implementation and residual risk. Presently the scope of work will provide a level of definition for floodplain options; however, this will not be at equal levels of detail for other hazard management options. Therefore, we recommend Council considers undertaking other studies with those key hazards (e.g. Coastal Hazards) as a focal point and identifies the engineering options to address such hazards. Doing so will provide equal levels of information for Council to make an informed and defendable decision on which options are progressed following Stage 3.
Recent global tsunami events have highlighted the importance of effective tsunami risk management strategies (including land-use planning, structural and natural defences, warning systems, education and evacuation measures). However, the rarity of tsunami means that empirical data concerning reactions to tsunami warnings and tsunami evacuation behaviour is rare when compared to findings about evacuations to avoid other sources of hazard. To date empirical research into tsunami evacuations has focused on evacuation rates, rather than other aspects of the evacuation process. More knowledge is required about responses to warnings, pre-evacuation actions, evacuation dynamics and the return home after evacuations. Tsunami evacuation modelling has the potential to inform evidence-based tsunami risk planning and response. However to date tsunami evacuation models have largely focused on timings of evacuations, rather than evacuation behaviours. This Masters research uses a New Zealand case study to reduce both of these knowledge gaps. Qualitative survey data was gathered from populations across coastal communities in Banks Peninsula and Christchurch, New Zealand, required to evacuate due to the tsunami generated by the November 14th 2016 Kaikōura Earthquake. Survey questions asked about reactions to tsunami warnings, actions taken prior to evacuating and movements during the 2016 tsunami evacuation. This data was analysed to characterise trends and identify factors that influenced evacuation actions and behaviour. Finally, it was used to develop an evacuation model for Banks Peninsula. Where appropriate, the modelling inputs were informed by the survey data. Three key findings were identified from the results of the evacuation behaviour survey. Although 38% of the total survey respondents identified the earthquake shaking as a natural cue for the tsunami, most relied on receiving official warnings, including sirens, to prompt evacuations. Respondents sought further official information to inform their evacuation decisions, with 39% of respondents delaying their evacuation in order to do so. Finally, 96% of total respondents evacuated by car. This led to congestion, particularly in more densely populated Christchurch city suburbs. Prior to this research, evacuation modelling had not been completed for Banks Peninsula. The results of the modelling showed that if evacuees know how to respond to tsunami warnings and where and how to evacuate, there are no issues. However, if there are poor conditions, including if people do not evacuate immediately, if there are issues with the roading network, or if people do not know where or how to evacuate, evacuation times increase with there being more bottlenecks leading out of the evacuation zones. The results of this thesis highlight the importance of effective tsunami education and evacuation planning. Reducing exposure to tsunami risk through prompt evacuation relies on knowledge of how to interpret tsunami warnings, and when, where and how to evacuate. Recommendations from this research outline the need for public education and engagement, and the incorporation of evacuation signage, information boards and evacuation drills. Overall these findings provide more comprehensive picture of tsunami evacuation behaviour and decision making based on empirical data from a recent evacuation, which can be used to improve tsunami risk management strategies. This empirical data can also be used to inform evacuation modelling to improve the accuracy and realism of the evacuation models.
This report to RCP Ltd and University of Canterbury summarises the findings of a 5 month secondment to the CERA Port Hills Land Clearance Team. Improvement strategies were initiated and observed. The Port Hills Land Clearance Programme is the undertaking of the demolition of all built structures from the Crown’s compulsory acquired 714 residential red zoned properties. These properties are zoned red due to an elevated life risk as a result of geotechnical land uncertainty following the 2011 Canterbury Earthquakes.
Many buildings with relatively low damage from the 2010-2011 Canterbury were deemed uneconomic to repair and were replaced [1,2]. Factors that affected commercial building owners’ decisions to replace rather than repair, included capital availability, uncertainty with regards to regional recovery, local market conditions and ability to generate cash flow, and repair delays due to limited property access (cordon). This poster provides a framework for modeling decision-making in a case where repair is feasible but replacement might offer greater economic value – a situation not currently modeled in engineering risk analysis.
Natural hazard disasters often have large area-wide impacts, which can cause adverse stress-related mental health outcomes in exposed populations. As a result, increased treatment-seeking may be observed, which puts a strain on the limited public health care resources particularly in the aftermath of a disaster. It is therefore important for public health care planners to know whom to target, but also where and when to initiate intervention programs that promote emotional wellbeing and prevent the development of mental disorders after catastrophic events. A large body of literature assesses factors that predict and mitigate disaster-related mental disorders at various time periods, but the spatial component has rarely been investigated in disaster mental health research. This thesis uses spatial and spatio-temporal analysis techniques to examine when and where higher and lower than expected mood and anxiety symptom treatments occurred in the severely affected Christchurch urban area (New Zealand) after the 2010/11 Canterbury earthquakes. High-risk groups are identified and a possible relationship between exposure to the earthquakes and their physical impacts and mood and anxiety symptom treatments is assessed. The main research aim is to test the hypothesis that more severely affected Christchurch residents were more likely to show mood and anxiety symptoms when seeking treatment than less affected ones, in essence, testing for a dose-response relationship. The data consisted of mood and anxiety symptom treatment information from the New Zealand Ministry of Health’s administrative databases and demographic information from the National Health Index (NHI) register, when combined built a unique and rich source for identifying publically funded stress-related treatments for mood and anxiety symptoms in almost the whole population of the study area. The Christchurch urban area within the Christchurch City Council (CCC) boundary was the area of interest in which spatial variations in these treatments were assessed. Spatial and spatio-temporal analyses were done by applying retrospective space-time and spatial variation in temporal trends analysis using SaTScan™ software, and Bayesian hierarchical modelling techniques for disease mapping using WinBUGS software. The thesis identified an overall earthquake-exposure effect on mood and anxiety symptom treatments among Christchurch residents in the context of the earthquakes as they experienced stronger increases in the risk of being treated especially shortly after the catastrophic 2011 Christchurch earthquake compared to the rest of New Zealand. High-risk groups included females, elderly, children and those with a pre-existing mental illness with elderly and children especially at-risk in the context of the earthquakes. Looking at the spatio-temporal distribution of mood and anxiety symptom treatments in the Christchurch urban area, a high rates cluster ranging from the severely affected central city to the southeast was found post-disaster. Analysing residential exposure to various earthquake impacts found that living in closer proximity to more affected areas was identified as a risk factor for mood and anxiety symptom treatments, which largely confirms a dose-response relationship between level of affectedness and mood and anxiety symptom treatments. However, little changes in the spatial distribution of mood and anxiety symptom treatments occurred in the Christchurch urban area over time indicating that these results may have been biased by pre-existing spatial disparities. Additionally, the post-disaster mobility activity from severely affected eastern to the generally less affected western and northern parts of the city seemed to have played an important role as the strongest increases in treatment rates occurred in less affected northern areas of the city, whereas the severely affected eastern areas tended to show the lowest increases. An investigation into the different effects of mobility confirmed that within-city movers and temporary relocatees were generally more likely to receive care or treatment for mood or anxiety symptoms, but moving within the city was identified as a protective factor over time. In contrast, moving out of the city from minor, moderately or severely damaged plain areas of the city, which are generally less affluent than Port Hills areas, was identified as a risk factor in the second year post-disaster. Moreover, residents from less damaged plain areas of the city showed a decrease in the likelihood of receiving care or treatment for mood or anxiety symptoms compared to those from undamaged plain areas over time, which also contradicts a possible dose-response relationship. Finally, the effects of the social and physical environment, as well as community resilience on mood and anxiety symptom treatments among long-term stayers from Christchurch communities indicate an exacerbation of pre-existing mood and anxiety symptom treatment disparities in the city, whereas exposure to ‘felt’ earthquake intensities did not show a statistically significant effect. The findings of this thesis highlight the complex relationship between different levels of exposure to a severe natural disaster and adverse mental health outcomes in a severely affected region. It is one of the few studies that have access to area-wide health and impact information, are able to do a pre-disaster / post-disaster comparison and track their sample population to apply spatial and spatio-temporal analysis techniques for exposure assessment. Thus, this thesis enhances knowledge about the spatio-temporal distribution of adverse mental health outcomes in the context of a severe natural disaster and informs public health care planners, not only about high-risk groups, but also where and when to target health interventions. The results indicate that such programs should broadly target residents living in more affected areas as they are likely to face daily hardship by living in a disrupted environment and may have already been the most vulnerable ones before the disaster. Special attention should be focussed on women, elderly, children and people with pre-existing mental illnesses as they are most likely to receive care or treatment for stress-related mental health symptoms. Moreover, permanent relocatees from affected areas and temporarily relocatees shortly after the disaster may need special attention as they face additional stressors due to the relocation that may lead to the development of adverse mental health outcomes needing treatment.
From 2010, Canterbury, a province of Aotearoa New Zealand, experienced three major disaster events. This study considers the socio-ecological impacts on cross-sectoral suicide prevention agencies and their service users of the 2010 – 2016 Canterbury earthquake sequence, the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic in Canterbury. This study found the prolonged stress caused by these events contributed to a rise in suicide risk factors including anxiety, fear, trauma, distress, alcohol misuse, relationship breakdown, childhood adversity, economic loss and deprivation. The prolonged negative comment by the media on wellbeing in Canterbury was also unhelpful and affected morale. The legacy of these impacts was a rise in referrals to mental health services that has not diminished. This adversity in the socio-ecological system also produced post-traumatic growth, allowing Cantabrians to acquire resilience and help-seeking abilities to support them psychologically through the COVID-19 pandemic. Supporting parental and teacher responses, intergenerational support and targeted public health campaigns, as well as Māori family-centred programmes, strengthened wellbeing. The rise in suicide risk led to the question of what services were required and being delivered in Canterbury and how to enable effective cross-sectoral suicide prevention in Canterbury, deemed essential in all international and national suicide prevention strategies. Components from both the World Health Organisation Suicide Prevention Framework (WHO, 2012; WHO 2021) and the Collective Impact model (Hanleybrown et al., 2012) were considered by participants. The effectiveness of dynamic leadership and the essential conditions of resourcing a supporting agency were found as were the importance of processes that supported equity, lived experience and the partnership of Māori and non-Māori stakeholders. Cross-sectoral suicide prevention was found to enhance the wellbeing of participants, hastening learning, supporting innovation and raising awareness across sectors which might lower stigma. Effective communication was essential in all areas of cross-sectoral suicide prevention and clear action plans enabled measurement of progress. Identified components were combined to create a Collective Impact Suicide Prevention framework that strengthens suicide prevention implementation and can be applied at a local, regional and national level. This study contributes to cross-sectoral suicide prevention planning by considering the socio- ecological, policy and practice mitigations required to lower suicide risk and to increase wellbeing and post-traumatic growth, post-disaster. This study also adds to the growing awareness of the contribution that social work can provide to suicide prevention and conceptualises an alternative governance framework and practice and policy suggestions to support effective cross-sectoral suicide prevention.
The timeliness and quality of recovery activities are impacted by the organisation and human resourcing of the physical works. This research addresses the suitability of different resourcing strategies on post-disaster demolition and debris management programmes. This qualitative analysis primarily draws on five international case studies including 2010 Canterbury earthquake, 2009 L’Aquila earthquake, 2009 Samoan Tsunami, 2009 Victorian Bushfires and 2005 Hurricane Katrina. The implementation strategies are divided into two categories: collectively and individually facilitated works. The impacts of the implementation strategies chosen are assessed for all disaster waste management activities including demolition, waste collection, transportation, treatment and waste disposal. The impacts assessed include: timeliness, completeness of projects; and environmental, economic and social impacts. Generally, the case studies demonstrate that detritus waste removal and debris from major repair work is managed at an individual property level. Debris collection, demolition and disposal are generally and most effectively carried out as a collective activity. However, implementation strategies are affected by contextual factors (such as funding and legal constraints) and the nature of the disaster waste (degree of hazardous waste, geographical spread of waste etc.) and need to be designed accordingly. Community involvement in recovery activities such as demolition and debris removal is shown to contribute positively to psychosocial recovery.
INTRODUCTION This project falls under the Flagship 3: Wellington Coordinated Project. It supports other projects within FP3 to create a holistic understanding of risks posed by collapsed buildings due to future earthquake/s and the secondary consequences of cordoning in the short, mid and long term. Cordoning of the Christchurch CBD for more than two years and its subsequent implications on people and businesses had a significant impact on the recovery of Christchurch. Learning from this and experiences from the Kaikōura earthquake (where cordons were also established around selected buildings, Figure 3) have highlighted the need to understand the effects of cordons and plan for it before an earthquake occurs
Improving community resilience requires a way of thinking about the nature of a community. Two complementary aspects are proposed: the flows connecting the community with its surrounding environment and the resources the community needs for its ongoing life. The body of necessary resources is complex, with many interactions between its elements. A systems approach is required to understand the issues adequately. Community resilience is discussed in general terms together with strategies for improving it. The ideas are then illustrated and amplified by an extended case study addressing means of improving the resilience of a community on the West Coast of New Zealand to natural disasters. The case study is in two phases. The first relies on a mix of on-the-ground observations and constructed scenarios to provide recommendations for enhancing community resilience, while the second complements the first by developing a set of general lessons and issues to be addressed from observations of the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010 and 2011.
The affect that the Christchurch Earthquake Sequence(CES) had on Christchurch residents was severe, and the consequences are still being felt today. The Ōtākaro Avon River Corridor (OARC) was particularly impacted, a geographic zone that had over 7,000 homes which needed to be vacated and demolished. The CES demonstrated how disastrous a natural hazard can be on unprepared communities. With the increasing volatility of climate change being felt around the world, considering ways in which communities can reduce their vulnerabilities to natural hazards is vital. This research explores how communities can reduce their vulnerabilities to natural hazards by becoming more adaptable, and in particular the extent to which tiny homes could facilitate the development of adaptive communities. In doing so, three main themes were explored throughout this research: (1) tiny homes, (2) environmental adaptation and (3) community adaptability. To ensure that it is relevant and provides real value to the local community, the research draws upon the local case study of the Riverlution Tiny House Village(RTHV), an innovative community approach to adaptable, affordable, low-impact, sustainable living on margins of land which are no longer suitable for permanent housing. The main findings of the research are that Christchurch is at risk of climate change and natural hazards and it is therefore important to consider ways in which communities can stay intact and connected while adapting to the risks they face. Tiny homes provide an effective way of doing so, as they represent a tangible way that people can take adaptation into their own hands while maintaining a high-quality lifestyle.
Study region: Christchurch, New Zealand. Study focus: Low-lying coastal cities worldwide are vulnerable to shallow groundwater salinization caused by saltwater intrusion and anthropogenic activities. Shallow groundwater salinization can have cascading negative impacts on municipal assets, but this is rarely considered compared to impacts of salinization on water supply. Here, shallow groundwater salinity was sampled at high spatial resolution (1.3 piezometer/km2 ), then mapped and spatially interpolated. This was possible due to a uniquely extensive set of shallow piezometers installed in response to the 2010–11 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence to assess liquefaction risk. The municipal assets located within the brackish groundwater areas were highlighted. New hydrological insights for the region: Brackish groundwater areas were centred on a spit of coastal sand dunes and inside the meander of a tidal river with poorly drained soils. The municipal assets located within these areas include: (i) wastewater and stormwater pipes constructed from steel-reinforced concrete, which, if damaged, are vulnerable to premature failure when exposed to chloride underwater, and (ii) 41 parks and reserves totalling 236 ha, within which salt-intolerant groundwater-dependent species are at risk. This research highlights the importance of determining areas of saline shallow groundwater in low-lying coastal urban settings and the co-located municipal assets to allow the prioritisation of sites for future monitoring and management.
Under the framework of New Public Management, the government has decentralised the responsibility for Disaster Risk Management (DRM) to regional, local, and community levels in New Zealand. This decentralisation serves political agendas related to resource allocation and is supported by empirical evidence suggesting that involving communities in DRM during recovery decision-making enhances disaster resilience. Extensive evidence indicates that community participation in DRM, especially during recovery decision-making, can significantly improve recovery outcomes at the community level. However, there has been limited research into whether the legal framework in New Zealand effectively facilitates meaningful public engagement to empower the public in influencing disaster recovery decisions. To address this gap in the literature, this thesis aims to explore the extent to which legislative and governance arrangements transfer the responsibility, liability, and costs of managing disaster risks to local levels without enabling meaningful public contribution to and influence on recovery decisions affecting them. Situated within Public Law and Disaster Risk and Resilience disciplines and using a case study of Greater Christchurch, New Zealand, this interdisciplinary thesis examines both common law and statutory provisions in the legal framework impacting public engagement before and during recovery from the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence. In particular, this thesis assesses how legislative, and governance frameworks influenced communities’ ability to influence recovery decision-making following the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES). This thesis shows that before the CES, the New Zealand public engagement system closely adhered to the common law principle of the ‘duty to consult’, which remains the current legal standard. This principle required decision-makers to use the 'public notice and comment' approach as a minimum, limiting meaningful community participation in decision-making. After the earthquakes, reliance on this traditional approach caused growing frustration and division locally, as the public struggled to effectively engage in and influence recovery decisions, resulting in new community activism. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act (CER Act), introduced following the Christchurch Earthquake, included innovative provisions on public engagement. However, for various reasons, this Act appeared to have minimal impact on meaningful public engagement in recovery decision-making, which continued to align with the broader, existing public engagement system and associated norms. The empirical findings indicate that despite the novel legislative language, the traditional public engagement framework in New Zealand constrained effective engagement, leading to a broader erosion of trust between the public and the government. This was largely attributed to the default ‘public notice and comment’ approach at the local government level, with inadequate mechanisms for community engagement in central government decision-making shaping the expectations of recovery decision-makers still operating within this framework. Notable departures from this traditional approach were evident in the practices of the Waimakariri District Council and Christchurch City Council. Particularly noteworthy was the ‘Share an Idea’ public engagement campaign. Unlike conventional processes, it did not commence with a near-final or draft document. Instead, it utilised participatory mechanisms that fostered meaningful dialogue, enabling the public to significantly shape the content of the draft Christchurch Central Recovery Plan. The initial success of such participatory engagement underscores its potential effectiveness throughout the entire recovery planning process, an option that was not exercised by the central government. In conclusion, this thesis argues that New Zealand should move beyond the entrenched ‘public notice and comment’ approach and adopt more open and inclusive public participation mechanisms. It contends that supplementing this approach with proactive participatory methods before disasters could yield favorable outcomes during disaster recovery, thereby ensuring meaningful public involvement in future decisions that affect communities.
1. INTRODUCTION. Earthquakes and geohazards, such as liquefaction, landslides and rock falls, constitute a major risk for New Zealand communities and can have devastating impacts as the Canterbury 2010/2011 experience shows. Development patterns expose communities to an array of natural hazards, including tsunamis, floods, droughts, and sea level rise amongst others. Fostering community resilience is therefore vitally important. As the rhetoric of resilience is mainstreamed into the statutory framework, a major challenge emerges: how can New Zealand operationalize this complex and sometimes contested concept and build ‘community capitals’? This research seeks to provide insights to this question by critically evaluating how community capitals are conceptualized and how they can contribute to community resilience in the context of the Waimakariri District earthquake recovery and regeneration process.
Worldwide turbidity is a huge concern for the health of aquatic ecosystems. Human activities on the land such as construction, deforestation, agriculture, and mining all have impacts on the amount of particulate solids that enter the world’s waterways. These particulate solids can pose a number of risks to aquatic life, but primary among them is the turbidity that they create in the water column. The way suspended solids interact with light creates cloudiness in the water which interferes with the vision, and visually mediated behaviours of aquatic organisms, particularly fish. The Avon-Heathcote estuary of Christchurch, New Zealand, is one such body of water that is subject to tremendous variation in turbidity, no doubt exacerbated by the destruction of Christchurch in the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes, as well as the subsequent ongoing rebuild. The yellow eyed mullet, Aldrichetta Forsteri, is one species that is common with the estuary, and uses it as a habitat for breeding. Though very common throughout New Zealand, and even a part of the catch of commercial fisheries, the yellow eyed mullet is a largely unstudied organism, with virtually no published scientific enquiry based on the species. The present work assesses how several behaviours of the yellow eyed mullet are effected by acute turbidity at 10, 50, 90, 130 and 170 NTU, finding that: 1) The optomotor response of mullet to 2.5 mm stripes drops to insignificant levels between 10 and 50 NTU, 2) The swimming activity of the yellow eyed mullet is highest at 10 NTU and drops to a significantly lower level at higher turbidities, 3) The grouping behaviour of small groups of yellow eyed mullet are unchanged by increasing turbidity levels, 4) that yellow eyed mullet do not exhibit significantly different behavioural response to a simulated predator at any of the tested turbidities, and 5) that yellow eyed mullet to do significantly alter their oxygen consumption during exposure to the turbidities in an increasing series. The results presented in these studies indicate that turbidites above 50 NTU pose a significant risk to the lifestyle of the yellow eyed mullet, potentially impacting their ability to perceive their surroundings, feed, school, and avoid predation. Future work has a lot of ground to cover to more precisely determine the relationship between yellow eyed mullet behaviour and physiology, and the turbidity of their environment. In particular, future work should focus more closely on the turbidities between 10 and 50 NTU, as well as looking to field work to see what the predominant predators of the mullet are, and specifically whether turbidity increases or decreases the risk of mullet being subject to avian predation. There is also considerable scope for studies on the effects of chronic turbidity upon mullet, which will add understand to the predicament of escalating turbidity and its effects upon this common and yet mysterious native fish.
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.
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.
Recent surface-rupturing earthquakes in New Zealand have highlighted significant exposure and vulnerability of the road network to fault displacement. Understanding fault displacement hazard and its impact on roads is crucial for mitigating risks and enhancing resilience. There is a need for regional-scale assessments of fault displacement to identify vulnerable areas within the road network for the purposes of planning and prioritising site-specific investigations. This thesis employs updated analysis of data from three historical surface-rupturing earthquakes (Edgecumbe 1987, Darfield 2010, and Kaikoūra 2016) to develop an empirical model that addresses the gap in regional fault displacement hazard analysis. The findings contribute to understanding of • How to use seismic hazard model inputs for regional fault displacement hazard analysis • How faulting type and sediment cover affects the magnitude and spatial distribution of fault displacement • How the distribution of displacement and regional fault displacement hazard is impacted by secondary faulting • The inherent uncertainties and limitations associated with employing an empirical approach at a regional scale • Which sections of New Zealand’s roading network are most susceptible to fault displacement hazard and warrant site-specific investigations • Which regions should prioritise updating emergency management plans to account for post-event disruptions to roading. I used displacement data from the aforementioned historical ruptures to generate displacement versus distance-to-fault curves for various displacement components, fault types, and geological characteristics. Using those relationships and established relationships for along-strike displacement, displacement contours were generated surrounding active faults within the NZ Community Fault Model. Next, I calculated a new measure of 1D strain along roads as well as relative hazard, which integrated 1D strain and normalised slip rate data. Summing these values at the regional level identified areas of heightened relative hazard across New Zealand, and permits an assessment of the susceptibility of road networks using geomorphon land classes as proxies for vulnerability. The results reveal that fault-parallel displacements tend to localise near the fault plane, while vertical and fault-perpendicular displacements sustain over extended distances. Notably, no significant disparities were observed in off-fault displacement between the hanging wall and footwall sides of the fault, or among different surface geology types, potentially attributed to dataset biases. The presence of secondary faulting in the dataset contributes to increased levels of tectonic displacement farther from the fault, highlighting its significance in hazard assessments. Furthermore, fault displacement contours delineate broader zones around dip-slip faults compared to strike-slip faults, with correlations identified between fault length and displacement width. Road ‘strain’ values are higher around dip-slip faults, with notable examples observed in the Westland and Buller Districts. As expected, relative hazard analysis revealed elevated values along faults with high slip rates, notably along the Alpine Fault. A regional-scale analysis of hazard and exposure reveals heightened relative hazard in specific regions, including Wellington, Southern Hawke’s Bay, Central Bay of Plenty, Central West Coast, inland Canterbury, and the Wairau Valley of Marlborough. Notably, the Central West Coast exhibits the highest summed relative hazard value, attributed to the fast-slipping Alpine Fault. The South Island generally experiences greater relative hazard due to larger and faster-slipping faults compared to the North Island, despite having fewer roads. Central regions of New Zealand face heightened risk compared to Southern or Northern regions. Critical road links intersecting high-slipping faults, such as State Highways 6, 73, 1, and 2, necessitate prioritisation for site-specific assessments, emergency management planning and targeted mitigation strategies. Roads intersecting with the Alpine Fault are prone to large parallel displacements, requiring post-quake repair efforts. Mitigation strategies include future road avoidance of nearby faults, modification of road fill and surface material, and acknowledgement of inherent risk, leading to prioritised repair efforts of critical roads post-quake. Implementing these strategies enhances emergency response efforts by improving accessibility to isolated regions following a major surface-rupturing event, facilitating faster supply delivery and evacuation assistance. This thesis contributes to the advancement of understanding fault displacement hazard by introducing a novel regional, empirical approach. The methods and findings highlight the importance of further developing such analyses and extending them to other critical infrastructure types exposed to fault displacement hazard in New Zealand. Enhancing our comprehension of the risks associated with fault displacement hazard offers valuable insights into various mitigation strategies for roading infrastructure and informs emergency response planning, thereby enhancing both national and global infrastructure resilience against geological hazards.
Over 6.3 million waste tyres are produced annually in New Zealand (Tyrewise, 2021), leading to socioeconomic and environmental concerns. The 2010-11 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence inflicted extensive damage to ~6,000 residential buildings, highlighting the need to improve the seismic resilience of the residential housing sector. A cost-effective and sustainable eco-rubber geotechnical seismic isolation (ERGSI) foundation system for new low-rise buildings was developed by the authors. The ERGSI system integrates a horizontal geotechnical seismic isolation (GSI) layer i.e., a deformable seismic energy dissipative filter made of granulated tyre rubber (GTR) and gravel (G) – and a flexible rubberised concrete raft footing. Geotechnical experimental and numerical investigations demonstrated the effectiveness of the ERGSI system in reducing the seismic demand at the foundation level (i.e., reduced peak ground acceleration) (Hernandez et al., 2019; Tasalloti et al., 2021). However, it is essential to ensure that the ERGSI system has minimal leaching attributes and does not result in long-term negative impacts on the environment.
Elevated levels of trace elements in the environment are of great concern because of their persistence, and their high potential to harm living organisms. The exposure of aquatic biota to trace elements can lead to bioaccumulation, and toxicity can result. Furthermore, the transfer of these elements through food chains can result in exposure to human consumers. Sea-fill or coastal fill sites are among the major anthropogenic sources of trace elements to the surrounding marine environment. For example, in the Maldives, Thilafushi Island is a sea-fill site consisting of assorted municipal solid waste, with multiple potential sources of trace elements. However, there is limited data on environmental trace element levels in the Maldives, and although seafood is harvested from close to this site, there is no existing data regarding trace element levels in Maldivian diets. Following the Christchurch earthquakes of 2011,
Many contemporary urban communities are challenged by increased flood risks and rising temperatures, declining water quality and biodiversity, and reduced mental, physical, cultural and social wellbeing. The development of urban blue-green infrastructure (BGI), defined as networks of natural and semi-natural blue-green spaces which enable healthy ecosystem processes, has been identified as one approach to mitigate these challenges and enable more liveable cities. Multiple benefits associated with urban BGI have been identified, including reduced flood risk and temperatures, improved water quality and biodiversity, enhanced mental and physical wellbeing, strengthened social cohesion and sense of place, and the facilitation of cultural connections and practices. However, socio-cultural benefits have tended to be neglected in BGI research and design, resulting in a lack of awareness of how they may be maximised in BGI design. As such, this research sought to understand how BGI can best be designed to enable liveable cities. Four questions were considered: (i) what benefits are associated with urban BGI, (ii) how does the design process influence the benefits achieved by BGI, (iii) what challenges are encountered during BGI design, and (iv) how might the incorporation of communities and Indigenous knowledge into BGI research and design enhance current understandings and applications of urban BGI? To address these questions, a mixed methods case study approach was employed in Ōtautahi Christchurch and Kaiapoi. The four selected case studies were Te Oranga Waikura, Wigram Basin, Te Kuru and the Kaiapoi Honda Forest. The cases are all council owned urban wetlands which were primarily designed or retrofitted to reduce urban flood risks following the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence. To investigate BGI design processes in each case, as well as how communities interact with, value and benefit from these spaces. BGI projects were found to be designed by interdisciplinary design teams driven by stormwater engineers, landscape architects and ecologists which prioritised bio-physical outcomes. Further, community and Indigenous engagement approaches closely resembled consultation, with the exception of Te Kuru which employed a co-design approach between councils and Indigenous and community groups. This co-design approach was found to enhance current understandings and applications of urban BGI, while uncovering multiple socio-cultural values to be incorporated into design, such as access to cultural healing resources, increased community connections to water, and facilitating cultural monitoring methodologies and citizen science initiatives. Communities frequently identified the opportunity to connect with natural environments and enhanced mental and physical wellbeing as key benefits of BGI. Conversely, strengthened social cohesion, sense of place and cultural connections were infrequently identified as benefits, if at all. This finding indicates a disconnect between the bio-physical benefits which drive BGI design and the outcomes which communities value. As such, there is a need for future BGI design to more fully consider and design for socio- cultural outcomes to better enable liveable cities. To better design BGI to enhance urban liveability, this research makes three key contributions. First, there is a need to advance current approaches to transdisciplinary design to better account for the full scope of perspectives and values associated with BGI. Second, there is a need to transition towards relational co-design with Indigenous and community groups and knowledge. Third, it is important to continue to monitor, reflect on and share both positive and negative BGI design experiences to continually improve outcomes. The incorporation of social and cultural researchers, knowledges and perspectives into open and collaborative transdisciplinary design teams is identified as a key method to achieve these opportunities.
The UC CEISMIC Canterbury Earthquakes Digital Archive contains tens of thousands of high value cultural heritage items related to a long series of earthquakes that hit Canterbury, New Zealand, from 2010 - 2012. The archive was built by a Digital Humanities team located at the center of the disaster in New Zealand's second largest city, Christchurch. The project quickly became complex, not only in its technical aspects but in its governance and general management. This talk will provide insight into the national and international management and governance frameworks used to successfully build and deliver the archive into operation. Issues that needed to be managed included human ethics, research ethics, stakeholder management, communications, risk management, curation and ingestion policy, copyright and content licensing, and project governance. The team drew heavily on industry-standard project management methods for the basic approach, but built their ecosystem and stakeholder trust on principles derived directly form the global digital humanities community.
The 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence, and the resulting extensive data sets on damaged buildings that have been collected, provide a unique opportunity to exercise and evaluate previously published seismic performance assessment procedures. This poster provides an overview of the authors’ methodology to perform evaluations with two such assessment procedures, namely the P-58 guidelines and the REDi Rating System. P-58, produced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the United States, aims to facilitate risk assessment and decision-making by quantifying earthquake ground shaking, structural demands, component damage and resulting consequences in a logical framework. The REDi framework, developed by the engineering firm ARUP, aids stakeholders in implementing resilience-based earthquake design. Preliminary results from the evaluations are presented. These have the potential to provide insights on the ability of the assessment procedures to predict impacts using “real-world” data. However, further work remains to critically analyse these results and to broaden the scope of buildings studied and of impacts predicted.
Effective management of waste and debris generated by a disaster event is vital to ensure rapid and efficient response and recovery that supports disaster risk reduction (DRR). Disaster waste refers to any stream of debris that is created from a natural disaster that impacts the environment, infrastructure, and property. This waste can be problematic due to extensive volumes, environmental contamination and pollution, public health risks, and the disruption of response and recovery efforts. Due to the complexities in dealing with these diverse and voluminous materials, having disaster waste management (DWM) planning in place pre-event is crucial. In particular, coordinated, interagency plans that have been informed by estimates of waste volumes and types are vital to ensure management facilities, personnel, and recovery resources do not become overwhelmed. Globally, a priority when formulating DWM plans is the robust estimation of disaster waste stream types and volumes. This is a relatively under-researched area, despite the growing risk of natural disasters and increasingly inadequate waste management facilities. In Aotearoa New Zealand, a nation-wide DWM planning tool has been proposed for local government use, and waste amounts from events such as the Christchurch Earthquakes have been estimated. However, there has been little work undertaken to estimate waste types and volumes with a region-specific, multi-hazard focus, which is required to facilitate detailed regional DWM planning. This research provides estimates of potential disaster waste volumes and types in the Waitaha-Canterbury region of the South Island (Te Waipounamu) for three key hazard scenarios: a M8.0 Alpine Fault earthquake with a south-to-north rupture pattern, a far-sourced tsunami using a maximum credible event model for a Peru-sourced event, and major flooding using geospatial datasets taken from available local government modelling. Conducted in partnership with Environment Canterbury and Canterbury CDEM, this estimation work informed stakeholder engagement through multi-agency workshops at the district level. This research was comprised of two key parts. The first was enhancing and extending a disaster waste estimation model used in Wellington and applying it to the Canterbury region to quantify waste volumes and types. The second part was using this model and its estimates to inform engagement with stakeholders in multi-agency, district-level workshops in Kaikōura, Hurunui, and Waimakariri. In these workshops, the waste estimates were used to catalyse discussion around potential issues associated with the management of disaster waste. Regionally, model estimates showed that the earthquake scenario would generate the highest total volume of disaster waste (1.94 million m³), compared to the tsunami scenario (1.89 million m³) and the flood scenario (173,900 m³). Flood waste estimates are likely underrepresented due to limited flood modelling coverage, but still provide a valuable comparison. Whilst waste estimates differ significantly between districts, waste volumes were shown to be not solely dependent on building/population density. The district-level workshops showed that DWM challenges revolved around logistical constraints, public concerns, governance complexities, and environmental issues. Future work should further enhance this estimation model and apply it to other regions of Aotearoa New Zealand, to help develop a set of cohesive DWM plans for each region. The waste estimation model could also be adapted and applied internationally. The findings from this research provide a foundation for advancing DWM planning and stakeholder engagement in the Waitaha-Canterbury region. By offering region-specific waste estimates across multiple hazard scenarios, this work supports district councils and emergency managers in developing informed, proactive strategies for disaster preparedness and response. The insights gained from district-level workshops highlight key challenges that must be addressed in future planning. These outcomes contribute to a broader research agenda for DWM in Aotearoa New Zealand, and offer a framework adaptable to international contexts.
In 2016, the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Act 2016 was introduced to address the issue of seismic vulnerability amongst existing buildings in Aotearoa New Zealand. This Act introduced a mandatory scheme to remediate buildings deemed particularly vulnerable to seismic hazard, as recommended by the 2012 Royal Commission into the Canterbury earthquake sequence of 2010–2011. This Earthquake-prone Building (EPB) framework is unusual internationally for the mandatory obligations that it introduces. This article explores and critiques the operation of the scheme in practice through an examination of its implementation provisions and the experiences of more recent seismic events (confirmed by engineering research). This analysis leads to the conclusion that the operation of the current scheme and particularly the application of the concept of EPB vulnerability excludes large numbers of (primarily urban) buildings which pose a significant risk in the event of a significant (but expected) seismic event. As a result, the EPB scheme fails to achieve its goals and instead may create a false impression that it does so
The Canterbury earthquakes and the rebuild are generation-defining events for twenty-first century Aotearoa/ New Zealand. This article uses an actor network approach to explore 32 women’s narratives of being shaken into dangerous disaster situations and reconstituting themselves to cope in socially innovative ways. The women’s stories articulate on-going collective narratives of experiencing disaster and coping with loss in ‘resilient’ ways. In these women’s experiences, coping in disasters is not achieved by talking through the emotional trauma. Instead, coping comes from seeking solace through engagement with one’s own and others’ personal risk and resourcefulness in ways that feed into the emergence of socially innovative voluntary organisations. These stories offer conceptual insight into the multivalent interconnections between resilience and vulnerabilities and the contested nature of post-disaster recovery in Aotearoa/New Zealand. These women gave voice to living through disasters resiliently in ways that forged new networks of support across collective and personal narratives and broader social goals and aspirations for Aotearoa/New Zealand’s future.
This article argues that active coordination of research engagement after disasters has the potential to maximize research opportunities, improve research quality, increase end-user engagement, and manage escalating research activity to mitigate ethical risks posed to impacted populations. The focus is on the coordination of research activity after the 22nd February 2011 Mw6.2 Christchurch earthquake by the then newly-formed national research consortium, the Natural Hazards Research Platform, which included a social science research moratorium during the declared state of national emergency. Decisions defining this organisation’s functional and structural parameters are analyzed to identify lessons concerning the need for systematic approaches to the management of post disaster research, in collaboration with the response effort. Other lessons include the importance of involving an existing, broadly-based research consortium, ensuring that this consortium's coordination role is fully integrated into emergency management structures, and ensuring that all aspects of decision-making processes are transparent and easily accessed.
The Canterbury Region is susceptible to a variety of natural hazards, including earthquakes, landslides and climate hazards. Increasing population and tourism within the region is driving development pressures and as more and more development occurs, the risk from natural hazards increases. In order to avoid development occurring in unacceptably vulnerable locations, natural hazard assessments are required. This study is a reconnaissance natural hazard assessment of Lakes Lyndon, Coleridge and Tekapo. There is restricted potential for development at Lake Lyndon, because the land surrounding the lake is owned by the Crown and has a number of development restrictions. However, there is the potential for conservation or recreation-linked development to occur. There is more potential for development at Lake Coleridge. Most of the land surrounding the lake is privately owned and has less development restrictions. The majority of land surrounding Lake Tekapo is divided into Crown-owned pastoral leases, which are protected from development, such as subdivision. However, there are substantial areas around the lake, which are privately owned and, therefore, have potential for development. Earthquake, landslide and climate hazards are the main natural hazards threatening Lakes Lyndon, Coleridge and Tekapo. The lakes are situated in a zone of active earth deformation in which large and relatively frequent earthquakes are produced. A large number of active faults lie within 15 km of each lake, which are capable of producing M7 or larger earthquakes. Ground shaking, liquefaction, landslides, tsunami and seiches are among the consequences of earthquakes, all of which have the potential to cause severe damage to lives, lifelines and infrastructure. Landslides are also common in the landscape surrounding the lakes. The majority of slopes surrounding the lakes are at significant risk from earthquake-induced failure under moderate to strong earthquake shaking. This level of shaking is expected to occur in any 50 year period around Lakes Lyndon and Coleridge, and in any 150 year period around Lake Tekapo. Injuries, fatalities and property damage can occur directly from landslide impact or from indirect effects such as flooding from landslide-generated tsunami or from landslide dam outbreaks. Lakes Lyndon, Coleridge and Tekapo are also susceptible to climate hazards, such as high winds, drought, heavy snowfall and heavy rainfall, which can lead to landslides and flooding. Future climate change due to global warming is most likely going to affect patterns of frequency and magnitudes of extreme weather events, leading to an increase in climate hazards. Before development is permitted around the lakes, it is essential that each of these hazards is considered so that unacceptably vulnerable areas can be avoided.
There are many things that organisations of any size can do to prepare for a disaster or crisis. Traditionally, the advice given to business has focused on identifying risks, reducing their likely occurrence, and planning in advance how to respond. More recently, there is growing interest in the broader concept of organisational resilience which includes planning for crisis but also considers traits that lead to organisational adaptability and ability to thrive despite adverse circumstances. In this paper we examine the policy frameworks1 within New Zealand that influence the resilience of small and medium sized businesses (SMEs). The first part of the paper focuses on the New Zealand context, including the prevailing political and economic ideologies, the general nature of New Zealand SMEs and the nature of New Zealand’s hazard environment. The paper then goes on to outline the key policy frameworks in place relevant to SMEs and hazards. The final part of the paper examines the way the preexisting policy environment influenced the response of SMEs and Government following the Canterbury earthquakes.
In the wake of the Canterbury earthquakes, one of the biggest threats to our heritage buildings is the risk of earthquakes and the associated drive to strengthen or demolish buildings. Can Small Town NZ balance the requirements of the EQPB legislation and economic realities of their places? The government’s priority is on safety of building occupants and citizens in the streets. However, maintaining and strengthening privately-owned heritage buildings is often cost prohibitive. Hence, heritage regulation has frequently been perceived as interfering with private property rights, especially when heritage buildings occupy a special place in the community becoming an important place for people (i.e. public benefits are larger than private). We investigate several case studies where building owners have been given green light to demolish heritage listed buildings to make way for modern developments. In two of the case studies developers provided evidence of unaffordable strengthening costs. A new trend that has emerged is a voluntary offer of contributing to an incentive fund to assist with heritage preservation of other buildings. This is a unique example where private owners offer incentives (via council controlled organisations) instead of it being purely the domain of the central or local governments.
In response to the February 2011 earthquake, Parliament enacted the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act. This emergency legislation provided the executive with extreme powers that extended well beyond the initial emergency response and into the recovery phase. Although New Zealand has the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002, it was unable to cope with the scale and intensity of the Canterbury earthquake sequence. Considering the well-known geological risk facing the Wellington region, this paper will consider whether a standalone “Disaster Recovery Act” should be established to separate an emergency and its response from the recovery phase. Currently, Government policy is to respond reactively to a disaster rather than proactively. In a major event, this typically involves the executive being given the ability to make rules, regulations and policy without the delay or oversight of normal legislative process. In the first part of this paper, I will canvas what a “Disaster Recovery Act” could prescribe and why there is a need to separate recovery from emergency. Secondly, I will consider the shortfalls in the current civil defence recovery framework which necessitates this kind of heavy governmental response after a disaster. In the final section, I will examine how
