Small, tight-knit communities, are complex to manage from outside during a disaster. The township of Lyttelton, New Zealand, and the communities of Corsair Bay, Cass Bay, and Rapaki to the east, are especially more so difficult due to the terrain that encloses them, which caused them to be cut-off from Christchurch, the largest city in the South Island, barely 10 km away, after the Mw 7.1 Darfield Earthquake and subsequent Canterbury Earthquake Sequence. Lyttelton has a very strong and deep-rooted community spirit that draws people to want to be a part of Lyttelton life. It is predominantly residential on the slopes, with retail space, service and light industry nestled near the harbour. It has heritage buildings stretching back to the very foundation of Canterbury yet hosts the largest, modern deep-water port for the region. This study contains two surveys: one circulated shortly before the Darfield Earthquake and one circulated in July 2011, after the Christchurch and Sumner Earthquakes. An analytical comparison of the participants’ household preparedness for disaster before the Darfield Earthquake and after the Christchurch and Sumner Earthquakes was performed. A population spatiotemporal distribution map was produced that shows the population in three-hourly increments over a week to inform exposure to vulnerability to natural hazards. The study went on to analyse the responses of the participants in the immediate period following the Chrsitchurch and Sumner Earthquakes, including their homeward and subsequent journeys, and the decision to evacuate or stay in their homes. Possible predictors to a decision to evacuate some or all members of the household were tested. The study also asked participants’ views on the events since September 2010 for analysis.
Lake Taupō in New Zealand is associated with frequent unrest and small to moderate eruptions. It presents a high consequence risk scenario with immense potential for destruction to the community and the surrounding environment. Unrest associated with eruptions may also trigger earthquakes. While it is challenging to educate people about the hazards and risks associated with multiple eruptive scenarios, effective education of students can lead to better mitigation strategies and risk reduction. Digital resources with user-directed outcomes have been successfully used to teach action oriented skills relevant for communication during volcanic crisis [4]. However, the use of choose your own adventure strategies to enhance low probability risk literacy for Secondary school outreach has not been fully explored. To investigate how digital narrative storytelling can mediate caldera risk literacy, a module “The Kid who cried Supervolcano” will be introduced in two secondary school classrooms in Christchurch and Rotorua. The module highlights four learning objectives: (a) Super-volcanoes are beautiful but can be dangerous (b) earthquake (unrest) activity is normal for super-volcanoes (c) Small eruptions are possible from super-volcanoes and can be dangerous in our lifetimes (d) Super-eruptions are unlikely in our lifetimes. Students will create their digital narrative using the platform Elementari (www.elementari.io). The findings from this study will provide clear understanding of students’ understanding of risk perceptions of volcanic eruption scenarios and associated hazards and inform the design of educational resources geared towards caldera risk literacy.
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.
In September 2010 and February 2011, the Canterbury region experienced devastating earthquakes with an estimated economic cost of over NZ$40 billion (Parker and Steenkamp, 2012; Timar et al., 2014; Potter et al., 2015). The insurance market played an important role in rebuilding the Canterbury region after the earthquakes. Homeowners, insurance and reinsurance markets and New Zealand government agencies faced a difficult task to manage the rebuild process. From an empirical and theoretic research viewpoint, the Christchurch disaster calls for an assessment of how the insurance market deals with such disasters in the future. Previous studies have investigated market responses to losses in global catastrophes by focusing on the insurance supply-side. This study investigates both demand-side and supply-side insurance market responses to the Christchurch earthquakes. Despite the fact that New Zealand is prone to seismic activities, there are scant previous studies in the area of earthquake insurance. This study does offer a unique opportunity to examine and document the New Zealand insurance market response to catastrophe risk, providing results critical for understanding market responses after major loss events in general. A review of previous studies shows higher premiums suppress demand, but how higher premiums and a higher probability of risk affect demand is still largely unknown. According to previous studies, the supply of disaster coverage is curtailed unless the market is subsidised, however, there is still unsettled discussion on why demand decreases with time from the previous disaster even when the supply of coverage is subsidised by the government. Natural disaster risks pose a set of challenges for insurance market players because of substantial ambiguity associated with the probability of such events occurring and high spatial correlation of catastrophe losses. Private insurance market inefficiencies due to high premiums and spatially concentrated risks calls for government intervention in the provision of natural disaster insurance to avert situations of noninsurance and underinsurance. Political economy considerations make it more likely for government support to be called for if many people are uninsured than if few people are uninsured. However, emergency assistance for property owners after catastrophe events can encourage most property owners to not buy insurance against natural disaster and develop adverse selection behaviour, generating larger future risks for homeowners and governments. On the demand-side, this study has developed an intertemporal model to examine how demand for insurance changes post-catastrophe, and how to model it theoretically. In this intertemporal model, insurance can be sought in two sequential periods of time, and at the second period, it is known whether or not a loss event happened in period one. The results show that period one demand for insurance increases relative to the standard single period model when the second period is taken into consideration, period two insurance demand is higher post-loss, higher than both the period one demand and the period two demand without a period one loss. To investigate policyholders experience from the demand-side perspective, a total of 1600 survey questionnaires were administered, and responses from 254 participants received representing a 16 percent response rate. Survey data was gathered from four institutions in Canterbury and is probably not representative of the entire population. The results of the survey show that the change from full replacement value policy to nominated replacement value policy is a key determinant of the direction of change in the level of insurance coverage after the earthquakes. The earthquakes also highlighted the plight of those who were underinsured, prompting policyholders to update their insurance coverage to reflect the estimated cost of re-building their property. The survey has added further evidence to the existing literature, such as those who have had a recent experience with disaster loss report increased risk perception if a similar event happens in future with females reporting a higher risk perception than males. Of the demographic variables, only gender has a relationship with changes in household cover. On the supply-side, this study has built a risk-based pricing model suitable to generate a competitive premium rate for natural disaster insurance cover. Using illustrative data from the Christchurch Red-zone suburbs, the model generates competitive premium rates for catastrophe risk. When the proposed model incorporates the new RMS high-definition New Zealand Earthquake Model, for example, insurers can find the model useful to identify losses at a granular level so as to calculate the competitive premium. This study observes that the key to the success of the New Zealand dual insurance system despite the high prevalence of catastrophe losses are; firstly the EQC’s flat-rate pricing structure keeps private insurance premiums affordable and very high nationwide homeowner take-up rates of natural disaster insurance. Secondly, private insurers and the EQC have an elaborate reinsurance arrangement in place. By efficiently transferring risk to the reinsurer, the cost of writing primary insurance is considerably reduced ultimately expanding primary insurance capacity and supply of insurance coverage.
Tertiary students, not just working populations, might be experiencing feelings of burnout following the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. In the aftermath of a major disaster, the gap between the resources available to handle pressures (e.g., support) and the demands inherent in the pursuit of an academic degree (e.g., heavy workload) may lead to feelings of burnout among students. This study hypothesised that burnout dimensions (emotional exhaustion and disengagement) would be related to students’ perceptions of immediate institutional support, extended institutional support, peer support, family support, and work overload. Additionally, it was proposed that institutional and social support would moderate the relationship between work overload and burnout. Two hundred and seventy one third and fourth year students were sampled using an online questionnaire. These particular students were expected to be at greater risk of emotional exhaustion and academic disengagement because they were at the earliest stage of their tertiary education when the major earthquakes first hit. Family support and extended institutional support were found to be associated with decreased levels of emotional exhaustion and disengagement. Meanwhile, work overload was found to be related to increased levels of emotional exhaustion and disengagement. Furthermore, both peer support and immediate institutional support were found to have a moderating effect on the relationship between work overload and disengagement. This study has exposed unique findings which contribute to burnout research especially in a post-disaster context, and raises the importance of providing the right types of support for individuals who are particularly dealing with the consequences of a natural disaster.
New Zealand has a long tradition of using light timber frame for construction of its domestic dwellings. After the most recent earthquakes (e.g. Canterbury earthquakes sequence), wooden residential houses showed satisfactory life safety performance. However, poor performance was reported in terms of their seismic resilience. Although numerous innovative methods to mitigate damage have been introduced to the New Zealand community in order to improve wooden house performance, these retrofit options have not been readily taken up. The low number of retrofitted wooden-framed houses leads to questions about whether homeowners are aware of the necessity of seismic retrofitting their houses to achieve a satisfactory seismic performance. This study aims to explore different retrofit technologies that can be applied to wooden-framed houses in Wellington, taking into account the need of homeowners to understand the risk, likelihood and extent of damage expected after an event. A survey will be conducted in Wellington about perceptions of homeowners towards the expected performance of their wooden-framed houses. The survey questions were designed to gain an understanding of homeowners' levels of safety and awareness of possible damage after a seismic event. Afterwards, a structural review of a sample of the houses will be undertaken to identify common features and detail potential seismic concerns. The findings will break down barriers to making improvements in the performance of wooden-framed houses and lead to enhancements in the confidence of homeowners in the event of future seismic activity. This will result in increased understanding and contribute towards an accessible knowledge base, which will possibly increase significantly the use of these technologies and avoid unnecessary economic and social costs after a seismic event.
