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Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

The 14 November 2016 Kaikōura earthquake had major impacts on New Zealand's transport system. Road, rail and port infrastructure was damaged, creating substantial disruption for transport operators, residents, tourists, and business owners in the Canterbury, Marlborough and Wellington regions, with knock-on consequences elsewhere. During both the response and recovery phases, a large amount of information and data relating to the transport system was generated, managed, analysed, and exchanged within and between organisations to assist decision making. To improve information and data exchanges and related decision making in the transport sector during future events and guide new resilience strategies, we present key findings from a recent post-earthquake assessment. The research involved 35 different stakeholder groups and was conducted for the Ministry of Transport. We consider what transport information was available, its usefulness, where it was sourced from, mechanisms for data transfer between organisations, and suggested approaches for continued monitoring.

Articles, UC QuakeStudies

A copy of a letter from Hugo Kristinsson which was sent to Roger Sutton on 19 September 2013. The letter was sent on behalf of Empowered Christchurch. In the letter, Kristinsson expresses his concern about changes to the Building Act which he states, 'waive liability for the Building Consent Authority when repairs are carried out on homes with land damage'. He also discusses the CERA community forums, which he feel are not fufilling their purpose of supporting and informing the Canterbury community. Lastly, Kristinsson lodges an Official Information Act request, asking for all forum notices and minutes to be released to the public and for access to land information to be provided.

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph submitted by Andy Palmer to the QuakeStories website. The description reads, "Door of the Lyttelton Harbour Information Centre?. 25 Feb 2012.".

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

This section considers forms of collaboration in situated and community projects embedded in important spatial transformation processes in New Zealand cities. It aims to shed light on specific combinations of material and semantic aspects characterising the relation between people and their environment. Contributions focus on participative urban transformations. The essays that follow concentrate on the dynamics of territorial production of associations between multiple actors belonging both to civil society and constituted authority. Their authors were directly engaged in the processes that are reported and conceptualised, thereby offering evidence gained through direct hands-on experience. Some of the investigations use case studies that are conspicuous examples of the recent post-traumatic urban development stemming from the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010-2011. More precisely, these cases belong to the early phases of the programmes of the Christchurch recovery or the Wellington seismic prevention. The relevance of these experiences for the scope of this study lies in the unprecedented height of public engagement at local, national and international levels, a commitment reached also due to the high impact, both emotional and concrete, that affected the entire society.

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

This paper analyses the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, which has been through dramatic changes since it was struck by a series of earthquakes of different intensities between 2010 and 2011. The objective is to develop a deeper understanding of resilience by looking at changes in green and grey infrastructures. The study can be helpful to reveal a way of doing comparative analysis using resilience as a theoretical framework. In this way, it might be possible to assess the blueprint of future master plans by considering how important the interplay between green and grey infrastructure is for the resilience capacity of cities.

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

Predictive modelling provides an efficient means to analyse the coastal environment and generate knowledge for long term urban planning. In this study, the numerical models SWAN and XBeach were incorporated into the ESRI ArcGIS interface by means of the BeachMMtool. This was applied to the Greater Christchurch coastal environment to simulate geomorphological evolution through hydrodynamic forcing. Simulations were performed using the recent sea level rise predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2013) to determine whether the statutory requirements outlined in the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement 2010 are consistent with central, regional and district designations. Our results indicate that current land use zoning in Greater Christchurch is not consistent with these predictions. This is because coastal hazard risk has not been thoroughly quantified during the process of installing the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority residential red zone. However, the Christchurch City Council’s flood management area does provide an extent to which managed coastal retreat is a real option. The results of this research suggest that progradation will continue to occur along the Christchurch foreshore due to the net sediment flux retaining an onshore direction and the current hydrodynamic activity not being strong enough to move sediment offshore. However, inundation during periods of storm surge poses a risk to human habitation on low lying areas around the Avon-Heathcote Estuary and the Brooklands lagoon.

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

This thesis aims to find a new weld sizing criterion for the steel construction industry in New Zealand. Current standards, such as NZS 3404, ANSI/AISC 360-16, and Eurocode 3 use a factor of 0.6 to calculate weld capacity from the weld metal’s ultimate tensile strength (UTS). This difference between weld capacity and UTS is thought to have arisen from the need for a large factor of safety to ensure welds perform correctly during an earthquake. The events in Christchurch proved that this criterion was able to work as intended. Several papers have been published by P. Dong from University of Michigan, and alongside other researchers, they investigate a new definition of weld shear strength by using a traction stress-based method. This new method not only allows realistic angles of weld fracture to be investigated, but also different weld geometries such as partial penetration butt welds. Ongoing research at HERA is showing how this welding technique is a more economical option than larger fillet welds with similar performance. For this thesis a range of sample types were statically tested until failure. UTS of several weld metals was found and then compared with transverse shear results to see if 0.6 is indeed correct. It was found that if the results from the standardized transverse shear samples was used, this ratio could be increased to 1.0. But if the results from cruciform joint samples was used, which still load the weld in a transverse direction but with a higher stress concentration, required the ratio to be 0.8 for welds that could be welded with a single pass, and decreased further to 0.75 for large welds with 3 passes. Two types of partial penetration butt weld (PPBW) geometries were compared to a comparatively sized fillet weld. These tests showed the PPBWs were the best performers, with all PPBWs surviving testing compared to only 33% of fillet welds.

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

This article is a critical commentary of how political documentary embodies the traits and functions of alternative journalism. I explore this notion through Obrero (‘worker’) my independent documentary project about the labour migration of Filipino workers to Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand, after the earthquake in 2011. This article maps out the points at where the theories and practices of alternative media and documentary intersect. Analysing political documentary as a format of alternative journalism has links to the long tradition of film and video production as a tool for social critique. As a form of practice-based research, Obrero falls under the rubric of alternative journalism—able to represent the politically marginal sectors of the polity and report on issues underreported in the mainstream press. This article concludes that a distribution plan that is responsive to fragmenting audiences works best when alternative journalism no longer targets a niche but transborder audiences.

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

This thesis describes the strategies for earthquake strengthening vintage clay bricks unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings. URM buildings are well known to be vulnerable to damage from earthquake-induced lateral forces that may result in partial or full building collapse. The 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes are the most recent destructive natural disaster that resulted in the deaths of 185 people. The earthquake events had drawn people’s attention when URM failure and collapse caused about 39 of the fatality. Despite the poor performance of URM buildings during the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes, a number of successful case study buildings were identified and their details research in-depth. In order to discover the successful seismic retrofitting techniques, two case studies of retrofitted historical buildings located in Christchurch, New Zealand i.e. Orion’s URM substations and an iconic Heritage Hotel (aka Old Government Building) was conducted by investigating and evaluating the earthquake performance of the seismic retrofitting technique applied on the buildings prior to the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes and their performance after the earthquakes sequence. The second part of the research reported in this thesis was directed with the primary aim of developing a cost-effective seismic retrofitting technique with minimal interference to the vintage clay-bricks URM buildings. Two retrofitting techniques, (i) near-surface mounted steel wire rope (NSM-SWR) with further investigation on URM wallettes to get deeper understanding the URM in-plane behaviour, and (ii) FRP anchor are reported in this research thesis.

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

As damage and loss caused by natural hazards have increased worldwide over the past several decades, it is important for governments and aid agencies to have tools that enable effective post-disaster livelihood recovery to create self-sufficiency for the affected population. This study introduces a framework of critical components that constitute livelihood recovery and the critical factors that lead to people’s livelihood recovery. A comparative case study is employed in this research, combined with questionnaire surveys and interviews with those communities affected by large earthquakes in Lushan, China and in Christchurch and Kaikōura, New Zealand. In Lushan, China, a framework with four livelihood components was established, namely, housing, employment, wellbeing and external assistance. Respondents considered recovery of their housing to be the most essential element for livelihood diversification. External assistance was also rated highly in assisting with their livelihood recovery. Family ties and social connections seemed to have played a larger role than that of government agencies and NGOs. However, the recovery of livelihood cannot be fully achieved without wellbeing aspects being taken into account, and people believed that quality of life and their physical and mental health were essential for livelihood restoration. In Christchurch, New Zealand, the identified livelihood components were validated through in-depth interviews. The results showed that the above framework presenting what constitutes successful livelihood recovery could also be applied in Christchurch. This study also identified the critical factors to affect livelihood recovery following the Lushan and Kaikōura earthquakes, and these include community safety, availability of family support, level of community cohesion, long-term livelihood support, external housing recovery support, level of housing recovery and availability of health and wellbeing support. The framework developed will provide guidance for policy makers and aid agencies to prioritise their strategies and initiatives in assisting people to reinstate their livelihood in a timely manner post-disaster. It will also assist the policy makers and practitioners in China and New Zealand by setting an agenda for preparing for livelihood recovery in non-urgent times so the economic impact and livelihood disruption of those affected can be effectively mitigated.