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Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

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

Articles, UC QuakeStudies

A copy of a document from Empowered Christchurch which was sent to Queen Elizabeth. The document consists of a letter from Empowered Christchurch to Douglas Martin, Crown Manager from the Christchurch City Council, and Official Information Act requests sent to Building and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson and Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee. It also includes an appeal to the Queen on behalf of Christchurch residents with badly-damaged houses. Please note that a letter from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which was originally included in the document, has been removed due to copyright issues.

Videos, UC QuakeStudies

A video of a presentation by Dr Scott Miles during the Community Resilience Stream of the 2016 People in Disasters Conference. The presentation is titled, "A Community Wellbeing Centric Approach to Disaster Resilience".The abstract for this presentation reads as follows: A higher bar for advancing community disaster resilience can be set by conducting research and developing capacity-building initiatives that are based on understanding and monitoring community wellbeing. This presentation jumps off from this view, arguing that wellbeing is the most important concept for improving the disaster resilience of communities. The presentation uses examples from the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes to illustrate the need and effectiveness of a wellbeing-centric approach. While wellbeing has been integrated in the Canterbury recovery process, community wellbeing and resilience need to guide research and planning. The presentation unpacks wellbeing in order to synthesize it with other concepts that are relevant to community disaster resilience. Conceptualizing wellbeing as either the opportunity for or achievement of affiliation, autonomy, health, material needs, satisfaction, and security is common and relatively accepted across non-disaster fields. These six variables can be systematically linked to fundamental elements of resilience. The wellbeing variables are subject to potential loss, recovery, and adaptation based on the empirically established ties to community identity, such as sense of place. Variables of community identity are what translate the disruption, damage, restoration, reconstruction, and reconfiguration of a community's different critical services and capital resources to different states of wellbeing across a community that has been impacted by a hazard event. With reference to empirical research and the Canterbury case study, the presentation integrates these insights into a robust framework to facilitate meeting the challenge of raising the standard of community disaster resilience research and capacity building through development of wellbeing-centric approaches.

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Damage to River Road in Richmond. The road is badly cracked and slumped, and is closed off with a row of road cones tied with warning tape. The word "closed" has been spray painted on the road surface. The photographer comments, "These photos show our old house in River Rd and recovery work around Richmond and St Albans. River Rd was again subject to severe lateral spreading. The river is still grey with silt, the road is ripped and sunken, and power poles lean at random angles. The red car belonged to a postie, who had to come back with a tow truck to extricate the car from the hole that had opened underneath it. Looking along River Road to the north-east. Taken outside 79 Medway St".

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

Five years on since the first major earthquake struck the Canterbury region, the reconstruction is well advanced. Christchurch is a city in transition. This report considers trends in resourcing and employment practice of Canterbury construction organisations in response to the projected market changes (2015-2016). The report draws on the interviews with 18 personnel from 16 construction organisations and recovery agencies in October 2015. It provides a summary of perceived changes in the construction market in Canterbury, evidence of what steps construction businesses have been taking, how they have prepared for likely changes in the reconstruction sector, as well as the perceived alignment of public policies with the industry response.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

We present the initial findings from a study of adaptive resilience of lifelines organisations providing essential infrastructure services, in Christchurch, New Zealand following the earthquakes of 2010-2011. Qualitative empirical data was collected from 200 individuals in 11 organisations. Analysis using a grounded theory method identified four major factors that aid organisational response, recovery and renewal following major disruptive events. Our data suggest that quality of top and middle-level leadership, quality of external linkages, level of internal collaboration, ability to learn from experience, and staff well-being and engagement influence adaptive resilience. Our data also suggest that adaptive resilience is a process or capacity, not an outcome and that it is contextual. Post-disaster capacity/resources and post-disaster environment influence the nature of adaptive resilience.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

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.

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

Following the magnitude 6.3 aftershock in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 22 February 2011, a number of researchers were sent to Christchurch as part of the New Zealand Natural Hazard Research Platform funded “Project Masonry” Recovery Project. Their goal was to document and interpret the damage to the masonry buildings and churches in the region. Approximately 650 unreinforced and retrofitted clay brick masonry buildings in the Christchurch area were surveyed for commonly occurring failure patterns and collapse mechanisms. The entire building stock of Christchurch, and in particular the unreinforced masonry building stock, is similar to that in the rest of New Zealand, Australia, and abroad, so the observations made here are relevant for the entire world.

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.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

This report contributes to a collaborative project between the Marlborough District Council (MDC) and University of Canterbury (UC) which aims to help protect and promote the recovery of native dune systems on the Marlborough coast. It is centred around the mapping of dune vegetation and identification of dune protection zones for old-growth seed sources of the native sand-binders spinifex (Spinifex sericeus) and pīngao (Ficinia spiralis). Both are key habitat-formers associated with nationally threatened dune ecosystems, and pīngao is an important weaving resource and Ngāi Tahu taonga species. The primary goal is to protect existing seed sources that are vital for natural regeneration following major disturbances such as the earthquake event. Several additional protection zones are also identified for areas where new dunes are successfully regenerating, including areas being actively restored in the Beach Aid project that is assisting new native dunes to become established where there is available space.

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

Though generally considered “natural” disasters, cyclones and earthquakes are increasingly being associated with human activities, incubated through urban settlement patterns and the long-term redistribution of natural resources. As society is becoming more urbanized, the risk of human exposure to disasters is also rising. Architecture often reflects the state of society’s health: architectural damage is the first visible sign of emergency, and reconstruction is the final response in the process of recovery. An empirical assessment of architectural projects in post-disaster situations can lead to a deeper understanding of urban societies as they try to rebuild. This thesis offers an alternative perspective on urban disasters by looking at the actions and attitudes of disaster professionals through the lens of architecture, situated in recent events: the 2010 Christchurch earthquake, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and the 2005 Hurricane Katrina. An empirical, multi-hazard, cross-sectional case study methodology was used, employing grounded theory method to build theory, and a critical constructivist strategy to inform the analysis. By taking an interdisciplinary approach to understanding disasters, this thesis positions architecture as a conduit between two divergent approaches to disaster research: the hazards approach, which studies the disaster cycles from a scientific perspective; and the sociological approach, which studies the socially constructed vulnerabilities that result from disasters, and the elements of social change that accompany such events. Few studies to date have attempted to integrate the multi-disciplinary perspectives that can advance our understanding of societal problems in urban disasters. To bridge this gap, this thesis develops what will be referred to as the “Rittelian framework”—based on the work of UC Berkeley’s architecture professor Horst Rittel (1930-1990). The Rittelian framework uses the language of design to transcend the multiple fields of human endeavor to address the “design problems” in disaster research. The processes by which societal problems are addressed following an urban disaster involve input by professionals from multiple fields—including economics, sociology, medicine, and engineering—but the contribution from architecture has been minimal to date. The main impetus for my doctoral thesis has been the assertion that most of the decisions related to reconstruction are made in the early emergency recovery stages where architects are not involved, but architects’ early contribution is vital to the long-term reconstruction of cities. This precipitated in the critical question: “How does the Rittelian framework contribute to the critical design decisions in modern urban disasters?” Comparative research was undertaken in three case studies of recent disasters in New Orleans (2005), Haiti (2010) and Christchurch (2010), by interviewing 51 individuals who were selected on the basis of employing the Rittelian framework in their humanitarian practice. Contextualizing natural disaster research within the robust methodological framework of architecture and the analytical processes of sociology is the basis for evaluating the research proposition that architectural problem solving is of value in addressing the ‘Wicked Problems’ of disasters. This thesis has found that (1) the nuances of the way disaster agents interpret the notion of “building back better” can influence the extent to which architectural professionals contribute in urban disaster recovery, (2) architectural design can be used to facilitate but also impede critical design decisions, and (3) framing disaster research in terms of design decisions can lead to innovation where least expected. This empirical research demonstrates how the Rittelian framework can inform a wider discussion about post-disaster human settlements, and improve our resilience through disaster research.

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

This paper presents a qualitative study with multiple refugee background communities living in Christchurch, New Zealand about their perspectives and responses to the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010-2011 (32 semi-structured interviews and 11 focus group discussions comprising 112 participants). Whilst the Canterbury earthquakes created significant challenges for the entire region, several refugee background communities found multiple ways to effectively respond to such adversity. Central to this response were their experiences of belonging which were comprised of both ‘civic’ and ‘ethno’ conceptualisations. This discussion includes an analysis on the intersectionality of identity to highlight the gendered, contextual and chronological influences that impact people’s perspectives of and responses to a disaster. As the study was conducted over 18 months, the paper discusses how social capital resources and experiences of belonging can help inform urban disaster risk reduction (DRR) with refugee groups. http://3icudr.org/program

Research Papers, Lincoln University

Natural hazards continue to have adverse effects on communities and households worldwide, accelerating research on proactively identifying and enhancing characteristics associated with resilience. Although resilience is often characterized as a return to normal, recent studies of postdisaster recovery have highlighted the ways in which new opportunities can emerge following disruption, challenging the status quo. Conversely, recovery and reconstruction may serve to reinforce preexisting social, institutional, and development pathways. Our understanding of these dynamics is limited however by the small number of practice examples, particularly for rural communities in developed nations. This study uses a social–ecological inventory to document the drivers, pathways, and mechanisms of resilience following a large-magnitude earthquake in Kaikōura, a coastal community in Aotearoa New Zealand. As part of the planning and implementation phase of a multiyear project, we used the tool as the basis for indepth and contextually sensitive analysis of rural resilience. Moreover, the deliberate application of social–ecological inventory was the first step in the research team reengaging with the community following the event. The inventory process provided an opportunity for research partners to share their stories and experiences and develop a shared understanding of changes that had taken place in the community. Results provide empirical insight into reactions to disruptive change associated with disasters. The inventory also informed the design of targeted research collaborations, established a platform for longer-term community engagement, and provides a baseline for assessing longitudinal changes in key resilience-related characteristics and community capacities. Findings suggest the utility of social–ecological inventory goes beyond natural resource management, and that it may be appropriate in a range of contexts where institutional, social, and economic restructuring have developed out of necessity in response to felt or anticipated external stressors.

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, University of Canterbury Library

This study explores the nature of smaller businesses’ resilience following two major earthquakes that severely disrupted their place of doing business. Data from the owners of ten smaller businesses are qualitative and longitudinal, spanning the period 2011 through 2018, providing first-hand narrative accounts of their responses in the earthquakes’ aftermath. All ten owners showed some individual resilience; six businesses survived through to 2018, of which three have recovered strongly. All three owned their premises; operated business-tobusiness models; and were able to adapt and continue to follow path-extension strategies. All the other businesses had direct business-to-customer models operating from leased premises, typically in major retail malls. Four eventually recognised path-exhaustion at different times and so did not survive through to 2018. We conclude however that post-disaster recovery is best explained in terms of business model resilience. Even the most resilient of individual owners will struggle to survive if their business model is either not resilient or cannot be made so. Individual resilience is necessary but not sufficient.

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

The Canterbury earthquake sequence of 2010-2011 wrought ruptures in not only the physical landscape of Canterbury and Christchurch’s material form, but also in its social, economic, and political fabrics and the lives of Christchurch inhabitants. In the years that followed, the widespread demolition of the CBD that followed the earthquakes produced a bleak landscape of grey rubble punctuated by damaged, abandoned buildings. It was into this post-earthquake landscape that Gap Filler and other ‘transitional’ organisations inserted playful, creative, experimental projects to bring life and energy back into the CBD. This thesis examines those interventions and the development of the ‘Transitional Movement’ between July 2013 and June 2015 via the methods of walking interviews and participant observation. This critical period in Christchurch’s recovery serves as an example of what happens when do-it-yourself (DIY) urbanism is done at scale across the CBD and what urban experimentation can offer city-making. Through an understanding of space as produced, informed by Lefebvre’s thinking, I explore how these creative urban interventions manifested a different temporality to orthodox planning and demonstrate how the ‘soft’ politics of these interventions contain the potential for gentrification and also a more radical politics of the city, by creating an opening space for difference.

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

High demolition rates were observed in New Zealand after the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence despite the success of modern seismic design standards to achieve required performance objectives such as life safety and collapse prevention. Approximately 60% of the multi-storey reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in the Christchurch Central Business District were demolished after these earthquakes, even when only minor structural damage was present. Several factors influenced the decision of demolition instead of repair, one of them being the uncertainty of the seismic capacity of a damaged structure. To provide more insight into this topic, the investigation conducted in this thesis evaluated the residual capacity of moderately damaged RC walls and the effectiveness of repair techniques to restore the seismic performance of heavily damaged RC walls. The research outcome provided insights for developing guidelines for post-earthquake assessment of earthquake-damaged RC structures. The methodology used to conduct the investigation was through an experimental program divided into two phases. During the first phase, two walls were subjected to different types of pre-cyclic loading to represent the damaged condition from a prior earthquake, and a third wall represented a repair scenario with the damaged wall being repaired using epoxy injection and repair mortar after the pre-cyclic loading. Comparisons of these test walls to a control undamaged wall identified significant reductions in the stiffness of the damaged walls and a partial recovery in the wall stiffness achieved following epoxy injection. Visual damage that included distributed horizontal and diagonal cracks and spalling of the cover concrete did not affect the residual strength or displacement capacity of the walls. However, evidence of buckling of the longitudinal reinforcement during the pre-cyclic loading resulted in a slight reduction in strength recovery and a significant reduction in the displacement capacity of the damaged walls. Additional experimental programs from the literature were used to provide recommendations for modelling the response of moderately damaged RC walls and to identify a threshold that represented a potential reduction in the residual strength and displacement capacity of damaged RC walls in future earthquakes. The second phase of the experimental program conducted in this thesis addressed the replacement of concrete and reinforcing steel as repair techniques for heavily damaged RC walls. Two walls were repaired by replacing the damaged concrete and using welded connections to connect new reinforcing bars with existing bars. Different locations of the welded connections were investigated in the repaired walls to study the impact of these discontinuities at the critical section. No significant changes were observed in the stiffness, strength, and displacement capacity of the repaired walls compared to the benchmark undamaged wall. Differences in the local behaviour at the critical section were observed in one of the walls but did not impact the global response. The results of these two repaired walls were combined with other experimental programs found in the literature to assemble a database of repaired RC walls. Qualitative and quantitative analyses identified trends across various parameters, including wall types, damage before repair, and repair techniques implemented. The primary outcome of the database analysis was recommendations for concrete and reinforcing steel replacement to restore the strength and displacement capacity of heavily damaged RC walls.

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, Lincoln University

The September and February earthquakes were terrifying and devastating. In February, 185 people were killed (this number excludes post earthquake related deaths) and several thousand injured. Damage to infrastructure above and below ground in and around Christchurch was widespread and it will take many years and billions of dollars to rebuild. The ongoing effects of the big quakes and aftershocks are numerous, with the deepest impact being on those who lost family and friends, their livelihoods and homes. What did Cantabrians do during the days, weeks and months of uncertainty and how have we responded? Many grieved, some left, some stayed, some arrived, many shovelled (liquefaction left thousands of tons of silt to be removed from homes and streets), and some used their expertise or knowledge to help in the recovery. This book highlights just some of the projects staff and students from The Faculty of Environment, Society and Design have been involved in from September 2010 to October 2012. The work is ongoing and the plan is to publish another book to document progress and new projects.

Research Papers, Lincoln University

At 00:02 on 14 November, 2016 a destructive 7.8 Mw earthquake struck the North Canterbury region of New Zealand’s South Island. Prior to and following the earthquake, natural and social scientists conducted a significant amount of research on the resilience processes and recovery efforts in North Canterbury. This thesis examines community resilience in Kaikōura, a small town and district greatly impacted by the earthquake. Community resilience has been widely used in disaster risk reduction research, policy, and practice to describe how a group of individuals within a boundary respond to events, hazards, and shifts in their everyday life. Using exploratory inquiry, this thesis adopts qualitative research methods including document analysis, 24 semi-structured interviews, and participant observation to explore the idea that the recent scholarly emphasis on resilience has come at the expense of critical engagement with the complexities of communities. I draw on the idea of ‘collectives’ (comprising community-based organisations or less formal social networks with a shared purpose) as a lens to consider how, when unexpected life events happen, collectives can be regarded as a resource for change or constancy. The examination of collectives following a disaster can lend insight into the many elements of community as they bring people together in collaboration or drive them apart in conflict. This thesis therefore contributes to an enhanced practical and theoretical understanding of both community and resilience.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

INTRODUCTION: There is little research on the role of creative arts and craft in disaster recovery. This article reports findings about the emergent role of crafting from research conducted after the 2010–2011 series of earthquakes in Christchurch and surrounding districts in Aotearoa New Zealand. In particular, the article focuses on the significance and differing interpretations of the notion of place expressed by participants through their craftwork, in this case led by women and mediated by the post-earthquake geographic and temporal context. METHOD: This qualitative research included nine individual interviews and five focus group interviews with crafters from Christchurch and surrounding districts. There were 35 participants in total, 33 were women. Applied thematic analysis was used to code the data and identify themes. These themes included connection to place, the symbolism of craft, the healing experience of craft groups and places for women. The notion of place was evident across all three themes. FINDINGS: The findings from the research demonstrate differing ways in which the significance of place was reflected in the craftwork. Participants interpreted the concept of place in descriptive, symbolic, and therapeutic ways. IMPLICATIONS: More understanding about the way creative endeavours like crafting can be used to help ameliorate the impact of natural disasters is needed. Social work practitioners are encouraged to explore place-based wellbeing during their work with service users and to include aspects of artistry, craft and creativity.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Seismic isolation is an effective technology for significantly reducing damage to buildings and building contents. However, its application to light-frame wood buildings has so far been unable to overcome cost and technical barriers such as susceptibility to movement during high-wind loading. The precursor to research in the field of isolation of residential buildings was the 1994 Northridge Earthquake (6.7 MW) in the United States and the 1995 Kobe Earthquake (6.9 MW) in Japan. While only a small number of lives were lost in residential buildings in these events, the economic impact was significant with over half of earthquake recovery costs given to repair and reconstruction of residential building damage. A value case has been explored to highlight the benefits of seismically isolated residential buildings compared to a standard fixed-base dwellings for the Wellington region. Loss data generated by insurance claim information from the 2011 Christchurch Earthquake has been used by researchers to determine vulnerability functions for the current light-frame wood building stock. By further considering the loss attributed to drift and acceleration sensitive components, and a simplified single degree of freedom (SDOF) building model, a method for determining vulnerability functions for seismic isolated buildings was developed. Vulnerability functions were then applied directly in a loss assessment using the GNS developed software, RiskScape. Vulnerability was shown to dramatically reduce for isolated buildings compared to an equivalent fixed-base building and as a result, the monetary savings in a given earthquake scenario were significant. This work is expected to drive further interest for development of solutions for the seismic isolation of residential dwellings, of which one option is further considered and presented herein.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Nowadays the telecommunication systems’ performance has a substantial impact on our lifestyle. Their operationality becomes even more substantial in a post-disaster scenario when these services are used in civil protection and emergency plans, as well as for the restoration of all the other critical infrastructure. Despite the relevance of loss of functionality of telecommunication networks on seismic resilience, studies on their performance assessment are few in the literature. The telecommunication system is a distributed network made up of several components (i.e. ducts, utility holes, cabinets, major and local exchanges). Given that these networks cover a large geographical area, they can be easily subjected to the effects of a seismic event, either the ground shaking itself, or co-seismic events such as liquefaction and landslides. In this paper, an analysis of the data collected after the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES) and the 2016 Kaikoura Earthquake in New Zealand is conducted. Analysing these data, information gaps are critically identified regarding physical and functional failures of the telecommunication components, the timeline of repair/reconstruction activities and service recovery, geotechnical tests and land planning maps. Indeed, if these missing data were presented, they could aid the assessment of the seismic resilience. Thus, practical improvements in the post-disaster collection from both a network and organisational viewpoints are proposed through consultation of national and international researchers and highly experienced asset managers from Chorus. Finally, an outline of future studies which could guide towards a more resilient seismic performance of the telecommunication network is presented.

Research Papers, Lincoln University

Within four weeks of the September 4 2010 Canterbury Earthquake a new, loosely-knit community group appeared in Christchurch under the banner of “Greening the Rubble.” The general aim of those who attended the first few meetings was to do something to help plug the holes that had already appeared or were likely to appear over the coming weeks in the city fabric with some temporary landscaping and planting projects. This article charts the first eighteen months of Greening the Rubble and places the initiative in a broader context to argue that although seismic events in Christchurch acted as a “call to palms,” so to speak, the city was already in need of some remedial greening. It concludes with a reflection on lessons learned to date by GTR and commentary on the likely issues ahead for this new mini-social-environmental movement in the context of a quake-affected and still quake-prone major New Zealand city. One of the key lessons for GTR and all of those involved in Christchurch recovery activities to date is that the city is still very much in the middle of the event and is to some extent a laboratory for seismic and agency management studies alike.

Research Papers, Lincoln University

Please contact supervisor Lin Roberts at Lincoln University to request a copy of this dissertation to read.Cities around the world are becoming greener, with many striving to make their cities as green as possible. Christchurch was devastated by an Earthquake in 2011, which resulted in many fatalities. Though this impacted the city negatively, this sad event was used as an opportunity for the broken city to become a better one. The Christchurch City Council (CCC) ran an exercise called ‘Share an Idea’, which asked the public what they wanted the new city to look like. The main theme extrapolated by researchers was that people wanted the city to be greener. A draft plan was created by the CCC but was deemed not good enough and replaced by a new plan called the Blueprint Plan created by the government. Through the process of public consultation to the finalized plan and the implementation of the finalized plan, there were many changes made to the inclusion of nature into Central Christchurch’s urban regeneration. The aim of this research is to assess the role of nature in the urban regeneration of Christchurch, by evaluating the recovery process, and comparing the level of greenness the public wanted by looking at what they said in Share an Idea, and then seeing how that translated into the proposed plans, and then finally looking at what is being implemented.

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

The skills agenda has grown in prominence within the construction industry. Indeed, skill shortages have been recognised as a perennial problem the construction industry faces, especially after a major disaster. In the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes, small and medium construction companies were at the forefront of rebuilding efforts. While the survival of these companies was seen to be paramount, and extreme events were seen to be a threat to survival, there is a dearth of research centring on their resourcing capacity following a disaster. This research aims to develop workforce resourcing best practice guidelines for subcontractors in response to large disaster reconstruction demands. By using case study methods, this research identified the challenges faced by subcontracting businesses in resourcing Christchurch recovery projects; identified the workforce resourcing strategies adopted by subcontracting businesses in response to reconstruction demand; and developed a best practice guideline for subcontracting businesses in managing the workforce at the organisational and/or project level. This research offers a twofold contribution. First, it provides an overview of workforce resourcing practices in subcontracting businesses. This understanding has enabled the development of a more practical workforce resourcing guideline for subcontractors. Second, it promotes evidence-informed decision-making in subcontractors’ workforce resourcing. Dynamics in workforce resourcing and their multifaceted interactions were explicitly depicted in this research. More importantly, this research provides a framework to guide policy development in producing a sustainable solution to skill shortages and establishing longterm national skill development initiatives. Taken together, this research derives a research agenda that maps under-explored areas relevant for further elaboration and future research. Prospective researchers can use the research results in identifying gaps and priority areas in relation to workforce resourcing.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

The use of post-earthquake cordons as a tool to support emergency managers after an event has been documented around the world. However, there is limited research that attempts to understand the use, effectiveness, inherent complexities, impacts and subsequent consequences of cordoning once applied. This research aims to fill that gap by providing a detailed understanding of first, the cordons and associated processes, and their implications in a post-earthquake scenario. We use a qualitative method to understand cordons through case studies of two cities where it was used in different temporal and spatial scales: Christchurch (2011) and Wellington (Kaikōura earthquake 2016), New Zealand. Data was collected through 21 expert interviews obtained through purposive and snowball sampling of key informants who were directly or indirectly involved in a decision-making role and/or had influence in relation to the cordoning process. The participants were from varying backgrounds and roles i.e. emergency managers, council members, business representatives, insurance representatives, police and communication managers. The data was transcribed, coded in Nvivo and then grouped based on underlying themes and concepts and then analyzed inductively. It is found that cordons are used primarily as a tool to control access for the purpose of life safety and security. But cordons can also be adapted to support recovery. Broadly, it can be synthesized and viewed based on two key aspects, ‘decision-making’ and ‘operations and management’, which overlap and interact as part of a complex system. The underlying complexity arises in large part due to the multitude of sectors it transcends such as housing, socio-cultural requirements, economics, law, governance, insurance, evacuation, available resources etc. The complexity further increases as the duration of cordon is extended.

Research Papers, Lincoln University

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, Victoria University of Wellington

This project looks at how destroyed architecture, although physically lost, fundamentally continues to exist within human memories as a non-physical entity. The site chosen is Avonside Girls’ High School in Christchurch, New Zealand, a school heavily damaged during the February 22nd earthquake in 2011. The project focuses on the Main Block, a 1930s masonry building which had always been a symbol for the school and its alumni.  The key theories relevant to this are studies on non-material architecture and memory as these subjects investigate the relationship between conceptual idea and the triggering of it. This research aims to study how to fortify a thought-based architecture against neglect, similar to the retrofitting of physical structures.  In doing so, the importance of the emotive realm of architecture and the idea behind a building (as opposed to the built component itself) is further validated, promoting more broadminded stances regarding the significance of the idea over the object. A new method for disaster recovery and addressing trauma from lost architecture is also acquired. Factors regarding advanced structural systems and programmes are not covered within the scope of this research because the project instead explores issues regarding the boundaries between the immaterial and material.  The project methodology involves communicating a narrative derived from the memories alumni and staff members have of the old school block. The approach for portraying the narrative is based on a list of strategies obtained from case studies.  The final product of the research is a new design for the high school, conveyed through a set of atmospheric drawings that cross-examines the boundaries between the physical and non-physical realms by representing the version of the school that exists solely within memories.