After years of disruption caused by the Christchurch earthquakes, two schools have finally started moving into their new state of the art facilities. Avonside Girls' High School and Shirley Boys' High School have begun moving students into their new shared but separate campus on the grounds of the old QEII Park in north New Brighton. Some of the features include, a moveable gym, bike stands with spanners and air pumps, and a rock climbing wall. It will be the first time in New Zealand two single-sex schools have been on the same site. Guyon Espiner speaks to Avonside Girls' High principal Sue Hume and Shirley Boys' High School principal John Laurenson.
The paper examines community benefits provided by an established community garden following a major earthquake and discusses possible implications for community garden planning and design in disaster-prone cities. Recent studies show that following extreme storm events community gardens can supply food, enhance social empowerment, provide safe gathering spots, and restorative practices, to remind people of normality. However, the beneficial role played by community gardens following earthquakes is less well known. To fill this gap, the study examines the role played by a community garden in Christchurch, New Zealand, following the 2010/2011 Canterbury Earthquakes. The garden's role is evaluated based on a questionnaire-based survey and in-depth interviews with gardeners, as well as on data regarding the garden use before and after the earthquakes. Findings indicate the garden helped gardeners cope with the post-quake situation. The garden served as an important place to de-stress, share experiences, and gain community support. Garden features that reportedly supported disaster recovery include facilities that encourage social interaction and bonding such as central meeting and lunch places and communal working areas.
An experiment to see if the cast of a play can make friends with their audience in just an hour is the latest project by the country's only theatre company involving people who are - or have been - homeless. As part of the Auckland Fringe Festival, the Hobson Street Theatre Company is working with the Street Choir on That's What Friends Are For.: It's directed by Dr Peter O'Connor from the University of Auckland. He's worked with survivors of natural disasters like the Christchurch earthquakes to help people - especially children - work through the trauma. Lynn Freeman talks with Peter, and with one of the actors, Richard. That's What Friends Are For premieres on Tuesday at the Basement Theatre as part of the Auckland Fringe, before heading to the fringe festivals in Wellington and Dunedin.
Results from a series of 1D seismic effective stress analyses of natural soil deposits from Christchurch are summarized. The analysed soil columns include sites whose performance during the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes varied significantly, from no liquefaction manifestation at the ground surface to very severe liquefaction, in which case a large area of the site was covered by thick soil ejecta. Key soil profile characteristics and response mechanisms affecting the severity of surface liquefaction manifestation and subsequent damage are explored. The influence of shaking intensity on the triggering and contribution of these mechanisms is also discussed. Careful examination of the results highlights the importance of considering the deposit as a whole, i.e. a system of layers, including interactions between layers in the dynamic response and through pore water pressure redistribution and water flow.
School travel is a major aspect of a young person’s everyday activity. The relationship between the built environment that youth experience on their way to and from school, influences a number of factors including their development, health and wellbeing. This is especially important in low income areas where the built environment is often poorer, but the need for it to be high quality and accessible is greater. This study focusses on the community of Aranui, a relatively low income suburb in Christchurch, New Zealand. It pays particular attention to Haeata Community Campus, a state school of just under 800 pupils from year one through to year thirteen (ages 5-18). The campus opened in 2017 following the closure of four local schools (three primary and one secondary), as part of the New Zealand Government’s Education Renewal scheme following the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010/11. Dedicated effort toward understanding the local built environment, and subsequent travel patterns has been argued to be insufficiently considered. The key focus of this research was to understand the importance of the local environment in encouraging active school travel. The present study combines geospatial analysis, quantitative survey software Maptionnaire, and statistical models to explore the features of the local environment that influence school travel behaviour. Key findings suggest that distance to school and parental control are the most significant predictors of active transport in the study sample. Almost 75% of students live within two kilometres of the school, yet less than 40% utilise active transport. Parental control may be the key contributing factor to the disproportionate private vehicle use. However, active school travel is acknowledged as a complex process that is the product of many individual, household, and local environment factors. To see increased active transport uptake, the local environment needs to be of greater quality. Meaning that the built environment should be improved to be youth friendly, with greater walkability and safe, accessible cycling infrastructure.
The Canterbury earthquake and aftershock sequence in New Zealand during 2010-2011 subjected the city’s structures to a significant accumulated cyclic demand and raised significant questions regarding the low-cycle fatigue demands imposed upon the structures. There is a significant challenge to quantify the level of cumulative demand imposed on structures and to assess the percentage of a structure's fatigue life that has been consumed as a result of this earthquake sequence. It is important to be able to quantify the cumulative demand to determine how a building will perform in a subsequent large earthquake and inform repair and re-occupancy decisions. This paper investigates the cumulative fatigue demand for a structure located within the Christchurch Central Business District (CBD). Time history analysis and equivalent cycle counting methods are applied across the Canterbury earthquake sequence, using key events from September 4th 2010 and February 22nd , 2011 main shocks. The estimate of the cumulative fatigue demand is then compared to the expected capacity of a case study reinforced concrete bridge pier, to undertake a structure-specific fatigue assessment. The analysis is undertaken to approximate the portion of the structural fatigue capacity that has been consumed, and how much residual capacity remains. Results are assessed for recordings at the four Christchurch central city strong motion recording sites installed by the GeoNet programme, to provide an estimate of variation in results. The computed cyclic demand results are compared to code-based design methods and as assessment of the inelastic displacement demand of the reinforcing steel. Results are also presented in a fragility context where a de minimis (inconsequential), irreparable damage and full fatigue fracture are defined to provide a probabilistic assessment of the fatigue damage incurred. This methodology can provide input into the overall assessment of fatigue demands and residual capacity.
Despite the relatively low seismicity, a large earthquake in the Waikato region is expected to have a high impact, when the fourth-largest regional population and economy and the high density critical infrastructure systems in this region are considered. Furthermore, Waikato has a deep soft sedimentary basin, which increases the regional seismic hazard due to trapping and amplification of seismic waves and generation of localized surface waves within the basin. This phenomenon is known as the “Basin Effect”, and has been attributed to the increased damage in several historic earthquakes, including the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes. In order to quantitatively model the basin response and improve the understanding of regional seismic hazard, geophysical methods will be used to develop shear wave velocity profiles across the Waikato basin. Active surface wave methods involve the deployment of linear arrays of geophones to record the surface waves generated by a sledge hammer. Passive surface wave methods involve the deployment of two-dimensional seismometer arrays to record ambient vibrations. At each site, the planned testing includes one active test and two to four passive arrays. The obtained data are processed to develop dispersion curves, which describe surface wave propagation velocity as a function of frequency (or wavelength). Dispersion curves are then inverted using the Geopsy software package to develop a suite of shear wave velocity profiles. Currently, more than ten sites in Waikato are under consideration for this project. This poster presents the preliminary results from the two sites that have been tested. The shear wave velocity profiles from all sites will be used to produce a 3D velocity model for the Waikato basin, a part of QuakeCoRE flagship programme 1.
Probabilistic Structural Fire Engineering (PSFE) has been introduced to overcome the limitations of current conventional approaches used for the design of fire-exposed structures. Current structural fire design investigates worst-case fire scenarios and include multiple thermal and structural analyses. PSFE permits buildings to be designed to a level of life safety or economic loss that may occur in future fire events with the help of a probabilistic approach. This thesis presents modifications to the adoption of a Performance-Based Earthquake Engineering (PBEE) framework in Probabilistic Structural Fire Engineering (PSFE). The probabilistic approach runs through a series of interrelationships between different variables, and successive convolution integrals of these interrelationships result in probabilities of different measures. The process starts with the definition of a fire severity measure (FSM), which best relates fire hazard intensity with structural response. It is identified by satisfying efficiency and sufficiency criteria as described by the PBEE framework. The relationship between a fire hazard and corresponding structural response is established by analysis methods. One method that has been used to quantify this relationship in PSFE is Incremental Fire Analysis (IFA). The existing IFA approach produces unrealistic fire scenarios, as fire profiles may be scaled to wide ranges of fire severity levels, which may not physically represent any real fires. Two new techniques are introduced in this thesis to limit extensive scaling. In order to obtain an annual rate of exceedance of fire hazard and structural response for an office building, an occurrence model and an attenuation model for office fires are generated for both Christchurch city and New Zealand. The results show that Christchurch city is 15% less likely to experience fires that have the potential to cause structural failures in comparison to all of New Zealand. In establishing better predictive relationships between fires and structural response, cumulative incident radiation (a fire hazard property) is found to be the most appropriate fire severity measure. This research brings together existing research on various sources of uncertainty in probabilistic structural fire engineering, such as elements affecting post-flashover fire development factors (fuel load, ventilation, surface lining and compartment geometry), fire models, analysis methods and structural reliability. Epistemic uncertainty and aleatory uncertainty are investigated in the thesis by examining the uncertainty associated with modelling and the factors that influence post-flashover development of fires. A survey of 12 buildings in Christchurch in combination with recent surveys in New Zealand produced new statistical data on post-flashover development factors in office buildings in New Zealand. The effects of these parameters on temperature-time profiles are evaluated. The effects of epistemic uncertainty due to fire models in the estimation of structural response is also calculated. Parametric fires are found to have large uncertainty in the prediction of post-flashover fires, while the BFD curves have large uncertainties in prediction of structural response. These uncertainties need to be incorporated into failure probability calculations. Uncertainty in structural modelling shows that the choices that are made during modelling have a large influence on realistic predictions of structural response.
This is a joint Resilience Framework undertaken by the Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering Department of the University of Auckland in association with West Power and Orion networks and partially funded by the New Zealand National Science Challenge and QuakeCoRE. The Energy- Communication research group nearly accomplished two different researches focusing on both asset resilience and system resilience. Asset resilience research which covers underground cables system in Christchurch region is entitled “2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence Impact on 11KV Underground Cables” and system resilience research which covers electricity distribution and communication system in West Coast region is entitled “NZ Electricity Distribution Network Resilience Assessment and Restoration Models following Major Natural Disturbance“. As the fourth milestone of the aforementioned research project, the latest outcome of both projects has been socialised with the stakeholders during the Cigre NZ 2019 Forum.
The development of Digital City technologies to manage and visualise spatial information has increasingly become a focus of the research community, and application by city authorities. Traditionally, the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Building Information Models (BIM) underlying Digital Cities have been used independently. However, integrating GIS and BIM into a single platform provides benefits for project and asset management, and is applicable to a range of issues. One of these benefits is the means to access and analyse large datasets describing the built environment, in order to characterise urban risk from and resilience to natural hazards. The aim of this thesis is to further explore methodologies of integration in two distinct areas. The first, integration through connectivity of heterogeneous datasets where GIS spatial infrastructure data is merged with 3D BIM building data to create a digital twin. Secondly, integration through analysis whereby data from the digital twin are extracted and integrated with computational models. To achieve this, a workflow was developed to identify the required datasets of a digital twin, and develop a process of integrating those datasets through a combination of; semi-autonomous conversion, translation and extension of data; and semantic web and services-based processes. Through use of a designed schema, the data were streamed in a homogenous format in a web-based platform. To demonstrate the value of this workflow with respect to urban risk and resilience, the process was applied to the Taiora: Queen Elizabeth II recreation and sports centre in eastern Christchurch, New Zealand. After integration of as-built GIS and BIM datasets, targeted data extraction was implemented, with outputs tailored for analysis in an infrastructure serviceability loss model, which assessed potable water network performance in the 22nd February 2011 Christchurch Earthquake. Using the same earthquake conditions as the serviceability loss model, performance of infrastructure assets in service at the time of the 22nd February 2011 Christchurch Earthquake was compared to new assets rebuilt at the site, post-earthquake. Due to improved potable water infrastructure resilience resulting from installation of ductile piles, a decrease of 35.5% in the probability of service loss was estimated in the serviceability loss model. To complete the workflow, the results from the external analysis were uploaded to the web-based platform. One of the more significant outcomes from the workflow was the identification of a lack of mandated metadata standards for fittings/valves connecting a building to private laterals. Whilst visually the GIS and BIM data show the building and pipes as connected, the semantic data does not include this connectivity relationship. This has no material impact on the current serviceability loss model as it is not one of the defined parameters. However, a proposed modification to the model would utilise the metadata to further assess the physical connection robustness, and increase the number of variables for estimating probability of service loss. This thesis has made a methodological contribution to urban resilience analysis by demonstrating how readily available up-to-date building and infrastructure data can be integrated, and with tailored extraction from a Digital City platform, be used for disaster impact analysis in an external computational engine, with results in turn imported and visualised in the Digital City platform. The workflow demonstrated that translation and integration of data would be more successful if a regional/national mandate was implemented for the submission of consent documentation in a specified standard BIM format. The results of this thesis have identified that the key to ensuring the success of an integrated tool lies in the initial workflow required to safeguard that all data can be either captured or translated in an interoperable format.
The development of Digital City technologies to manage and visualise spatial information has increasingly become a focus of the research community, and application by city authorities. Traditionally, the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Building Information Models (BIM) underlying Digital Cities have been used independently. However, integrating GIS and BIM into a single platform provides benefits for project and asset management, and is applicable to a range of issues. One of these benefits is the means to access and analyse large datasets describing the built environment, in order to characterise urban risk from and resilience to natural hazards. The aim of this thesis is to further explore methodologies of integration in two distinct areas. The first, integration through connectivity of heterogeneous datasets where GIS spatial infrastructure data is merged with 3D BIM building data to create a digital twin. Secondly, integration through analysis whereby data from the digital twin are extracted and integrated with computational models. To achieve this, a workflow was developed to identify the required datasets of a digital twin, and develop a process of integrating those datasets through a combination of; semi-autonomous conversion, translation and extension of data; and semantic web and services-based processes. Through use of a designed schema, the data were streamed in a homogenous format in a web-based platform. To demonstrate the value of this workflow with respect to urban risk and resilience, the process was applied to the Taiora: Queen Elizabeth II recreation and sports centre in eastern Christchurch, New Zealand. After integration of as-built GIS and BIM datasets, targeted data extraction was implemented, with outputs tailored for analysis in an infrastructure serviceability loss model, which assessed potable water network performance in the 22nd February 2011 Christchurch Earthquake. Using the same earthquake conditions as the serviceability loss model, performance of infrastructure assets in service at the time of the 22nd February 2011 Christchurch Earthquake was compared to new assets rebuilt at the site, post-earthquake. Due to improved potable water infrastructure resilience resulting from installation of ductile piles, a decrease of 35.5% in the probability of service loss was estimated in the serviceability loss model. To complete the workflow, the results from the external analysis were uploaded to the web-based platform. One of the more significant outcomes from the workflow was the identification of a lack of mandated metadata standards for fittings/valves connecting a building to private laterals. Whilst visually the GIS and BIM data show the building and pipes as connected, the semantic data does not include this connectivity relationship. This has no material impact on the current serviceability loss model as it is not one of the defined parameters. However, a proposed modification to the model would utilise the metadata to further assess the physical connection robustness, and increase the number of variables for estimating probability of service loss. This thesis has made a methodological contribution to urban resilience analysis by demonstrating how readily available up-to-date building and infrastructure data can be integrated, and with tailored extraction from a Digital City platform, be used for disaster impact analysis in an external computational engine, with results in turn imported and visualised in the Digital City platform. The workflow demonstrated that translation and integration of data would be more successful if a regional/national mandate was implemented for the submission of consent documentation in a specified standard BIM format. The results of this thesis have identified that the key to ensuring the success of an integrated tool lies in the initial workflow required to safeguard that all data can be either captured or translated in an interoperable format.
The world experiences a number of disasters each year. Following a disaster, the affected area moves to a phase of recovery which involves multiple stakeholders. An important element of recovery is planning the rebuild of the affected environment guided by the legislative framework to which planning is bound to (March & Kornakova, 2017). Yet, there appears to be little research that has investigated the role of planners in a recovery setting and the implications of recovery legislative planning frameworks. This study was conducted to explore the role of the planner in the Canterbury earthquake recovery process in New Zealand and the impact of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act 2011 (CER Act) on planners’ roles and how they operated.
The methodology comprised a combination of document analysis of legislation and related recovery material and 21 semi-structured interviews with key planners, politicians and professionals involved in the recovery. The results suggest that the majority of planners interviewed were affected by the CER Act in their role and how they operated, although institutional context, especially political constraints, was a key factor in determining the degree of impact. It is argued that planners played a key role in recovery and were generally equipped in terms of skills needed in a recovery setting. In order to better utilise planners in post-disaster recovery or disaster risk management, two suggestions are proposed. Firstly, better promote planners and their capabilities to improve awareness of what planners can do. Secondly, educate and build an understanding between central government politicians and planners over each others role to produce better planning outcomes.
Hon RUTH DYSON to the Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration: What progress has been made on the Crown’s Global Settlement with the Christchurch City Council for costs flowing from the Canterbury earthquake sequence? Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by all of his policies, statements, and actions? Hon JUDITH COLLINS to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Does he stand by his statement in response to a question on if he would meet his commitment to be a keynote speaker at the KiwiBuild summit on 24 June, “No, because I have two papers at Cabinet”, and did he take two papers to Cabinet on 24 June? GARETH HUGHES to the Minister of State Services: Does he support measuring and improving the energy efficiency of Government buildings, both leased and owned? Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by his statement yesterday that “Yes, that will mean that we will have deficits that we wouldn’t want to see. That member and his Government under-invested in health for nine long years, and we will be investing ourselves for quite a period to set that right”; if so, when will he “set that right”? Dr DUNCAN WEBB to the Minister of Justice: What recent announcements has he made regarding community law centres? CHRIS BISHOP to the Minister of Transport: What will the percentage increase in the fuel excise duty and accompanying road-user charges be on Monday, 1 July, and what will be the total revenue raised from this increase? Hon TIM MACINDOE to the Minister for ACC: Does he stand by all of his answers during the Vote Labour Market Estimates hearing at the Education and Workforce Committee meeting on 12 June? Dr LIZ CRAIG to the Minister of Health: What, if anything, is the Government doing to better support the wellbeing of parents with mental health and addiction needs? Hon LOUISE UPSTON to the Minister for Women: How can she be responsible for eliminating the gender pay gap when the Ministry for Women’s gender pay gap has gone from 5.6 percent in favour of women to 6 percent in favour of men? JONATHAN YOUNG to the Minister of Energy and Resources: Does she stand by all her statements, policies, and actions? ANAHILA KANONGATA'A-SUISUIKI to the Minister for Pacific Peoples: How does Budget 2019 support Pacific peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand?
The Earthquake Commission has settled with a Christchurch homeowner, just days before their test case was due to be heard at the High Court. Jamie Gibling used his KiwiSaver to buy his first family home in New Brighton after the quakes, believing it had been properly repaired. He later learned the repairs were botched and would cost $300,000 to fix. His "onsold" test case was supposed to be heard on Monday to clarify who was liable. But today EQC announced it had reached a settlement with the family and that agreement would provide a framework for the 54 other claimants also with Shine Lawyers. Finance and EQC Minister Grant Robertson last week announced an "onsold" settlement kitty of $300 million for the next 12 months but legal experts working with claimants have told Checkpoint it could cost taxpayers much much more. EQC's Deputy Chief Executive is Renee Walker. On Thursday she came into the studio and Lisa Owen asked her if the Giblings got what they asked for and if the 54 others who signed up to the class action would get the same.
The supply of water following disasters has always been of significant concern to communities. Failure of water systems not only causes difficulties for residents and critical users but may also affect other hard and soft infrastructure and services. The dependency of communities and other infrastructure on the availability of safe and reliable water places even more emphasis on the resilience of water supply systems. This thesis makes two major contributions. First, it proposes a framework for measuring the multifaceted resilience of water systems, focusing on the significance of the characteristics of different communities for the resilience of water supply systems. The proposed framework, known as the CARE framework, consists of eight principal activities: (1) developing a conceptual framework; (2) selecting appropriate indicators; (3) refining the indicators based on data availability; (4) correlation analysis; (5) scaling the indicators; (6) weighting the variables; (7) measuring the indicators; and (8) aggregating the indicators. This framework allows researchers to develop appropriate indicators in each dimension of resilience (i.e., technical, organisational, social, and economic), and enables decision makers to more easily participate in the process and follow the procedure for composite indicator development. Second, it identifies the significant technical, social, organisational and economic factors, and the relevant indicators for measuring these factors. The factors and indicators were gathered through a comprehensive literature review. They were then verified and ranked through a series of interviews with water supply and resilience specialists, social scientists and economists. Vulnerability, redundancy and criticality were identified as the most significant technical factors affecting water supply system robustness, and consequently resilience. These factors were tested for a scenario earthquake of Mw 7.6 in Pukerua Bay in New Zealand. Four social factors and seven indicators were identified in this study. The social factors are individual demands and capacities, individual involvement in the community, violence level in the community, and trust. The indicators are the Giving Index, homicide rate, assault rate, inverse trust in army, inverse trust in police, mean years of school, and perception of crime. These indicators were tested in Chile and New Zealand, which experienced earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 respectively. The social factors were also tested in Vanuatu following TC Pam, which hit the country in March 2015. Interestingly, the organisational dimension contributed the largest number of factors and indicators for measuring water supply resilience to disasters. The study identified six organisational factors and 17 indicators that can affect water supply resilience to disasters. The factors are: disaster precaution; predisaster planning; data availability, data accessibility and information sharing; staff, parts, and equipment availability; pre-disaster maintenance; and governance. The identified factors and their indicators were tested for the case of Christchurch, New Zealand, to understand how organisational capacity affected water supply resilience following the earthquake in February 2011. Governance and availability of critical staff following the earthquake were the strongest organisational factors for the Christchurch City Council, while the lack of early warning systems and emergency response planning were identified as areas that needed to be addressed. Economic capacity and quick access to finance were found to be the main economic factors influencing the resilience of water systems. Quick access to finance is most important in the early stages following a disaster for response and restoration, but its importance declines over time. In contrast, the economic capacity of the disaster struck area and the water sector play a vital role in the subsequent reconstruction phase rather than in the response and restoration period. Indicators for these factors were tested for the case of the February 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. Finally, a new approach to measuring water supply resilience is proposed. This approach measures the resilience of the water supply system based on actual water demand following an earthquake. The demand-based method calculates resilience based on the difference between water demand and system capacity by measuring actual water shortage (i.e., the difference between water availability and demand) following an earthquake.
Background: There has been a psychopathology focus in disaster research examining adolescent mental health and wellbeing, but recently studies have begun to also examine wellbeing-related constructs. Although an increased risk of posttraumatic stress disorder has been established in disaster-exposed adolescents, comparatively little is known about how disasters impact adolescent wellbeing, nor how factors within the post-disaster environment interact to influence holistic adolescent mental health and wellbeing. Objective: The objective of this study was to describe the holistic mental health and wellbeing of adolescents living in an earthquake-struck city by considering a range of mental health and wellbeing indicators, as well as risk and protective factors hypothesised to influence mental health and wellbeing. The dual-factor model of mental health was used as a framework to guide this study. Method: A survey of Christchurch secondary school students was used to gather data about their subjective wellbeing, risk of low wellbeing, psychological distress, quality of life, exposure to Adverse Childhood Experiences, social support from friends and family, school connectedness, and expectations about future quality of life. Results: A slim majority of students reported good subjective wellbeing (52.3%) and high current quality of life (56.4%), whereas a larger majority reported low risk of psychological distress (79%). An equal proportion of students reported high and low risk of low wellbeing. There were no statistically significant differences in any of the variables measured between adolescents who did and did not live through the Christchurch earthquakes. Regression analyses identified that school connectedness, social support from friends and family, and future expectations of quality of life significantly predicted subjective wellbeing, risk of low wellbeing, risk of psychological distress, and current quality of life. The number of Adverse Childhood Experiences significantly predicted only risk of psychological distress when the effects of other variables were controlled for. Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that there is a low mean level of wellbeing and quality of life in this sample of adolescents living in a severely earthquake- affected community. School connectedness, social support from family and friends, and expectations about future quality of life were shown to significantly predict variance in subjective wellbeing, quality of life, and psychological distress. This suggests that there are social and environmental factors that can be targeted to improve holistic mental health and wellbeing in disaster-affected adolescents who have experienced high levels of trauma. Conclusions in this study are limited by the representativeness of the sample, the cross- sectional nature of the study, and potential sampling bias.
Background: There has been a psychopathology focus in disaster research examining adolescent mental health and wellbeing, but recently studies have begun to also examine wellbeing-related constructs. Although an increased risk of posttraumatic stress disorder has been established in disaster-exposed adolescents, comparatively little is known about how disasters impact adolescent wellbeing, nor how factors within the post-disaster environment interact to influence holistic adolescent mental health and wellbeing. Objective: The objective of this study was to describe the holistic mental health and wellbeing of adolescents living in an earthquake-struck city by considering a range of mental health and wellbeing indicators, as well as risk and protective factors hypothesised to influence mental health and wellbeing. The dual-factor model of mental health was used as a framework to guide this study. Method: A survey of Christchurch secondary school students was used to gather data about their subjective wellbeing, risk of low wellbeing, psychological distress, quality of life, exposure to Adverse Childhood Experiences, social support from friends and family, school connectedness, and expectations about future quality of life. Results: A slim majority of students reported good subjective wellbeing (52.3%) and high current quality of life (56.4%), whereas a larger majority reported low risk of psychological distress (79%). An equal proportion of students reported high and low risk of low wellbeing. There were no statistically significant differences in any of the variables measured between adolescents who did and did not live through the Christchurch earthquakes. Regression analyses identified that school connectedness, social support from friends and family, and future expectations of quality of life significantly predicted subjective wellbeing, risk of low wellbeing, risk of psychological distress, and current quality of life. The number of Adverse Childhood Experiences significantly predicted only risk of psychological distress when the effects of other variables were controlled for. Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that there is a low mean level of wellbeing and quality of life in this sample of adolescents living in a severely earthquake-affected community. School connectedness, social support from family and friends, and expectations about future quality of life were shown to significantly predict variance in subjective wellbeing, quality of life, and psychological distress. This suggests that there are social and environmental factors that can be targeted to improve holistic mental health and wellbeing in disaster-affected adolescents who have experienced high levels of trauma. Conclusions in this study are limited by the representativeness of the sample, the cross-sectional nature of the study, and potential sampling bias.
Background: There has been a psychopathology focus in disaster research examining adolescent mental health and wellbeing, but recently studies have begun to also examine wellbeing-related constructs. Although an increased risk of posttraumatic stress disorder has been established in disaster-exposed adolescents, comparatively little is known about how disasters impact adolescent wellbeing, nor how factors within the post-disaster environment interact to influence holistic adolescent mental health and wellbeing. Objective: The objective of this study was to describe the holistic mental health and wellbeing of adolescents living in an earthquake-struck city by considering a range of mental health and wellbeing indicators, as well as risk and protective factors hypothesised to influence mental health and wellbeing. The dual-factor model of mental health was used as a framework to guide this study. Method: A survey of Christchurch secondary school students was used to gather data about their subjective wellbeing, risk of low wellbeing, psychological distress, quality of life, exposure to Adverse Childhood Experiences, social support from friends and family, school connectedness, and expectations about future quality of life. Results: A slim majority of students reported good subjective wellbeing (52.3%) and high current quality of life (56.4%), whereas a larger majority reported low risk of psychological distress (79%). An equal proportion of students reported high and low risk of low wellbeing. There were no statistically significant differences in any of the variables measured between adolescents who did and did not live through the Christchurch earthquakes. Regression analyses identified that school connectedness, social support from friends and family, and future expectations of quality of life significantly predicted subjective wellbeing, risk of low wellbeing, risk of psychological distress, and current quality of life. The number of Adverse Childhood Experiences significantly predicted only risk of psychological distress when the effects of other variables were controlled for. Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that there is a low mean level of wellbeing and quality of life in this sample of adolescents living in a severely earthquake- affected community. School connectedness, social support from family and friends, and expectations about future quality of life were shown to significantly predict variance in subjective wellbeing, quality of life, and psychological distress. This suggests that there are social and environmental factors that can be targeted to improve holistic mental health and wellbeing in disaster-affected adolescents who have experienced high levels of trauma. Conclusions in this study are limited by the representativeness of the sample, the cross- sectional nature of the study, and potential sampling bias.
During the 2010 - 2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence, extensive liquefaction was observed in many areas of Christchurch city and its surroundings, causing widespread damage to buildings and infrastructure. While existing simplified methods were found to work well in some areas of the city, there were also large areas where these methods did not perform satisfactorily. In some of these cases, researchers have proposed that layers of fine grained material within the soil profile may be responsible for preventing the manifestation of liquefaction. This paper presents preliminary findings on the mechanisms at play when pressure differentials exist across a clay layer. It is found that if the clay layer is unable to distort, then pore fluid is unable to break-through the layer even with relatively high pressures, resulting in dissipation of excess pore pressures by seepage. If the layers are however able to distort, then it is possible for the pore fluid to break through the clay layer, potentially resulting in adverse effects in terms of the severity of liquefaction.
This paper investigates the effects of variability in source rupture parameters on site-specific physics-based simulated ground motions, ascertained through the systematic analysis of ground motion intensity measures. As a preliminary study, we consider simulations of the 22 February 2011 Christchurch earthquake using the Graves and Pitarka (2015) methodology. The effects of source variability are considered via a sensitivity study in which parameters (hypocentre location, earthquake magnitude, average rupture velocity, fault geometry and the Brune stress parameter) are individually varied by one standard deviation. The sensitivity of simulated ground motion intensity measures are subsequently compared against observational data. The preliminary results from this study indicate that uncertainty in the stress parameter and the rupture velocity have the most significant effect on the high frequency amplitudes. Conversely, magnitude uncertainty was found to be most influential on the spectral acceleration amplitudes at low frequencies. Further work is required to extend this preliminary study to exhaustively consider more events and to include parameter covariance. The ultimate results of this research will assist in the validation of the overall simulation method’s accuracy in capturing various rupture parameters, which is essential for the use of simulated ground motion models in probabilistic seismic hazard analysis.
One of the failure modes that got the attention of researchers in the 2011 February New Zealand earthquake was the collapse of a key supporting structural wall of Grand Chancellor Hotel in Christchurch which failed in a brittle manner. However, until now this failure mode has been still a bit of a mystery for the researchers in the field of structural engineering. Moreover, there is no method to identify, assess and design the walls prone to such failure mode. Following the recent break through regarding the mechanism of this failure mode based on experimental observations (out-of-plane shear failure), a numerical model that can capture this failure was developed using the FE software DIANA. A comprehensive numerical parametric study was conducted to identify the key parameters contributing to the development of out-of-plane shear failure in reinforced concrete (RC) walls. Based on the earthquake observations, experimental and numerical studies conducted by the authors of this paper, an analytical method to identify walls prone to out-of-plane shear failure that can be used in practice by engineers is proposed. The method is developed based on the key parameters affecting the seismic performance of RC walls prone to out-of-plane shear failure and can be used for both design and assessment purposes
Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 involves transformational change in the business of business, and social enterprises can lead the way in such change. We studied Cultivate, one such social enterprise in Christchurch, New Zealand, a city still recovering from the 2010/11 Canterbury earthquakes. Cultivate works with vulnerable youth to transform donated compost into garden vegetables for local restaurants and businesses. Cultivate’s objectives align with SDG concerns with poverty and hunger (1 & 2), social protection (3 & 4), and sustainable human settlements (6 & 11). Like many grant-supported organisations, Cultivate is required to track and measure its progress. Given the organisation’s holistic objectives, however, adequately accounting for its impact reporting is not straightforward. Our action research project engaged Cultivate staff and youth-workers to generate meaningful ways of measuring impact. Elaborating the Community Economy Return on Investment tool (CEROI), we explore how participatory audit processes can capture impacts on individuals, organisations, and the wider community in ways that extend capacities to act collectively. We conclude that Cultivate and social enterprises like it offer insights regarding how to align values and practices, commercial activity and wellbeing in ways that accrue to individuals, organisations and the broader civic-community.
On 15 August 1868, a great earthquake struck off the coast of the Chile-Peru border generating a tsunami that travelled across the Pacific. Wharekauri-Rekohu-Chatham Islands, located 800 km east of Christchurch, Aotearoa-New Zealand (A-NZ) was one of the worst affected locations in A-NZ. Tsunami waves, including three over 6 metres high, injured and killed people, destroyed buildings and infrastructure, and impacted the environment, economy and communities. While experience of disasters, and advancements in disaster risk reduction systems and technology have all significantly advanced A-NZ’s capacity to be ready for and respond to future earthquakes and tsunami, social memory of this event and other tsunamis during our history has diminished. In 2018, a team of scientists, emergency managers and communication specialists collaborated to organise a memorial event on the Chatham Islands and co-ordinate a multi-agency media campaign to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the 1868 Arica tsunami. The purpose was to raise awareness of the disaster and to encourage preparedness for future tsunami. Press releases and science stories were distributed widely by different media outlets and many attended the memorial event indicating public interest for commemorating historical disasters. We highlight the importance of commemorating disaster anniversaries through memorial events, to raise awareness of historical disasters and increase community preparedness for future events – “lest we forget and let us learn.”
The lived reality of the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes and its implications for the Waimakariri District, a small but rapidly growing district (third tier of government in New Zealand) north of Christchurch, can illustrate how community well-being, community resilience, and community capitals interrelate in practice generating paradoxical results out of what can otherwise be conceived as a textbook ‘best practice’ case of earthquake recovery. The Waimakariri District Council’s integrated community based recovery framework designed and implemented post-earthquakes in the District was built upon strong political, social, and moral capital elements such as: inter-institutional integration and communication, participation, local knowledge, and social justice. This approach enabled very positive community outputs such as artistic community interventions of the urban environment and communal food forests amongst others. Yet, interests responding to broader economic and political processes (continuous central government interventions, insurance and reinsurance processes, changing socio-cultural patterns) produced a significant loss of community capitals (E.g.: social fragmentation, participation exhaustion, economic leakage, etc.) which simultaneously, despite local Council and community efforts, hindered community well-being in the long term. The story of the Waimakariri District helps understand how resilience governance operates in practice where multi-scalar, non-linear, paradoxical, dynamic, and uncertain outcomes appear to be the norm that underpins the construction of equitable, transformative, and sustainable pathways towards the future.
The Canterbury earthquake sequence (2010-2011) was the most devastating catastrophe in New Zealand‘s modern history. Fortunately, in 2011 New Zealand had a high insurance penetration ratio, with more than 95% of residences being insured for these earthquakes. This dissertation sheds light on the functions of disaster insurance schemes and their role in economic recovery post-earthquakes. The first chapter describes the demand and supply for earthquake insurance and provides insights about different public-private partnership earthquake insurance schemes around the world. In the second chapter, we concentrate on three public earthquake insurance schemes in California, Japan, and New Zealand. The chapter examines what would have been the outcome had the system of insurance in Christchurch been different in the aftermath of the Canterbury earthquake sequence (CES). We focus on the California Earthquake Authority insurance program, and the Japanese Earthquake Reinsurance scheme. Overall, the aggregate cost of the earthquake to the New Zealand public insurer (the Earthquake Commission) was USD 6.2 billion. If a similar-sized disaster event had occurred in Japan and California, homeowners would have received only around USD 1.6 billion and USD 0.7 billion from the Japanese and Californian schemes, respectively. We further describe the spatial and distributive aspects of these scenarios and discuss some of the policy questions that emerge from this comparison. The third chapter measures the longer-term effect of the CES on the local economy, using night-time light intensity measured from space, and focus on the role of insurance payments for damaged residential property during the local recovery process. Uniquely for this event, more than 95% of residential housing units were covered by insurance and almost all incurred some damage. However, insurance payments were staggered over 5 years, enabling us to identify their local impact. We find that night-time luminosity can capture the process of recovery; and that insurance payments contributed significantly to the process of local economic recovery after the earthquake. Yet, delayed payments were less affective in assisting recovery and cash settlement of claims were more effective than insurance-managed repairs. After the Christchurch earthquakes, the government declared about 8000 houses as Red Zoned, prohibiting further developments in these properties, and offering the owners to buy them out. The government provided two options for owners: the first was full payment for both land and dwelling at the 2007 property evaluation, the second was payment for land, and the rest to be paid by the owner‘s insurance. Most people chose the second option. Using data from LINZ combined with data from Stats NZ, the fourth chapter empirically investigates what led people to choose this second option, and how peer effect influenced the homeowners‘ choices. Due to climate change, public disclosure of coastal hazard information through maps and property reports have been used more frequently by local government. This is expected to raise awareness about disaster risks in local community and help potential property owners to make informed locational decision. However, media outlets and business sector argue that public hazard disclosure will cause a negative effect on property value. Despite this opposition, some district councils in New Zealand have attempted to implement improved disclosure. Kapiti Coast district in the Wellington region serves as a case study for this research. In the fifth chapter, we utilize the residential property sale data and coastal hazard maps from the local district council. This study employs a difference-in-difference hedonic property price approach to examine the effect of hazard disclosure on coastal property values. We also apply spatial hedonic regression methods, controlling for coastal amenities, as our robustness check. Our findings suggest that hazard designation has a statistically and economically insignificant impact on property values. Overall, the risk perception about coastal hazards should be more emphasized in communities.
Recent earthquakes in New Zealand proved that a shift is necessary in the current design practice of structures to achieve better seismic performance. Following such events, the number of new buildings using innovative technical solutions (e.g. base isolation, controlled rocking systems, damping devices, etc.), has increased, especially in Christchurch. However, the application of these innovative technologies is often restricted to medium-high rise buildings due to the maximum benefit to cost ratio. In this context, to address this issue, a multi-disciplinary geo-structural-environmental engineering project funded by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is being carried out at the University of Canterbury. The project aims at developing a foundation system which will improve the seismic performance of medium-density low-rise buildings. Such foundation is characterized by two main elements: 1) granulated tyre rubber mixed with gravelly soils to be placed beneath the structure, with the goal of damping part of the seismic energy before it reaches the superstructure; and 2) a basement raft made of steel-fibre rubberised concrete to enhance the flexibility of the foundation under differential displacement demand. In the first part of this paper, the overarching objectives, scope and methodology of the project will be briefly described. Then, preliminary findings on the materials characterization, i.e., the gravel-rubber mixtures and steel-fibre rubberised concrete mixes, will be presented and discussed with focus on the mechanical behaviour.
Fear and humour increasingly drive the TV news. What was the most radical thing you did at school? Some Rangitoto College year 13 girls are upset they're being told to dress more modestly.Students and parents are accusing the school of encouraging "rape culture".A senior staff member from the school is said to have told Year 13 girls that what they're wearing is proving a distraction to their male teachers. Western Springs College which is also in Auckland has been mufti since the 1980s their principal Ivan Davis talks about their attitude to dress code. Displaced residents of Merivale Retirement village in Christchurch were told that they need to move out by April 1. A new facility that has replaced the earthquake damaged one won't have enough beds for everyone. The CEO of Age Concern Canterbury Simon Templeton talks about what measures are in place to look after these vulnerable elderly people. Thirty-six per cent of 16-24 year-olds in full-time education in the UK are not touching booze. They're joining teetotal clubs and opting for alcohol-free accomodation. High levels of debt and the pressure to do well means that students are going out less. Will alchol go completely out of fashion one day? The Nest security alarm system has a microphone in it. Although you probably wouldn't know that because it's not stated on the gadget's specifications. It's a Google product and the company says it never meant to keep the listening devices a secret. UK privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch says it's deceptive and it's normalising the disturbing notion of tech giants constant listening within the privacy of our homes.
Predicting building collapse due to seismic motion is critical in design and more so after a major event. Damaged structures can appear sound, but collapse under following major events. There can thus be significant risk in decision making after a major seismic event concerning the safe occupation of a building or surrounding areas, versus the unknown impact of unknown major aftershocks. Model-based pushover analyses are effective if the structural properties are well understood, which is not valid post-event when this risk information is most useful. This research combines Hysteresis Loop Analysis (HLA) structural health monitoring (SHM) and Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) methods to determine collapse capacity and probability of collapse for a specific structure, at any time, a range of earthquake excitations to ensure robustness. The nonlinear dynamic analysis method presented enables constant updating of building performance predictions using post-event SHM results. The resulting combined methods provide near real-time updating of collapse fragility curves as events progress, quantifying the change of collapse probability or seismic induced losses for decision-making - a novel, higher resolution risk analysis than previously available. The methods are not computationally expensive and there is no requirement for a validated numerical model. Results show significant potential benefits and a clear evolution of risk. They also show clear need for extending SHM toward creating improved predictive models for analysis of subsequent events, where the Christchurch series of 2010-2011 had significant post-event aftershocks after each main event. Finally, the overall method is generalisable to any typical engineering demand parameter.
Peri-urban environments are critical to the connections between urban and rural ecosystems and their respective communities. Lowland floodplains are important examples that are attractive for urbanisation and often associated with the loss of rural lands and resources. In Christchurch, New Zealand, damage from major earthquakes led to the large-scale abandonment of urban residential properties in former floodplain areas creating a rare opportunity to re-imagine the future of these lands. This has posed a unique governance challenge involving the reassessment of land-use options and a renewed focus on disaster risk and climate change adaptation. Urban-rural tensions have emerged through decisions on relocating residential development, alternative proposals for land uses, and an unprecedented opportunity for redress of degraded traditional values for indigenous (Māori) people. Immediately following the earthquakes, existing statutory arrangements applied to many recovery needs and identified institutional responsibilities. Bespoke legislation was also created to address the scale of impacts. Characteristics of the approach have included attention to information acquisition, iterative assessment of land - use options, and a wide variety of opportunities for community participation. Challenges have included a protracted decision-making process with accompanying transaction costs, and a high requirement for coordination. The case typifies the challenges of achieving ecosystem governance where both urban and rural stakeholders have strong desires and an opportunity to exert influence. It presents a unique context for applying the latest thinking on ecosystem management, adaptation, and resilience, and offers transferable learning for the governance of peri-urban floodplains worldwide.
The greater Wellington region, New Zealand, is highly vulnerable to large earthquakes. While attention has been paid to the consequences of earthquake damage to road, electricity and water supply networks, the consequences of wastewater network damage for public health, environmental health and habitability of homes remain largely unknown for Wellington City. The Canterbury and Kaikōura earthquakes have highlighted the vulnerability of sewerage systems to disruption during a disaster. Management of human waste is one of the critical components of disaster planning to reduce faecal-oral transmission of disease and exposure to disease-bearing vectors. In Canterbury and Kaikōura, emergency sanitation involved a combination of Port-a-loos, chemical toilets and backyard long-drops. While many lessons may be learned from experiences in Canterbury earthquakes, it is important to note that isolation is likely to be a much greater factor for Wellington households, compared to Christchurch, due to the potential for widespread landslides in hill suburbs affecting road access. This in turn implies that human waste may have to be managed onsite, as options such as chemical toilets and Port-a-loos rely completely on road access for delivering chemicals and collecting waste. While some progress has been made on options such as emergency composting toilets, significant knowledge gaps remain on how to safely manage waste onsite. In order to bridge these gaps, laboratory tests will be conducted through the second half of 2019 to assess the pathogen die-off rates in the composting toilet system with variables being the type of carbon bulking material and the addition of a Bokashi composting activator.
