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Audio, Radio New Zealand

Repatriation, innovation, virtual reality and other digital opportunities and issues around earthquake strengthening buildings will all come up for debate next weekend at our museums' national conference in Christchurch. The MA18 Conference brings together several hundred museum leaders to talk about a time of rapid change in how museums display their taonga and how they reach out to their communities. Lynn Freeman spoke to Phillipa Tocker who's the Executive Director of Museums Aotearoa, and to one of the guest speakers, futurist Kaila Colbin who's curator of TEDxChristchurch and TEDxScottBase, co-founder and Chair of the Ministry of Awesome and a director of ChristchurchNZ which is responsible for tourism, major events and economic development in the city.

Research papers, Victoria University of Wellington

©2019. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. Earthquakes have been inferred to induce hydrological changes in aquifers on the basis of either changes to well water-levels or tidal behavior, but the relationship between these changes remains unclear. Here, changes in tidal behavior and water-levels are quantified using a hydrological network monitoring gravel aquifers in Canterbury, New Zealand, in response to nine earthquakes (of magnitudes M w 5.4 to 7.8) that occurred between 2008 and 2015. Of the 161 wells analyzed, only 35 contain water-level fluctuations associated with “Earth + Ocean” (7) or “Ocean” (28) tides. Permeability reduction manifest as changes in tidal behavior and increased water-levels in the near field of the Canterbury earthquake sequence of 2010–2011 support the hypothesis of shear-induced consolidation. However, tidal behavior and water-level changes rarely occurred simultaneously (~2%). Water-level changes that occurred with no change in tidal behavior reequilibrated at a new postseismic level more quickly (on timescales of ~50 min) than when a change in tidal behavior occurred (~240 min to 10 days). Water-level changes were more than likely to occur above a peak dynamic stress of ~50 kPa and were more than likely to not occur below ~10 kPa. The minimum peak dynamic stress required for a tidal behavior change to occur was ~0.2 to 100 kPa.

Audio, Radio New Zealand

Base isolation has generally been considered an expensive system used mainly in commercial buildings to make them more earthquake resilient. Katy Gosset meets the University of Canterbury engineers who've developed a safe, low cost model that could work in our homes.

Audio, Radio New Zealand

After the devastating effects on Christchurch, we are all aware of the damage earthquakes can cause. But in New Zealand, a tsunami could be just as damaging. University of Auckland engineers Asaad Shamseldin and PhD student Reza Shafiei are creating waves in the lab to work out how safe our buildings are, if a tsunami hits. Ruth Beran goes to visit them.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Contemporary organisations operate in rapidly evolving complex and ambiguous environments for which traditional change management approaches are insufficient. Under these conditions, organisations need to demonstrate learning and adaptive capabilities to effectively manage crises. Yet, the swift development and enactment of these capabilities can be particularly challenging for large, operationally diverse, and financially constrained public-sector organisations such as universities. Despite growing need for evidence-based research to guide crisis and change management in the higher education sector, the organisational literature offers limited insights. The combined impact of the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes with a well-advanced restructure provided an opportunity to investigate institutional adaptation to and management of a compounded planned change (i.e., restructure) and an unplanned change (i.e., natural disaster response) at a university. Beginning in 2016, individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 middle and senior university managers to capture their perspectives of compounded planned and unplanned change management, covering views of leadership, and of operational, structural, relational, and extra-organisational factors. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The analysis coalesced into two overarching themes: Change Management Approaches and Lessons Learned through Change. Change Management Approaches evince institutional adaptation factors, along with barriers and enablers to effective change management, arising from the interplay of, and tensions between, leadership capabilities and a longstanding participatory culture. Lessons Learned through Change encompass business continuity mechanisms, and the learning opportunities seized and missed by leaders. The findings assert the primacy of workforce capabilities to 21st-century organisational success and thriving and substantiate that the calibre and availability of workforce capability is contingent on organisational culture and leadership. Leaders must ensure organisational agility by empowering employees, leveraging and integrating their contributions within and across functional units, and promoting effective two-way communication. The research argues for a hybrid repertoire of versatile dynamic organisational leadership qualities and capabilities to effectively navigate the multidimensional challenges and uncertainties in this sector and 21st-century business conditions. Of overarching significance to this repertoire is purpose-oriented emotionally intelligent leadership that honours the individual and collective dignity, diversity, and intelligence of all employees. This research empirically evidences the co-occurrence of planned and unplanned change in contemporary society, and continuous organisational adaptation and resilience to navigate the persistent volatility during a protracted crisis. Accordingly, the thesis argues that continued bifurcation of planned and unplanned change fields, and strategic and change management leadership theories is untenable, and that an integrated framework of organisational leadership and change management methodologies is required for organisations to effectively respond to and navigate the challenges and volatility of contemporary organisational contexts.

Audio, Radio New Zealand

University of Canterbury geologist Mark Quigley has earned a reputation for being a great science communicator on the subject of earthquakes. But when he's not in the media spotlight, he's out and about around Canterbury building a picture of the region's tectonic history, and trying to understand what might happen in the future.

Audio, Radio New Zealand

Architect Bob Burnett is part of a class action group yet to resolve claims with Southern Response. The group argues the insurer, which was established to settle outstanding AMI claims, has systematically short-changed them. Mr Burnett said the insurer had done more damage to his home than had been done in the earthquakes. The 40 members of the class action group head to court next Wednesday.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

When disasters and crises, both man-made and natural, occur, resilient higher education institutions adapt in order to continue teaching and research. This may necessitate the closure of the whole institution, a building and/or other essential infrastructure. In disasters of large scale the impact can be felt for many years. There is an increasing recognition of the need for disaster planning to restructure educational institutions so that they become more resilient to challenges including natural disasters (Seville, Hawker, & Lyttle, 2012).The University of Canterbury (UC) was affected by seismic events that resulted in the closure of the University in September 2010 for 10 days and two weeks at the start of the 2011 academic year This case study research describes ways in which e-learning was deployed and developed by the University to continue and even to improve learning and teaching in the aftermath of a series of earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. A qualitative intrinsic embedded/nested single case study design was chosen for the study. The population was the management, support staff and educators at the University of Canterbury. Participants were recruited with purposive sampling using a snowball strategy where the early key participants were encouraged to recommend further participants. Four sources of data were identified: (1) documents such as policy, reports and guidelines; (2) emails from leaders of the colleges and academics; (3) communications from senior management team posted on the university website during and after the seismic activity of 2010 and 2011; and (4) semi-structured interviews of academics, support staff and members of senior management team. A series of inductive descriptive content analyses identified a number of themes in the data. The Technology Acceptance Model 2 (Venkatesh & Davis, 2000) and the Indicator of Resilience Model (Resilient Organisations, 2012) were used for additional analyses of each of the three cases. Within the University case, the cases of two contrasting Colleges were embedded to produce a total of three case studies describing e-learning from 2000 - 2014. One contrast was the extent of e-learning deployment at the colleges: The College of Education was a leader in the field, while the College of Business and Law had relatively little e-learning at the time of the first earthquake in September 2010. The following six themes emerged from the analyses: Communication about crises, IT infrastructure, Availability of e-learning technologies, Support in the use of e-learning technologies, Timing of crises in academic year and Strategic planning for e-learning. One of the findings confirmed earlier research that communication to members of an organisation and the general public about crises and the recovery from crises is important. The use of communication channels, which students were familiar with and already using, aided the dissemination of the information that UC would be using e-learning as one of the options to complete the academic year. It was also found that e-learning tools were invaluable during the crises and facilitated teaching and learning whilst freeing limited campus space for essential activities and that IT infrastructure was essential to e-learning. The range of e-learning tools and their deployment evolved over the years influenced by repeated crises and facilitated by the availability of centrally located support from the e-Learning support team for a limited set of tools, as well as more localised support and collaboration with colleagues. Furthermore, the reasons and/or rate of e-learning adoption in an educational institution during crises varied with the time of the academic year and the needs of the institution at the time. The duration of the crises also affected the adoption of e-learning. Finally, UC’s lack of an explicit e-learning strategy influenced the two colleges to develop college-specific e-learning plans and those College plans complemented the incorporation of e-learning for the first time in the University’s teaching and learning strategy in 2013. Twelve out of the 13 indicators of the Indicators of Resilience Model were found in the data collected for the study and could be explained using the model; it revealed that UC has become more resilient with e-learning in the aftermath of the seismic activities in 2010 and 2011. The interpretation of the results using TAM2 demonstrated that the adoption of technologies during crises aided in overcoming barriers to learning at the time of the crisis. The recommendations from this study are that in times of crises, educational institutions take advantage of Cloud computing to communicate with members of the institution and stakeholders. Also, that the architecture of a university’s IT infrastructure be made more resilient by increasing redundancy, backup and security, centralisation and Cloud computing. In addition, when under stress it is recommended that new tools are only introduced when they are essential.

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Cobwebs and graffiti in a shower block. The photographer comments, "This was the Soccer changing rooms in Bexley Park in Christchurch. They have now been made out of bounds due to the extensive damage to the big building. The spiders must have grown awfully big though".

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Land cover change information in urban areas supports decision makers in dealing with public policy planning and resource management. Remote sensing has been demonstrated as an efficient and accurate way to monitor land cover change over large extents. The Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES) caused massive damage in Christchurch, New Zealand and resulted in significant land cover change over a short time period. This study combined two types of remote sensing data, aerial imagery (RGB) and LiDAR, as the basis for quantifying land cover change in Christchurch between 2011 – 2015, a period corresponding to the five years immediately following the 22 February 2011 earthquake, which was part of the CES. An object based image analysis (OBIA) approach was adopted to classify the aerial imagery and LiDAR data into seven land cover types (bare land, building, grass, shadow, tree and water). The OBIA approach consisted of two steps, image segmentation and object classification. For the first step, this study used multi-level segmentation to better segment objects. For the second step, the random forest (RF) classifier was used to assign a land cover type to each object defined by the segmentation. Overall classification accuracies for 2011 and 2015 were 94.0% and 94.32%, respectively. Based on the classification result, land cover changes between 2011 and 2015 were then analysed. Significant increases were found in road and tree cover, while the land cover types that decreased were bare land, grass, roof, water. To better understand the reasons for those changes, land cover transitions were calculated. Canopy growth, seasonal differences and forest plantation establishment were the main reasons for tree cover increase. Redevelopment after the earthquake was the main reason for road area growth. By comparing the spatial distribution of these transitions, this study also identified Halswell and Wigram as the fastest developing suburbs in Christchurch. These results provided quantitative information for the effects of CES, with respect to land cover change. They allow for a better understanding for the current land cover status of Christchurch. Among those land cover changes, the significant increase in tree cover aroused particularly interest as urban forests benefit citizens via ecosystem services, including health, social, economic, and environmental benefits. Therefore, this study firstly calculated the percentages of tree cover in Christchurch’s fifteen wards in order to provide a general idea of tree cover change in the city extent. Following this, an automatic individual tree detection and crown delineation (ITCD) was undertaken to determine the feasibility of automated tree counting. The accuracies of the proposed approach ranged between 56.47% and 92.11% in thirty different sample plots, with an overall accuracy of 75.60%. Such varied accuracies were later found to be caused by the fixed tree detection window size and misclassifications from the land cover classification that affected the boundary of the CHM. Due to the large variability in accuracy, tree counting was not undertaken city-wide for both time periods. However, directions for further study for ITCD in Christchurch could be exploring ITCD approaches with variable window size or optimizing the classification approach to focus more on producing highly accurate CHMs.

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

Blended learning plays an important role in many tertiary institutions but little has been written about the implementation of blended learning in times of adversity, natural disaster or crisis. This paper describes how, in the wake of the 22 February Canterbury earthquake, five teacher educators responded to crisis-driven changing demands and changing directions. Our narratives describe how blended learning provided students in initial teacher education programmes with some certainty and continuity during a time of civil emergency. The professional learning generated from our experiences provides valuable insights for designing and preparing for blended learning in times of crisis, as well as developing resilient blended learning programmes for the future.

Images, Canterbury Museum

One landscape colour digital photograph taken on 19 November 2011 showing part of the north side of London Street. The properties visible from left to right are Lyttel Piko Organic and Wholefoods, and Satchmo Café Pizzabar The Lyttelton streetscape has changed dramatically from its pre-earthquake appearance and will continue to change as new bu...

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

This report provides an understanding of the nature of Canterbury subcontracting businesses operating in the space of earthquake reconstruction in Christchurch. It offers an in-depth look at the factors that influence the development of their capacity and capability to withstand the impact of volatile economic cycles, including the 2008 global financial crisis and the subsequent 2010/11 Canterbury earthquakes. There have been significant changes to the business models of the 13 subcontracting businesses studied since the earthquakes. These changes can be seen in the ways the case study subcontractors have adapted to cope with the changing demands that the rebuild posed. Apart from the magnitude of reconstruction works and new developments that directly affect the capacity of subcontracting businesses in Canterbury, case studies found that subcontractors’ capacity and capability to meet the demand varies and is influenced by the: subcontractors’ own unique characteristics, which are often shaped by changing circumstances in a dynamic and uncertain recovery process; and internal factors in relation to the company’s goal and employees’ needs

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A poster created by Empowered Christchurch to advertise their submission to the CERA Draft Transition Recovery Plan on social media.The poster reads, "Submission, CERA Draft Transition Recovery Plan. Risk Acceptance. It is the role of insurance companies, the EQC included, to accept the risks covered under their terms of reference/policies and compensate policyholders when such risks eventuate. However, many policyholders in Christchurch have not been compensated for the damage to their homes and their lives. These responsibilities need to be faced by the entities responsible. An equitable solution needs to be found for properties with hazards such as flooding that are a direct result of the earthquakes. In tandem with this, every effort must be made to protect residents from the risks posed by climate change. We need a city that is driven by the people that live in it, and enabled by a bureaucracy that accepts and mitigates risks, rather than transferring them to the most vulnerable residents".