Central City Utilities Coordination
Articles, UC QuakeStudies
A copy of the plan, created in 2011, detailing how the rebuild of the three waters and road infrastructure was to be coordinated with other utility operators.
A copy of the plan, created in 2011, detailing how the rebuild of the three waters and road infrastructure was to be coordinated with other utility operators.
A photograph of members of SPCA Canterbury conducting a meeting in the Rescue Coordination Centre after the 22 February 2011 earthquake.
A presentation which explains that NZTA have adopted SCIRT's approach to utilities management and sets out the reasons why. This presentation was created in 2015.
A document which stipulates SCIRT's minimum standard for managing the risks arising from working around services.
A management plan which describes how SCIRT will coordinate utility authorities and utility relocations.
A document which describes the processes and procedures SCIRT designers and delivery teams had to follow to locate and protect utilities.
A bowtie diagram which SCIRT used to evaluate the risks associated with and analyse the causal relationships associated with service strikes.
A document which contains several examples of SCIRT Safety Alerts, which were documents sent out to inform and educate all site staff after an incident.
A document which describes how SCIRT led the co-ordination of its huge repair programme with those of other utilities.
A document which contains a set of procedures for the "best practice" mark out and recording of subsurface utilities.
A diagram created in 2011, showing the communication structure across rebuild agencies.
An outline, created in 2011, of the levels of service and condition of the horizontal infrastructure within the central city, providing a broad indication of damage, service levels provided to residents and business owners, and used to estimate the cost of repairs following the earthquake events.
A document created in 2011, demonstrating the design parameters for the rebuild of wastewater, storm water, water supply and roading in the central city.
A document outlining the methodology for rebuilding horizontal infrastructure in the central city, covering wastewater (local reticulation and trunk), wastewater pump stations, storm water (local reticulation and trunk), potable water, roads, and bridges.
A document outlining how the rebuild of wastewater, water supply, storm water and roading infrastructure was to be managed and coordinated with other programmes of work in the central city.
A copy of the plan, developed in 2011, outlining the communication and community engagement that supported SCIRT's central city programme and kept Christchurch residents informed about this work.
A PDF copy of a spreadsheet used to identify the impacts of traffic management in the central city.
A detailed presentation created in 2011, outlining the approach to the central city rebuild and associated risk management.
A shortened version of a presentation created in 2011, outlining the approach to the central city rebuild.
A diagram illustrating how the rebuild of the three waters and roading infrastructure was to be managed and coordinated with other programmes of work in the central city.
A copy of the plan developed in 2011 to facilitate a collaborative approach between all stakeholders and minimise the impact on the traffic network, because of the extensive repair works necessary to repair vertical and horizontal infrastructure.
A photograph of tents pitched at the On-Site Operations Coordination Centre (OSOCC) in Latimer Square. The OSOCC was set up by the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator.
The Canterbury earthquakes, which started with the 7.1 magnitude event on September 4, 2010, caused significant damage in the region. The September 4 earthquakes brought substantial damage to land, buildings, and infrastructure, while the 6.3 magnitude earthquake on February 22, 2011 (and its subsequent aftershocks), brought even greater property damage, but also significant loss of life in addition to the region. Thousands were injured, and 185 persons died. A national State of Emergency was declared and remained in effect until April 30, 2011. A significant number of people required immediate assistance and support to deal with loss, injury, trauma experiences, and property damages. Many had to find alternate accommodation as their houses were too damaged to stay in. Of those affected, many were already vulnerable, and others had been too traumatized by the events to effectively deal with the challenges they were faced with. A number of human service organizations in the region, from both government and non-government sectors, joined forces to be able to more effectively and efficiently help those in need. This was the start of what would become known as the Earthquake Support Coordination Service. The aim of this report is to present an evaluation of the Earthquake Support Coordination Service and its collaborative organization, based on documentation and interviews with key stakeholders of the service. The aim is also to evaluate the service based on perspectives gathered among the clients as well as the coordinators working in the service. The final aim is to offer a reflection on the service model, and on what factors enabled the service, as well as recommendations regarding aspects of the service which may require review, and aspects which may be useful in other contexts.
This article argues that active coordination of research engagement after disasters has the potential to maximize research opportunities, improve research quality, increase end-user engagement, and manage escalating research activity to mitigate ethical risks posed to impacted populations. The focus is on the coordination of research activity after the 22nd February 2011 Mw6.2 Christchurch earthquake by the then newly-formed national research consortium, the Natural Hazards Research Platform, which included a social science research moratorium during the declared state of national emergency. Decisions defining this organisation’s functional and structural parameters are analyzed to identify lessons concerning the need for systematic approaches to the management of post disaster research, in collaboration with the response effort. Other lessons include the importance of involving an existing, broadly-based research consortium, ensuring that this consortium's coordination role is fully integrated into emergency management structures, and ensuring that all aspects of decision-making processes are transparent and easily accessed.
The On-Site Operations Coordination Centre (OSOCC) in Latimer Square. After the 22 February 2011 earthquake, emergency service agencies set up their headquarters in Latimer Square. The OSOCC is set up by the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator. It helps to coordinate the local emergency response as well as advocate for humanitarian issue in political bodies such as the United National Security Council.
A PDF copy of pages 220-221 of the book Christchurch: The Transitional City Pt IV. The pages document the transitional project 'Community Hub - Sumner'. Photo: Marnie Kent
A blog post from US Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, David Huebner, titled, "USAID Assistant Administrator Nancy Lindbord Visits Wellington".
A plan which describes how SCIRT will manage the coordination of utility authority liaison and utility relocation or protection during the design and construction phases of the rebuild schedule. The first version of this plan was produced on 15 November 2011.
The coordination of actors has been a major focus for much of the research in the disaster relief humanitarian logistics discipline. While much of this literature focuses on the initial response phase, little has been written on the longer term recover phase. As the response phase transitions into the longer term recover phase the number and types of actors change from predominantly disaster relief NGOs to more commercial entities we argue that humanitarian values should still be part of the rebuild phase. It has been noted that humanitarian actors both cooperate and compete at the same time (Balcik, Beamon, Krejci, Muramatsu and Ramirez, 2010), in a form of behavior that can be described as ‘co-opetition’ (Nalebuff and Brandenburger, 1996). We use a case study approach to examine an organizational model used to coordinate civil and commercial actors for the rebuild of the civil infrastructure for Christchurch, New Zealand following a series of devastating earthquakes in 2010/11. For the rebuild phase we argue that ‘co-opetition’ is a key behaviour that allows the blending of humanitarian and commercial values to help communities rebuild to a new normal. While at this early stage our contribution is limited, we eventually hope to fully elaborate on an organisational model that has been created specifically for the tight coordination of commercial actors and its relevance to the rebuild phase of a disaster. Examining the behaviour of co-opetition and the structures that incentivise this behaviour offers insights for the humanitarian logistic field.
The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 finds that, despite progress in disaster risk reduction over the last decade “evidence indicates that exposure of persons and assets in all countries has increased faster than vulnerability has decreased, thus generating new risk and a steady rise in disaster losses” (p.4, UNISDR 2015). Fostering cooperation among relevant stakeholders and policy makers to “facilitate a science-policy interface for effective decisionmaking in disaster risk management” is required to achieve two priority areas for action, understanding disaster risk and enhancing disaster preparedness (p. 13, p. 23, UNISDR 2015). In other topic areas, the term science-policy interface is used interchangeably with the term boundary organisation. Both terms are usually used refer to systematic collaborative arrangements used to manage the intersection, or boundary, between science and policy domains, with the aim of facilitating the joint construction of knowledge to inform decision-making. Informed by complexity theory, and a constructivist focus on the functions and processes that minimize inevitable tensions between domains, this conceptual framework has become well established in fields where large complex issues have significant economic and political consequences, including environmental management, biodiversity, sustainable development, climate change and public health. To date, however, there has been little application of this framework in the disaster risk reduction field. In this doctoral project the boundary management framework informs an analysis of the research response to the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence, focusing on the coordination role of New Zealand’s national Natural Hazards Research Platform. The project has two aims. It uses this framework to tell the nuanced story of the way this research coordination role evolved in response to both the complexity of the unfolding post-disaster environment, and to national policy and research developments. Lessons are drawn from this analysis for those planning and implementing arrangements across the science-policy boundary to manage research support for disaster risk reduction decision-making, particularly after disasters. The second aim is to use this case study to test the utility of the boundary management framework in the disaster risk reduction context. This requires that terminology and concepts are explained and translated in terms that make this analysis as accessible as possible across the disciplines, domains and sectors involved in disaster risk reduction. Key findings are that the focus on balance, both within organisations, and between organisations and domains, and the emphasis on systemic effects, patterns and trends, offer an effective and productive alternative to the more traditional focus on individual or organisational performance. Lessons are drawn concerning the application of this framework when planning and implementing boundary organisations in the hazard and disaster risk management context.