Disaster recovery involves the restoration, repair and rejuvenation of both hard and soft infrastructure. In this report we present observationsfrom seven case studies of collaborative planning from post-earthquake Canterbury, each of which was selected as a means of better understanding ‘soft infrastructure for hard times’. Though our investigation is located within a disaster recovery context, we argue that the lessons learned are widely applicable. Our seven case studies highlighted that the nature of the planning process or journey is as important as the planning objective or destination. A focus on the journey can promote positive outcomes in and of itself through building enduring relationships, fostering diverse leaders, developing new skills and capabilities, and supporting translation and navigation. Collaborative planning depends as much upon emotional intelligence as it does technical competence, and we argue that having a collaborative attitude is more important than following prescriptive collaborative planning formulae. Being present and allowing plenty of time are also key. Although deliberation is often seen as an improvement on technocratic and expertdominated decision-making models, we suggest that the focus in the academic literature on communicative rationality and discursive democracy has led us to overlook other more active forms of planning that occur in various sites and settings. Instead, we offer an expanded understanding of what planning is, where it happens and who is involved. We also suggest more attention be given to values, particularly in terms of their role as a compass for navigating the terrain of decision-making in the collaborative planning process. We conclude with a revised model of a (collaborative) decision-making cycle that we suggest may be more appropriate when (re)building better homes, towns and cities.
Disaster recovery involves the restoration, repair and rejuvenation of both hard and soft infrastructure. In this report we present observations from seven case studies of collaborative planning from post-earthquake Canterbury, each of which was selected as a means of better understanding ‘soft infrastructure for hard times’. Though our investigation is located within a disaster recovery context, we argue that the lessons learned are widely applicable.
Our seven case studies highlighted that the nature of the planning process or journey is as important as the planning objective or destination. A focus on the journey can promote positive outcomes in and of itself through building enduring relationships, fostering diverse leaders, developing new skills and capabilities, and supporting translation and navigation. Collaborative planning depends as much upon emotional intelligence as it does technical competence, and we argue that having a collaborative attitude is more important than following prescriptive collaborative planning formulae. Being present and allowing plenty of time are also key.
Although deliberation is often seen as an improvement on technocratic and expert dominated decision-making models, we suggest that the focus in the academic literature on communicative rationality and discursive democracy has led us to overlook other more active forms of planning that occur in various sites and settings. Instead, we offer an expanded understanding of what planning is, where it happens and who is involved. We also suggest more attention be given to values, particularly in terms of their role as a compass for navigating the terrain of decision-making in the collaborative planning process. We conclude with a revised model of a (collaborative) decision-making cycle that we suggest may be more appropriate when (re)building better homes, towns and cities.
The National Science Challenge ‘Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities’ is currently undertaking work that, in part, identifies and analyses the Waimakariri District Council’s (WMK/Council) organisational practices and process tools. The focus is on determining the processes that made the Residential Red Zone Recovery Plan, 2016 (RRZRP) collaboration process so effective and compares it to the processes used to inform the current Kaiapoi Town Centre Plan - 2028 and Beyond (KTC Plan). This research aims to explore ‘what travelled’ in terms of values, principles, methods, processes and personnel from the RRZRP to the KTC planning process. My research will add depth to this research by examining more closely the KTC Plan’s hearings process, reviewing submissions made, analysing background documents and by conducting five semi-structured interviews with a selection of people who made submissions on the KTC Plan.
The link between community involvement and best recovery outcomes has been acknowledged in literature as well as by humanitarian agencies (Lawther, 2009; Sullivan, 2003). My research has documented WMK’s post-quake community engagement strategy by focusing on their initial response to the earthquake of 2010 and the two-formal plan (RRZRP and KTC Plan) making procedures that succeeded this response.
My research has led me to conclude that WMK was committed to collaborating with their constituents right through the extended post-quake sequence. Iterative face to face or ‘think communications’ combined with the accessibility of all levels of Council staff – including senior management and elected members - gave interested community members the opportunity to discuss and deliberate the proposed plans with the people tasked with preparing them. WMK’s commitment to collaborate is illustrated by the methods they employed to inform their post-quake efforts and plans and by the logic behind the selected methods. Combined the Council’s logic and methods best describe the ‘Waimakariri Way’.
My research suggests that collaborative planning is iterative in nature. It is therefore difficult to establish a specific starting point where collaboration begins as the relationships needed for the collaborative process constantly (re)emerge out of pre-existing relationships. Collaboration seems to be based on an attitude, which means there is no starting ‘point’ as such, rather an amplification for a time of a basic attitude towards the public.
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.
Building plans signed off by the Christchurch City Council show one of its own structural engineers was involved in the design of a new multistorey building that is unstable. The eight-storey office building at 230 High Street is off-limits as it is too weak and might 'rupture' in an earthquake. But the council insists the planning documents are wrong and its engineer had only a minor role. Phil Pennington reports.
In recent work on commons and commoning, scholars have argued that we might delink the practice of commoning from property ownership, while paying attention to modes of governance that enable long-term commons to emerge and be sustained. Yet commoning can also occur as a temporary practice, in between and around other forms of use. In this article we reflect on the transitional commoning practices and projects enabled by the Christchurch post-earthquake organisation Life in Vacant Spaces, which emerged to connect and mediate between landowners of vacant inner city demolition sites and temporary creative or entrepreneurial users. While these commons are often framed as transitional or temporary, we argue they have ongoing reverberations changing how people and local government in Christchurch approach common use. Using the cases of the physical space of the Victoria Street site “The Commons” and the virtual space of the Life in Vacant Spaces website, we show how temporary commoning projects can create and sustain the conditions of possibility required for nurturing commoner subjectivities. Thus despite their impermanence, temporary commoning projects provide a useful counter to more dominant forms of urban development and planning premised on property ownership and “permanent” timeframes, in that just as the physical space of the city being opened to commoning possibilities, so too are the expectations and dispositions of the city’s inhabitants, planners, and developers.
In recent work on commons and commoning, scholars have argued that we might delink the practice of commoning from property ownership, while paying attention to modes of governance that enable long-term commons to emerge and be sustained. Yet commoning can also occur as a temporary practice, in between and around other forms of use. In this article we reflect on the transitional commoning practices and projects enabled by the Christchurch post-earthquake organisation Life in Vacant Spaces, which emerged to connect and mediate between landowners of vacant inner city demolition sites and temporary creative or entrepreneurial users. While these commons are often framed as transitional or temporary, we argue they have ongoing reverberations changing how people and local government in Christchurch approach common use. Using the cases of the physical space of the Victoria Street site “The Commons” and the virtual space of the Life in Vacant Spaces website, we show how temporary commoning projects can create and sustain the conditions of possibility required for nurturing commoner subjectivities. Thus despite their impermanence, temporary commoning projects provide a useful counter to more dominant forms of urban development and planning premised on property ownership and “permanent” timeframes, in that just as the physical space of the city being opened to commoning possibilities, so too are the expectations and dispositions of the city’s inhabitants, planners, and developers.
On Wednesday I celebrated my six year anniversary working at Underground Overground Archaeology. I did plan on marking this milestone by staying up all Tuesday night to bake a special six-tiered chocolate cake to bring in to work and share … Continue reading →
Disaster officials warn that no amount of planning can prepare the country for the reality of a large-scale earthquake. The South Island Alpine Fault Earthquake Response Forum is in Nelson as part of its awareness-raising road-show, as the region is vulnerable to large quakes in both the south and north islands. Tracy Neal reports.
On 14 November 2016, the Mw 7.8 Kaikōura earthquake caused widespread damage along the east coast of the South Island, New Zealand. Kaikōura town itself was isolated from the rest of the country by landslides blocking off major roads. While impacts from the Kaikōura earthquake on large, urban population centres have been generally well documented, this thesis aims to fill gaps in academic knowledge regarding small rural towns. This thesis investigates what, where and when critical infrastructure and lifeline service disruption occurred following the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake in a selection of small towns, and how the communities in these areas adapted to disruption. Following a robust review of literature and news media, four small rural towns were selected from North Canterbury (Culverden & Waiau) and Marlborough (Seddon & Ward) in the South Island, New Zealand. Semi-structured interview sessions with a special focus on these towns were held with infrastructure managers, emergency response and recovery officials, and organisation leaders with experience or expertise in the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake. Findings were supplemented with emergency management situation reports to produce hazard maps and infrastructure exposure maps. A more detailed analysis was conducted for Waiau involving interdependence analyses and a level of service timeline for select lifeline services. The earthquake impacted roads by blocking them with landslides, debris and surface rupture. Bridges where shaken off their abutments, breaking infrastructure links such as fibre landlines as they went. Water supplies and other forms of infrastructure relied heavily on the level of service of roads, as rough rural terrain left few alternatives. Adapting to an artificial loss of road service, some Waiau locals created their own detour around a road cordon in order to get home to family and farms. Performance of dwellings was tied to socioeconomic factors as much as proximity to the epicentre. Farmers who lost water access pulled out fences to allow stock to drink from rivers. Socioeconomic differences between farmland and township residents also contributed to resilience variations between the towns assessed in this study. Understanding how small rural towns respond and adapt to disaster allows emergency management officials and policy to be well informed and flexible with planning for multiple size classes of towns.
Wellington is located on a fault line which will inevitably, one day be impacted by a big earthquake. Due to where this fault line geographically sits, the central city and southern suburbs may be cut off from the rest of the region, effectively making these areas an ‘island’. This issue has absorbed a lot of attention, in particular at a large scale by many different fields: civil engineering, architecture, infrastructure planning & design, policymaking. Due to heightened awareness, and evolved school of practice, contemporary landscape architects deal with post-disaster design – Christchurch, NZ has seen this. A number of landscape architects work with nature, following increased application of ecological urbanism, and natural systems thinking, most notably at larger scales. To create parks that are designed to flood, or implement projects to protect shorelines. A form of resilience less often considered is how design for the small scale - people’s 1:1 relationship with their immediate context in exterior space - can be influential in forming a resilient response to the catastrophe of a major earthquake. This thesis intends to provide a response to address the shift of scales, as a paradigm for preparation and recovery. After a large-scale earthquake, state and civic policies and agencies may or subsequentially not go into action. The most important thinking and acting will be what happens in the minds, and the immediate needs, of each and every person; and how they act communally. This is considered in general social terms in state and civic education programmes of civil defence, for example, but much less considered in how the physical design of the actual spaces we inhabit day-to-day can educate us to be mentally prepared to help each other survive a catastrophe. Specifically, the identification of design of typologies can provide these educative functions. Typology inherently a physical form or manipulation of a generic and substantial prototype applicable in contexts is something that exists in the mind. Working with the physical and social appearance and experience of typologies can also/will change people’s minds. Socially, and economically driven, the community-building power of community gardening is well-proven and documented, and a noticeably large part of contemporary landscape architecture. The designs of this thesis will focus on community gardening specifically to form typologies of resilience preparation and response to disaster. The foundation will remain at the small scale of the local community. The specific question this thesis poses: Can we design local typologies in landscape architecture to integrate community gardens, with public space by preparing for and acting as recovery from a disaster?
This dissertation addresses a diverse range of topics in the physics-based broadband ground motion simulation, with a focus on New Zealand applications. In particular the following topics are addressed: the methodology and computational implementation of a New Zealand Velocity Model for broadband ground motion simulation; generalised parametric functions and spatial correlations for seismic velocities in the Canterbury, New Zealand region from surface-wave-based site characterisation; and ground motion simulations of Hope Fault earthquakes. The paragraphs below outline each contribution in more detail. A necessary component in physics-based ground motion simulation is a 3D model which details the seismic velocities in the region of interest. Here a velocity model construction methodology, its computational implementation, and application in the construction of a New Zealand velocity model for use in physics-based broadband ground motion simulation are presented. The methodology utilises multiple datasets spanning different length scales, which is enabled via the use of modular sub-regions, geologic surfaces, and parametric representations of crustal velocity. A number of efficiency-related workflows to decrease the overall computational construction time are employed, while maintaining the flexibility and extensibility to incorporate additional datasets and re- fined velocity parameterizations as they become available. The model comprises explicit representations of the Canterbury, Wellington, Nelson-Tasman, Kaikoura, Marlborough, Waiau, Hanmer and Cheviot sedimentary basins embedded within a regional travel-time tomography-based velocity model for the shallow crust and provides the means to conduct ground motion simulations throughout New Zealand for the first time. Recently developed deep shear-wave velocity profiles in Canterbury enabled models that better characterise the velocity structure within geologic layers of the Canterbury sedimentary basin to be developed. Here the development of depth- and Vs30-dependent para-metric velocity and spatial correlation models to characterise shear-wave velocities within the geologic layers of the Canterbury sedimentary basin are presented. The models utilise data from 22 shear-wave velocity profiles of up to 2.5km depth (derived from surface wave analysis) juxtaposed with models which detail the three-dimensional structure of the geologic formations in the Canterbury sedimentary basin. Parametric velocity equations are presented for Fine Grained Sediments, Gravels, and Tertiary layer groupings. Spatial correlations were developed and applied to generate three-dimensional stochastic velocity perturbations. Collectively, these models enable seismic velocities to be realistically represented for applications such as 3D ground motion and site response simulations. Lastly the New Zealand velocity model is applied to simulate ground motions for a Mw7.51 rupture of the Hope Fault using a physics-based simulation methodology and a 3D crustal velocity model of New Zealand. The simulation methodology was validated for use in the region through comparison with observations for a suite of historic small magnitude earthquakes located proximal to the Hope Fault. Simulations are compared with conventionally utilised empirical ground motion models, with simulated peak ground velocities being notably higher in regions with modelled sedimentary basins. A sensitivity analysis was undertaken where the source characteristics of magnitude, stress parameter, hypocentre location and kinematic slip distribution were varied and an analysis of their effect on ground motion intensities is presented. It was found that the magnitude and stress parameter strongly influenced long and short period ground motion amplitudes, respectively. Ground motion intensities for the Hope Fault scenario are compared with the 2016 Kaikoura Mw7.8 earthquake, it was found that the Kaikoura earthquake produced stronger motions along the eastern South Island, while the Hope Fault scenario resulted in stronger motions immediately West of the near-fault region. The simulated ground motions for this scenario complement prior empirically-based estimates and are informative for mitigation and emergency planning purposes.
