Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Damage to water pipes, Oxford Terrace between Lichfield and Cashel Streets".
A video of water damage from broken pipes inside an office building.
A video of water damage from broken pipes inside an office building.
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Pipes carrying water to homes run along Moncrieff Place".
A hole in the side of the road along Avonside Drive. A blue pipe can be seen inside the hole. Pipes like this were used to provide temporary water supplies to the neighbourhood while the water system was being repaired.
A crack next to the Avon River caused by the ground slumping after the 4 September earthquake. A blue pipe has been laid over the crack. Many kilometres of these temporary water pipes have been run overground in Avonside to supply houses with water.
A cracked and broken footpath on Galbraith Avenue. Blue pipes carrying temporary water supplies to the neighbourhood can just be seen running beside the footpath.
Sullivan Park in Avonside. Liquefaction can be seen running across the park. Two signs have slumped towards each other. Blue pipes carrying a temporary water supply to the neighbourhood have been placed across the park.
Recent earthquakes have shown that liquefaction and associated ground deformations are major geotechnical hazards to civil engineering infrastructures, such as pipelines. In particular, sewer pipes have been damaged in many areas in Christchurch as a result of liquefaction-induced lateral spreading near waterways and ground oscillation induced by seismic shaking. In this paper, the addition of a flexible AM liner as a potential countermeasure to increase sewer pipe capacity was investigated. Physical testing through 4-point loading test was undertaken to characterise material properties and the response of both unlined pipe and its lined counterpart. Next, numerical models were created using SAP2000 and ABAQUS to analyse buried pipeline response to transverse permanent ground displacement and to quantify, over a range of pipe segment lengths and soil parameters, the effectiveness of the AM liner in increasing displacement capacity. The numerical results suggest that the addition of the AM liner increases the deformation capacity of the unlined sewer pipe by as much as 50 times. The results confirmed that AM liner is an effective countermeasure for sewer pipes in liquefied ground not only in terms of increased deformation capacity but also the fact that AM-Liner can prevent influx of sand and water through broken pipes, making sewer pipes with liner remaining serviceable even under severe liquefaction condition.
Study region: Christchurch, New Zealand. Study focus: Low-lying coastal cities worldwide are vulnerable to shallow groundwater salinization caused by saltwater intrusion and anthropogenic activities. Shallow groundwater salinization can have cascading negative impacts on municipal assets, but this is rarely considered compared to impacts of salinization on water supply. Here, shallow groundwater salinity was sampled at high spatial resolution (1.3 piezometer/km²), then mapped and spatially interpolated. This was possible due to a uniquely extensive set of shallow piezometers installed in response to the 2010–11 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence to assess liquefaction risk. The municipal assets located within the brackish groundwater areas were highlighted. New hydrological insights for the region: Brackish groundwater areas were centred on a spit of coastal sand dunes and inside the meander of a tidal river with poorly drained soils. The municipal assets located within these areas include: (i) wastewater and stormwater pipes constructed from steel-reinforced concrete, which, if damaged, are vulnerable to premature failure when exposed to chloride underwater, and (ii) 41 parks and reserves totalling 236 ha, within which salt-intolerant groundwater-dependent species are at risk. This research highlights the importance of determining areas of saline shallow groundwater in low-lying coastal urban settings and the co-located municipal assets to allow the prioritisation of sites for future monitoring and management.