Our people
Project Co-Leaders: Ilan Noy (UA), John Hopkins (UC), Olga Filippova (UA)
Project Investigators: Anna Brown (MU), Toni Collins (UC), Annick Masselot (UC), Natalie Baird (UC), Jeroen van der Heijden (VUW), Eberhard Fees (VUW), Nigel Isaacs (VUW)
Industry advisors:
Students: Qing Tong (UA), Lennox Johnson (UA), Angie Campbell (VUW)
Programme Description
Abstract:
The current approach to seismic risk in NZ reflects the global paradigm of separate consideration of the four elements of the disaster cycle (mitigation, prevention, response and recovery). Thus, law and policy address seismic risk through a focus on individual elements (e.g., the Building Act, CDEM Act, RMA, etc), creating a siloed approach with a tendency to focus mostly on response. This approach increasingly deviates from best practice, both internationally and in NZ, as recognised by the 2019 National Disaster Resilience Strategy.
Recognising this paradigm shift, this disciplinary theme will develop a holistic science-based approach to the regulation and efficient implementation of seismic risk reduction that includes every link in the ‘value-chain’, utilising the most appropriate legal, planning and economic incentive tools to reduce immediate damage (and short-term loss) while improving the prospects of successful long-term recovery. Such a holistic approach, while already discussed conceptually in policy, is currently lacking the global evidence-base to support it. Our innovative approach is focussed on post-event wellbeing, and utilises the Four Capitals identified in the NZ Treasury’s path-breaking Living Standards Framework – natural, human, social, and physical/financial. Explicit consideration will also be given to efficient mitigation mechanisms to reduce the impacts of seismic events or transfer the financial component of the risk. This can only be achieved through paradigm-shifting, inter-disciplinary collaborations that quantify the economic costs of seismic events; formulate and test appropriate regulatory tools and assess wider governance models for their mitigation.
Key Objectives:
Overall, our key objective is to improve disaster risk management in NZ using legal, planning and governance tools, and economic incentives. More specifically:
DT3a’s objective is to engage with the users and owners of buildings to understand their perceptions of %NBS and explore the drivers for changing their choices to work towards increased seismic resilience of our built environment.
DT3b’s objective is to identify, using comparative research, the best-practice, evidence-based governance strategies and approaches for increased long-term durability and resilience of buildings.
DT3c’s objective is to devise ways to improve the way our insurance system transfers the financial component of seismic risk to the international financial markets.
DT3d’s objective is to provide guidance on the creation of holistic, rights driven, regulatory regimes that reduce seismic hazard risk as part of a wider aim to reduce disaster risk in Aotearoa New Zealand.
DT3e’s objective is, ten years on from the Canterbury earthquakes, to learn how dispute resolution processes performed in the aftermath of a significant disaster, and how one can improve them for the next one.
Research Programme Plan
Monthly Meetings
Combined with DT4 every month on the 4th Tuesday
Zoom Link: https://canterbury.zoom.us/j/91297783345
Meeting ID: 912 9778 3345