By Miles, S., Ritchie, L., Poland, C. D., Xiao, Y., and Hedley, N.
February 2016. Earthquake Engineering Research Institute.
This report presents a case study that is a part of a larger Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) effort called “Seismic Observatory for Community Resilience – A Program to Learn from Earthquakes” funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation under award number 1235573. The project builds on the multi-decade and multi-disciplinary EERI Learning From Earthquakes (LFE) program. The project is a three-year earthquake reconnaissance data assimilation effort aimed at advancing knowledge on resilience data practices and its application in the United States (EERI, 2015). The project seeks to identify and define key physical and human elements that contribute to, or inhibit, seismic resilience in U.S. communities. In the process, better understanding of the physical, social, economic, governance, and institutional factors that facilitate or slow recovery will be achieved.
This report is organized in eight sections. It begins with an overview of the Canterbury earthquake sequence, its impact, and aspects of the recovery process to date. The methods of the study project are then described. Subsequently, three sections detail themes related to the goals of EERI’s Learning From Earthquakes program that were found from analyzing and synthesizing qualitative data collected during field interviews. The themes are 1) recovery data and indicators, 2) recommendations for practice, and 3) role of outside experts.
