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Abstract
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The 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes were one of the most devastating events in New Zealand's history. Due to the large scale of disruption and losses, the central government created a separate body, the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA), to manage and oversee recovery activities. Working with local authorities and stakeholders, CERA plays a major role in driving the recovery in Christchurch. This paper aims to analyse CERA's decision-making process and the effects of some of its critical decisions on the recovery outcomes. The paper takes a "build back better" (BBB) perspective to understand the decisions taken and processes used.
Design/methodology/approach
The case study adopted a mixed-methods research design (Creswell, 2013) and was conducted by reviewing official CERA documents and publications related to its recovery assessments and by conducting interviews with key officials from CERA. Collecting data from both qualitative and quantitative data sources enabled the process of triangulation.
Findings
Lessons learned from the Canterbury experience in terms of recovery best practices are reported. CERA's recovery policy aimed to give confidence to the community and renew and revitalise the damaged city. Compared with the BBB theory, the community-driven recovery strategy and the multi-stakeholder approach worked well. Other critical decisions aligned with the BBB theory include land zoning, empowering community and integration with existing developmental plans.
Originality/value
BBB can be used as a tool for the implementation of recovery and restoration measures following a large disaster. However, a set of practical indicators to measure the level of BBB is needed.
Keywords:
Best practice, Recovery, Resilience, Post-disaster reconstruction, Build back better, Reconstruction, Rebuild
Type:
Literature Review
Publisher:
Emerald Publishing Limited
Received:
31 January 2017
Revised:
08 February 2017, 09 February 2017, 12 February 2017
Accepted:
17 February 2017
Acknowledgments:
This paper forms part of a special section "Invited papers from the International Conference on Building Resilience", guest edited by Dilanthi Amaratunga and Richard Haigh.
Copyright:
© Emerald Publishing Limited 2018
Published by Emerald Publishing Limited
Language: en |