Lessons from the 2016 Kaikoura Earthquake: Understanding the Impacts of a Potential Alpine Fault Earthquake on Government Productivity in Wellington
Kaylene Sampson, Joanne Stevenson, Erica Seville, Nicola Smith, Garry McDonald, Morag Ayers, Charlotte Brown, April 2018
QuakeCoRE Project E6471-AF5/ NHRP 2017-ROR-01-NHRP
Summary
Currently little is known about how government entities respond and adapt to disruption. Similarly, little is known about how these disruptions affect the delivery of government services and how those impacts flow through the regional and national economy. Because of the way government services are priced (or not priced) and consumed in the economy, interruptions in the provision of government services produce different economic outcomes when compared to disruptions in the provision of other sectors’ goods and services. A better understanding of the behaviour of government entities in the face of these disruptions will improve our ability to model the economic impacts.
This report summarises the initial findings of a project jointly conducted by Resilient Organisations, M.E Research, and GNS Science, to enhance our understanding of the changes in national government productivity in Wellington associated with an Alpine Fault earthquake scenario. This project employed a three-stage approach. The first stage examined the impacts of the 14 November 2016 Kaikōura earthquake on four New Zealand government departments based in Wellington. In the second stage, the hazard impact and loss modelling tool, RiskScape generated probable damage and loss estimates from an Alpine Fault earthquake on the greater Wellington metro area. In stage three, these outputs were incorporated into the Measuring the Economics of Resilient Infrastructure Tool (MERIT) to estimate the economic losses that could transpire from government disruptions following an Alpine Fault earthquake scenario. There is a previous report available with more information on the Kaikōura case studies in a report published by Sampson et al. 2017.