Previous disaster management studies allude to the problems of coordination and the
difficulties that may be associated with the implementation of recovery programmes in
New Zealand. These studies have also indicated opportunities for improving the current
recovery and reconstruction framework in advance of a major disaster. They have shown
that much existing legislation were not drafted to cope with wide-scale devastations and
were not developed to operate under the conditions that will inevitably prevail in the
aftermath of a severe disaster.
This thesis therefore explores improvements that could be made to legislative provisions so
that they facilitate large-scale recovery management in New Zealand. Three legislative
documents are in view: Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) Act, Resource
Management Act (RMA) and Building Act (BA). The research investigations involved
qualitative research methodology using multi-methods to determine the practical
implication of implementing current reconstruction arrangement under these legislative
documents. The methods employed include: interviews, document analysis, focus group
study, surveys, and the use of subject matter experts for research verification.
Results show that the three legislative documents may become sources of vulnerability in
post disaster reconstruction because of their influence on the timely achievement of
recovery objectives. The impediments posed by these legislative documents are mainly in
the form of procedural constraints; ambiguities in rights and responsibilities for recovery
management; and deficiencies in the intents and purposes of the legislative documents.
More general results show that pre-planning the management of disaster resources; and
collaborative arrangements for response and recovery programmes are a pre-cursor to
effective and efficient management of reconstruction in New Zealand.
The research concludes by providing useful recommendations that are specific to the three
legislative documents and other general recommendations. It is hoped the implementation
of these recommendations could improve the robustness of the current reconstruction
framework so that it is able to cater for the complex needs of rebuilding for resilience in
New Zealand.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:canterbury.ac.nz/oai:ir.canterbury.ac.nz:10092/4145 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Rotimi, James Olabode Bamidele |
| Publisher | University of Canterbury. Civil and Natural Resources Engineering |
| Source Sets | University of Canterbury |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic thesis or dissertation, Text |
| Rights | Copyright James Olabode Bamidele Rotimi, http://library.canterbury.ac.nz/thesis/etheses_copyright.shtml |
| Relation | NZCU |
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