Abstract
Geographically remote, small rural towns typically rely on multiple critical infrastructure networks with limited redundancies to support key services. Additionally, facilities that people take for granted in larger population centres, such as supermarkets and schools, are more widely distributed in low population density regions. We adopt the 14 November 2016 (Kaikōura) earthquake in New Zealand as a case study to explore critical infrastructure challenges and impacts, service disruptions, and community adaptations in four small North Canterbury and Marlborough towns – Waiau, Culverden, Seddon and Ward. However, behavioural, infrastructure and legislative adaptations can be inherent or quick to evolve in small towns with frequent service disruptions. Despite these factors, small towns are often underrepresented in impact assessments and appear to have been a low priority for investigation in the past. For the purposes of this paper we focus on the small rural town of Waiau in North Canterbury. Existing records of impacts and adaptations were combined with seismic and co-seismic hazards and emergency management activities to produce a preliminary geospatial timeline of events following the Kaikōura earthquake. Overlaying critical infrastructure with known and simulated co-seismic hazards enables us to conceptualise areas of high hazard exposure; an important component of risk. Along with the results of our discussions with community and industry members, this information can be fed into future research to inform resilience-building efforts. In this paper we present the latest findings and suggest future applications for Geospatial Information Systems in reducing disaster risk in small towns.
