This Grant for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) award provides funding to send a small team of researchers to address several focused questions arising from the magnitude 6.3 earthquake which struck Christchurch, New Zealand, at 12:51 p.m. local time on February 22, 2011. This earthquake was an aftershock of the magnitude 7.1 September 3, 2010 (UTC) earthquake, but because of the time of day, the shallow depth of the earthquake and its closer proximity to the city the infrastructure damage, economic impacts and casualties are much greater than from the main shock of September 4, 2010. It is rare for a modern infrastructure inventory to be shaken by two strong and damaging earthquakes -- a major event followed by another at the same place within a six-month period. It is essential to explore this pair of events so that the research aspects of this rare concurrence will not be overlooked. The team will be tasked with addressing specific questions, and keeping an eye open to research opportunities not yet recognized, so that it can report back to the US research community in a timely fashion, thereby facilitating subsequent research as may be proposed by the US research community. In this project, three research themes have been identified as critical issues in need of immediate investigation before ephemeral data is compromised or lost. The focused reconnaissance themes that will be investigated are: Building collapse; Use of social media and risk communication; and Community resilience.
This study has an explicit goal to broaden participation in the earthquake reconnaissance process as much as possible, engaging younger and underrepresented community members to participate on the team. In addition, this study addresses two of NSF?s broader goals: to promote US leadership in science and engineering, and to build longer-term international collaboration. The findings from the reconnaissance investigations will be shared widely with the broader research and practicing earthquake engineering community. The deliverables include contributions to a summary report that will be published in the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) newsletter, research summaries immediately posted on the web and shared with the community, a webcast briefing with Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley and the EERI/George E. Brown Network of Earthquake Engineering Simulation webinar on these research themes.
The February 22, 2011 M6.3 earthquake in Christchurch New Zealand, part of the aftershock sequence of the September 4, 2010 M7.1 earthquake, caused significant infrastructure and economic damage, and loss of human life, to a modern city with similar construction materials and practices to the U.S. This RAPID project provided funding for acadmic researchers who traveled and worked as part of a larger team of researchers organized and managed by EERI’s Learning from Earthquakes program. The team addressed a set of focused research questions arising from this event. The three major themes investigated by the reconnaissance team included: Building collapse Use of social media in relation to risk communication and perception Community resilience This focused reconnaissance effort provided a critical building block for earthquake science and engineering research by providing the field observations and initial inquiry upon which more detailed research was then conducted. Several of the investigators who were part of the EERI team have subsequently received grants from NSF to investigate these particular topics in more detail. This project provided an opportunity for younger academics in the disaster risk reduction community to participate on the team. In addition, the project strengthened international relationships with New Zealand colleagues, leading to further collaboration. Findings from the reconnaissance investigations were shared widely with the broader research and practicing earthquake engineering community through EERI’s clearinghouse website (www.eqclearinghouse.org/2011-02-22-christchurch/), short research summaries posted on the clearinghouse, a newsletter insert, NEES-EERI webinars, and through the NSF-funded workshop on research needs emerging from the earthquake.
