Wendy Saunders - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Wendy Saunders

Natural Hazards, 2010

Land-use planners have a critical role to play in building vibrant, sustainable and hazard resili... more Land-use planners have a critical role to play in building vibrant, sustainable and hazard resilient communities in New Zealand. The policy and legal setting for natural hazards planning provides a solid foundation for good practice. But there are many examples of 'bad practice' that result in unnecessary risks and, in some cases, exposure to repeat events and potentially devastating impacts. Much, therefore, remains to be done to improve hazards planning policy and practice in New Zealand. This article explores the questions: What role does land-use planning play in managing hazard risks in New Zealand; and what needs to be done to reduce hazard risks and build community resilience? The article starts by describing the milieu within which natural hazards planning takes place. It goes onto outline the stakeholders and institutional and legal setting for natural hazards planning in New Zealand, including barriers to realising the potential of natural hazards planning. This synthesis reveals a number of 'burning issues', including the need to: (a) Improve understanding about the nature of hazards; (b) Prioritise risk avoidance (reduction) measures; (c) Provide national guidance for communities exposed to repeat events and address the relocation issue and (d) Mainstream climate change adaptation. Each 'burning issue' is discussed, and priority actions are recommended to realise the potential of land-use planning to reduce natural hazard risks and build community resilience in New Zealand. Ultimately, the challenge is to develop a cooperative hazards governance approach that is founded on coordinated policies, laws and institutions, cooperative professional practice and collaborative communities.

The traditional land use planning approach for addressing natural hazards in New Zealand has been... more The traditional land use planning approach for addressing natural hazards in New Zealand has been based on the likelihood of an event occurring, with little consideration of the consequences associated with natural hazard events. This has led to decisions that place developments and communities at risk. Local government planning authorities who want to transition to risk-based planning face a number of challenges, including: how to satisfactorily define acceptable, tolerable and intolerable risk; how to incorporate the views of stakeholders and affected communities; and how to ensure that potentially controversial decisions over land use options are robust and defensible. This paper describes a practical innovation in land use planning that assists local and regional scale planners incorporate risk into land use planning decisions. Termed the 'Risk-Based Planning Approach' (RBPA), the objective of this framework is to provide local government planners with a process that responds to the key challenges they face in adopting a risk-based approach. It includes strategies to guide engagement and communication with key stakeholders both across local government and with affected communities; it supports a full assessment of the consequences, as well as likelihood, of natural hazard events; and it enables natural hazard policies to be monitored for their effectiveness in either holding-the-line or in reducing risks. In this paper we review how the RBPA provides for innovation in land use planning. In particular we note how its development with input from planners has ensured its applicability and consistency with statutory planning requirements and we examine an early case of its use in practice. This case demonstrates how a regional planning agency further innovated based on the RBPA, to provide robust and defensible decisions around acceptable, tolerable and intolerable levels of risk for their region.

Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction, 2014

Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction, 2014

Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies

In the North Island of New Zealand a number of active volcanoes exist that could reawaken or erup... more In the North Island of New Zealand a number of active volcanoes exist that could reawaken or erupt at any time. The location of urban areas within and near these volcanic areas constitutes a significant peril. Given the close proximity of settlements to active volcanoes, it is essential that communities and governing authorities understand the nature of volcanic hazards and make plans for mitigating the associated risk. Mitigation can occur in a variety of ways including employing structural measures (e.g., by employing engineering solutions), emergency management processes, or land use planning. Currently land use planning is an underutilised approach for mitigating volcanic risk. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the hazards posed by New Zealand's volcanic landscape, and to highlight the important role that land use planning can play in reducing volcanic risk. New Zealand and international case studies are presented and the paper concludes with a synthesis of challenges and opportunities for reducing volcanic hazard risk through land use planning.

International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction

The term ‘resilience’ is increasingly being used in a multitude of contexts. Seemingly the latest... more The term ‘resilience’ is increasingly being used in a multitude of contexts. Seemingly the latest ‘buzz’ word, it can mean many things to many people, in many different situations. In the natural hazard context, the terms ‘sustainable planning’, and ‘resilience planning’ are now being used, often interchangeably. But from a natural hazard perspective, is a resilient community a sustainable one? In order to be sustainable, does a community need to be resilient? The purpose of this paper is to answer these two questions, and stimulate discussion on how the two terms are being used. The paper provides an overview of resilience and sustainability within a land use planning and natural hazard context, and discusses how they are interrelated. The New Zealand legislative requirements for resilience and sustainability are outlined, followed by the presentation of an example from the earthquake impacted city of Christchurch, New Zealand. This example outlines the planning response to the ear...

This report provides the methodology, results and discussion of a capability and capacity survey ... more This report provides the methodology, results and discussion of a capability and capacity survey that was circulated to policy and consent managers in all 78 councils in New Zealand in June 2014. A response rate of 50% (staff from 39 councils responded) was received, which allows for an insight only into capacity and capability issues for natural hazard management for those parties who responded to the survey. The main findings are: • 60% of respondents were aware of the risk reduction provisions in the CDEM Group Plan for their district. This shows that there is still a significant number of the respondent councils who are not aware of their CDEM provisions and their associated risk reduction roles. This shows a need for CDEM staff and planners to communicate more frequently with one another. • 49% of respondents do not have a staff member responsible for providing natural hazards advice to planners. Of those that do, those staff members are often emergency management officers or e...

There is currently a heightened awareness of natural hazards in New Zealand, which is reflected i... more There is currently a heightened awareness of natural hazards in New Zealand, which is reflected in the Government identifying that the Resource Management Act 1991 requires several changes to better recognise natural hazards and their associated risk. This includes prioritising natural hazard risk as a matter of national importance. It is therefore timely to assess how natural hazard provisions are currently incorporated into regional policy statements, territorial land use plans, and civil defence emergency management group plans. This report provides an overview of the methodology used to assess plans representing 94 authorities (11 regional councils, 67 territorial authorities (i.e., unitary, city and district), and 16 Civil Defence Emergency Management Groups); and the tabulated data results from the assessment of the plans. This is the first study that examines every Regional Policy Statement, territorial authority plan and CDEM Group plan in the New Zealand, with a total of 99...

Since the Canterbury earthquakes (2010–2011), there have been calls from numerous sources to bett... more Since the Canterbury earthquakes (2010–2011), there have been calls from numerous sources to better manage risks from natural hazards in New Zealand. Land use planning is one tool available to achieve this, governed by the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA). This report provides six case studies of risk management approaches to natural hazard risk reduction. The cases focus on the Port Hills recovery in Christchurch; the collaborative approach to flood management in Thames; how scientific advice contributed to improving the outcomes of Proposed Plan Change 29: Proposed zoning change to the western end of Petone; the SPUR earthquake initiative in San Francisco; Queensland flood management; and flood and hazardous installation management in the UK. Based on the case studies, recommendations for improving risk reduction in land use planning are based on five critical success factors: legislation, leadership, collaboration, information and education, and managed retreat. These recommend...

The purpose of this report is to summarise the results of three studies on the state of natural h... more The purpose of this report is to summarise the results of three studies on the state of natural hazards planning in New Zealand (Saunders, Beban, & Coomer, 2014a, 2014b; Saunders, Grace, & Beban, 2014 (in prep),). Primarily a desk top study, the project focused on the content of regional policy statements (RPS), unitary plans, district plans, and Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) group plans – it has not assessed how these plans are implemented. This desk top study was complemented with a survey of the capability and capacity of councils for natural hazard planning. The findings of the three studies can be used to answer one key question: what is the state of planning for natural hazards in New Zealand? The answer is somewhat complicated – as to be expected from analysing 99 plans. Not-withstanding, the state of planning for natural hazards in New Zealand appears to be improving between first and second generation plans. As natural hazards knowledge and awareness increases, ...

In June 2012, the Hutt City Council notified a plan change (known as Plan Change 29) that allowed... more In June 2012, the Hutt City Council notified a plan change (known as Plan Change 29) that allowed for an increased level of development within the south western portion of Petone. The proposed plan change area is subject to a number of natural hazards including fault rupture, subsidence, sea level rise, liquefaction, flooding, and tsunami. The previous district plan provisions for the area, subject to the plan change, had very limited rules to address the risks from natural hazards, and no new rules were proposed as part of this plan change. As a corporate citizen of Hutt City, GNS Science lodged a submission opposing the plan change. Much of the submission was informed by natural hazard information gathered from the ‘It’s Our Fault’ research project. While the plan change still proceeded, as a result of the submissions, a number of new provisions (objectives, policies and rules) were included in final plan change which strengthens the requirement for new development within the sout...

One aspect of any process for managing natural hazards relates to how disaster risk reduction pol... more One aspect of any process for managing natural hazards relates to how disaster risk reduction policies are designed and implemented in different countries. The objective of the ‘Multi-scale policy implementation for natural hazard risk reduction’ project is to improve understanding of policies at multiple government levels for natural hazard risk reduction in four countries and how they are implemented, as a key dimension of risk interpretation and action at the political level. We have undertaken an international comparison between New Zealand, Mexico, Norway, and Taiwan. While these countries represent a collaboration formed at the 2013 World Social Science Fellows seminar in New Zealand, they are also susceptible to similar natural hazards, in particular floods, landslides, earthquakes, and climate change. The methodology applied is a comparative design based on content analysis of published emergency plans and land use plans at the national, regional, and local levels, comparing...

International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2015

Plan evaluation is of utmost importance as a function of good governance. It provides a means to ... more Plan evaluation is of utmost importance as a function of good governance. It provides a means to improve the institutional basis for implementing land use controls, provides an important opportunity to improve future plans to reduce risk, and improves the vision for sustainable development and management. This article provides an overview of the methods and findings of a plan evaluation project undertaken in New Zealand. The project analyzed 99 operative plans, provided in-depth analysis of ten plans, and included a capability and capacity study of councils. This is the first time all operative plans in New Zealand have had their natural hazard provisions assessed in this manner. The information provides an important baseline for future policy improvements, and a basis for future research and policy directions. The project found that, while New Zealand land use plans appear to be improving over time, there are still opportunities for improvement. These include improving linkages between objectives, policies, and rules within land use plans; and strengthening the linkages between land use and emergency management plans. The largest challenge is the accessibility, understanding of, and updating of hazard information.

Natural Hazards, 2010

Land-use planners have a critical role to play in building vibrant, sustainable and hazard resili... more Land-use planners have a critical role to play in building vibrant, sustainable and hazard resilient communities in New Zealand. The policy and legal setting for natural hazards planning provides a solid foundation for good practice. But there are many examples of 'bad practice' that result in unnecessary risks and, in some cases, exposure to repeat events and potentially devastating impacts. Much, therefore, remains to be done to improve hazards planning policy and practice in New Zealand. This article explores the questions: What role does land-use planning play in managing hazard risks in New Zealand; and what needs to be done to reduce hazard risks and build community resilience? The article starts by describing the milieu within which natural hazards planning takes place. It goes onto outline the stakeholders and institutional and legal setting for natural hazards planning in New Zealand, including barriers to realising the potential of natural hazards planning. This synthesis reveals a number of 'burning issues', including the need to: (a) Improve understanding about the nature of hazards; (b) Prioritise risk avoidance (reduction) measures; (c) Provide national guidance for communities exposed to repeat events and address the relocation issue and (d) Mainstream climate change adaptation. Each 'burning issue' is discussed, and priority actions are recommended to realise the potential of land-use planning to reduce natural hazard risks and build community resilience in New Zealand. Ultimately, the challenge is to develop a cooperative hazards governance approach that is founded on coordinated policies, laws and institutions, cooperative professional practice and collaborative communities.

The traditional land use planning approach for addressing natural hazards in New Zealand has been... more The traditional land use planning approach for addressing natural hazards in New Zealand has been based on the likelihood of an event occurring, with little consideration of the consequences associated with natural hazard events. This has led to decisions that place developments and communities at risk. Local government planning authorities who want to transition to risk-based planning face a number of challenges, including: how to satisfactorily define acceptable, tolerable and intolerable risk; how to incorporate the views of stakeholders and affected communities; and how to ensure that potentially controversial decisions over land use options are robust and defensible. This paper describes a practical innovation in land use planning that assists local and regional scale planners incorporate risk into land use planning decisions. Termed the 'Risk-Based Planning Approach' (RBPA), the objective of this framework is to provide local government planners with a process that responds to the key challenges they face in adopting a risk-based approach. It includes strategies to guide engagement and communication with key stakeholders both across local government and with affected communities; it supports a full assessment of the consequences, as well as likelihood, of natural hazard events; and it enables natural hazard policies to be monitored for their effectiveness in either holding-the-line or in reducing risks. In this paper we review how the RBPA provides for innovation in land use planning. In particular we note how its development with input from planners has ensured its applicability and consistency with statutory planning requirements and we examine an early case of its use in practice. This case demonstrates how a regional planning agency further innovated based on the RBPA, to provide robust and defensible decisions around acceptable, tolerable and intolerable levels of risk for their region.

Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction, 2014

Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction, 2014

Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies

In the North Island of New Zealand a number of active volcanoes exist that could reawaken or erup... more In the North Island of New Zealand a number of active volcanoes exist that could reawaken or erupt at any time. The location of urban areas within and near these volcanic areas constitutes a significant peril. Given the close proximity of settlements to active volcanoes, it is essential that communities and governing authorities understand the nature of volcanic hazards and make plans for mitigating the associated risk. Mitigation can occur in a variety of ways including employing structural measures (e.g., by employing engineering solutions), emergency management processes, or land use planning. Currently land use planning is an underutilised approach for mitigating volcanic risk. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the hazards posed by New Zealand's volcanic landscape, and to highlight the important role that land use planning can play in reducing volcanic risk. New Zealand and international case studies are presented and the paper concludes with a synthesis of challenges and opportunities for reducing volcanic hazard risk through land use planning.

International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction

The term ‘resilience’ is increasingly being used in a multitude of contexts. Seemingly the latest... more The term ‘resilience’ is increasingly being used in a multitude of contexts. Seemingly the latest ‘buzz’ word, it can mean many things to many people, in many different situations. In the natural hazard context, the terms ‘sustainable planning’, and ‘resilience planning’ are now being used, often interchangeably. But from a natural hazard perspective, is a resilient community a sustainable one? In order to be sustainable, does a community need to be resilient? The purpose of this paper is to answer these two questions, and stimulate discussion on how the two terms are being used. The paper provides an overview of resilience and sustainability within a land use planning and natural hazard context, and discusses how they are interrelated. The New Zealand legislative requirements for resilience and sustainability are outlined, followed by the presentation of an example from the earthquake impacted city of Christchurch, New Zealand. This example outlines the planning response to the ear...

This report provides the methodology, results and discussion of a capability and capacity survey ... more This report provides the methodology, results and discussion of a capability and capacity survey that was circulated to policy and consent managers in all 78 councils in New Zealand in June 2014. A response rate of 50% (staff from 39 councils responded) was received, which allows for an insight only into capacity and capability issues for natural hazard management for those parties who responded to the survey. The main findings are: • 60% of respondents were aware of the risk reduction provisions in the CDEM Group Plan for their district. This shows that there is still a significant number of the respondent councils who are not aware of their CDEM provisions and their associated risk reduction roles. This shows a need for CDEM staff and planners to communicate more frequently with one another. • 49% of respondents do not have a staff member responsible for providing natural hazards advice to planners. Of those that do, those staff members are often emergency management officers or e...

There is currently a heightened awareness of natural hazards in New Zealand, which is reflected i... more There is currently a heightened awareness of natural hazards in New Zealand, which is reflected in the Government identifying that the Resource Management Act 1991 requires several changes to better recognise natural hazards and their associated risk. This includes prioritising natural hazard risk as a matter of national importance. It is therefore timely to assess how natural hazard provisions are currently incorporated into regional policy statements, territorial land use plans, and civil defence emergency management group plans. This report provides an overview of the methodology used to assess plans representing 94 authorities (11 regional councils, 67 territorial authorities (i.e., unitary, city and district), and 16 Civil Defence Emergency Management Groups); and the tabulated data results from the assessment of the plans. This is the first study that examines every Regional Policy Statement, territorial authority plan and CDEM Group plan in the New Zealand, with a total of 99...

Since the Canterbury earthquakes (2010–2011), there have been calls from numerous sources to bett... more Since the Canterbury earthquakes (2010–2011), there have been calls from numerous sources to better manage risks from natural hazards in New Zealand. Land use planning is one tool available to achieve this, governed by the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA). This report provides six case studies of risk management approaches to natural hazard risk reduction. The cases focus on the Port Hills recovery in Christchurch; the collaborative approach to flood management in Thames; how scientific advice contributed to improving the outcomes of Proposed Plan Change 29: Proposed zoning change to the western end of Petone; the SPUR earthquake initiative in San Francisco; Queensland flood management; and flood and hazardous installation management in the UK. Based on the case studies, recommendations for improving risk reduction in land use planning are based on five critical success factors: legislation, leadership, collaboration, information and education, and managed retreat. These recommend...

The purpose of this report is to summarise the results of three studies on the state of natural h... more The purpose of this report is to summarise the results of three studies on the state of natural hazards planning in New Zealand (Saunders, Beban, & Coomer, 2014a, 2014b; Saunders, Grace, & Beban, 2014 (in prep),). Primarily a desk top study, the project focused on the content of regional policy statements (RPS), unitary plans, district plans, and Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) group plans – it has not assessed how these plans are implemented. This desk top study was complemented with a survey of the capability and capacity of councils for natural hazard planning. The findings of the three studies can be used to answer one key question: what is the state of planning for natural hazards in New Zealand? The answer is somewhat complicated – as to be expected from analysing 99 plans. Not-withstanding, the state of planning for natural hazards in New Zealand appears to be improving between first and second generation plans. As natural hazards knowledge and awareness increases, ...

In June 2012, the Hutt City Council notified a plan change (known as Plan Change 29) that allowed... more In June 2012, the Hutt City Council notified a plan change (known as Plan Change 29) that allowed for an increased level of development within the south western portion of Petone. The proposed plan change area is subject to a number of natural hazards including fault rupture, subsidence, sea level rise, liquefaction, flooding, and tsunami. The previous district plan provisions for the area, subject to the plan change, had very limited rules to address the risks from natural hazards, and no new rules were proposed as part of this plan change. As a corporate citizen of Hutt City, GNS Science lodged a submission opposing the plan change. Much of the submission was informed by natural hazard information gathered from the ‘It’s Our Fault’ research project. While the plan change still proceeded, as a result of the submissions, a number of new provisions (objectives, policies and rules) were included in final plan change which strengthens the requirement for new development within the sout...

One aspect of any process for managing natural hazards relates to how disaster risk reduction pol... more One aspect of any process for managing natural hazards relates to how disaster risk reduction policies are designed and implemented in different countries. The objective of the ‘Multi-scale policy implementation for natural hazard risk reduction’ project is to improve understanding of policies at multiple government levels for natural hazard risk reduction in four countries and how they are implemented, as a key dimension of risk interpretation and action at the political level. We have undertaken an international comparison between New Zealand, Mexico, Norway, and Taiwan. While these countries represent a collaboration formed at the 2013 World Social Science Fellows seminar in New Zealand, they are also susceptible to similar natural hazards, in particular floods, landslides, earthquakes, and climate change. The methodology applied is a comparative design based on content analysis of published emergency plans and land use plans at the national, regional, and local levels, comparing...

International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2015

Plan evaluation is of utmost importance as a function of good governance. It provides a means to ... more Plan evaluation is of utmost importance as a function of good governance. It provides a means to improve the institutional basis for implementing land use controls, provides an important opportunity to improve future plans to reduce risk, and improves the vision for sustainable development and management. This article provides an overview of the methods and findings of a plan evaluation project undertaken in New Zealand. The project analyzed 99 operative plans, provided in-depth analysis of ten plans, and included a capability and capacity study of councils. This is the first time all operative plans in New Zealand have had their natural hazard provisions assessed in this manner. The information provides an important baseline for future policy improvements, and a basis for future research and policy directions. The project found that, while New Zealand land use plans appear to be improving over time, there are still opportunities for improvement. These include improving linkages between objectives, policies, and rules within land use plans; and strengthening the linkages between land use and emergency management plans. The largest challenge is the accessibility, understanding of, and updating of hazard information.