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Building transport resilience for the inevitable future disasters TIM DAVIES, ALISTAIR DAVIES AND MATTHEW HUGHES Last updated 05:00, December 1 2016
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Killer rider sentenced Recovery w orks covered by new legislation Baby penguins rescued after quake Time to tell the Queen Bookings still coming in Key did 'nothing of significance' John Key inspired confidence Bean and gone Next PM: The contenders Corey Webster appears in court Homes a death trap for children Ad Feedbac k
most popular viewed Chris Skelton
A truck heads east from Springs Junction on the new inland route between Christchurch to Picton. Traffic on the route is at least four times greater than before the Kaikoura earthquake. OPINION: New Zealand earthquake scientists and engineers are among the best in the world. However, the 2010-2012 earthquakes in Christchurch and the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake show beyond question that even with the best science in the world we cannot anticipate when and where the next major earthquake will be. Nor can the best engineering in the world assure that buildings and infrastructure will survive the earthquake and its consequential events (particularly landslides and liquefaction). So how can we reduce the impacts of these inevitable future disasters? What we do know is that we have to assume future earthquakes can occur anywhere (not just on known faults; unknown faults keep rupturing), and they can be very powerful. In mountains, they will generate severe and widespread landsliding, which in turn causes sediment problems in rivers that can last for decades. These impacts, as we have seen with Kaikoura, result in long-term infrastructure damage, including loss of land transport linkages, with consequent loss of commercial and societal activity.
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READ MORE: * Pressure builds on alternative State Highway 1 * Traffic diverted on State Highway 1 after fatal truck crash near Springs Junction * Rainbow road State Highway 1 option floated * Earthquake 2016: Remote sleepy towns now on busy highway
Chris Skelton
The new inland route from Christchurch to Picton is on State Highway 1, 7, 65, 6 and 63, with traffic on the route at least four times greater than before the Kaikoura earthquake. The people of Kaikoura are now suffering financially from transport level-of-service reduction, even though the direct damage to the town was not extreme. How Kaikoura will recover from this event depends heavily on whether State Highway 1 will be rebuilt (there is talk already of replacing it with another road farther west), and if so, when. If Kaikoura becomes a one-way destination like Queenstown, it will be a very different town from the past. On the broader South Island scale, however, the situation is potentially much more serious than currently realised. With the loss of SH1 and the main trunk railway line, all except the northern part of the island is now
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utterly dependent on the serviceability of the 40-km stretch of road between Kawatiri Junction and Murchison for its linkage with the North Island – and thus for much of its commerce. Any earthquake or rainstorm can cause landslides that close this critical link for many months, as in the Manawatu Gorge a few years ago, thus cutting off most of the South Island, not to mention the effect of winter storms on the Lewis and Arthur's passes. Therefore, much of the South Island's approximately $50 billion GDP is currently highly vulnerable.
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When the damaged SH1 is either rebuilt or replaced by another road, there will again be two routes connecting the mid-South Island with the North Island, restoring the present
degree of road transport security. However, given that we know that there will certainly be serious earthquakes and storms in the mountains in the future, with the high probability of severe damage to all of SH1, SH7 and any new route (plus the rail link), it is clear from the current situation that this degree of security is inadequate.
CHRIS SKLETON/FAIRFAX NZ
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A truck stop at Springs Junction. The new inland route from Christchurch to Picton is on State Highway 1, 7, 65, 6 and 63, with traffic on the route at least four times greater than before the Kaikoura earthquake. There is nothing at all new in this analysis. The situation has been clear – but ignored – for a very long time. The present unacceptable vulnerability has been exacerbated by the run-down of coastal shipping over the past decades, presumably because it was economically or politically inferior to boosting road transport, and certainly because of the belief that the risk of a major event affecting the State Highways – and, by implication, its consequences – was acceptably small. That belief has now been shown to be sadly misplaced, because the present and potential future consequences certainly are not. What has been lacking has been impact analysis for events known to be possible, in particular the longer-term landscape impacts of earthquakes (landslides, dambreak floods, river aggradation) and the consequences for infrastructure, assets and commerce. This lack of impact analysis has allowed the present situation to develop.
Chris Skelton
Traffic on the new inland route from Christchurch to Picton.
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The only feasible way to provide acceptable transport security, so that the impact of future disaster events on South Island commerce can be reduced, is by increasing transport network redundancy through substantially increasing the goods and passenger capability of coastal shipping, linking North Island ports with Lyttelton and/or Port Chalmers and/or Bluff. This service will be largely earthquake-, landslide- and storm-proof. With sufficient capacity (or the ability to rapidly increase capacity), it would insure South Island commerce and tourism against future disasters. Adding a smaller port facility at Kaikoura would then provide not just a new base for whale-watching but an alternative route both for critical supplies and for tourists. This redundancy does not come cheap, because in the times between disasters the running costs will be higher than that of the original road transport system. Nevertheless, potential "between-disaster" benefits from greater capacity in coastal shipping are obvious – less heavy freight on the roads, less road accidents, improved and more varied tourist experiences, and a smaller carbon footprint.
CHRIS SKELTON/FAIRFAX NZ
Truck driver 'Pix' takes a break at Springs Junction. While resilience comes at a cost, it can be placed in its proper perspective by economic planning that does not
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ignore the certainty of future disasters and incorporates their full costs – including commercial and societal – into future planning. Economic analyses of disasters usually focus on the average annual cost of a disaster, spread uniformly over the time between disasters; but in reality, the cost of a disaster has to be met by society over a short time period following the disaster. So, while we don't know much about when and where earthquakes will occur in the future, we know enough to be able to plan sensibly to reduce their impacts. In particular, the insights, challenges and opportunities provided by the Kaikoura earthquake can be utilised now, and as suggested above, some of the possible solutions need to be investigated as a matter of urgency. Tim Davies is a professor at the Geological Sciences department of the University of Canterb ury, Dr Matthew Hughes is a lecturer in the Civil and Natural Resources Engineering department of the University of Canterb ury, and Alistair Davies is a Hazards and Disasters doctoral student researching Geohazards and Tectonics in the Geological Sciences department of the University of Canterb ury. - Stuff Save | Saved Stories
Next NZ Earthquake story: Traffic div erted on State Highway after fatal truck crash near Springs Junction
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Comments Login or Join to post a comment snow-man
5 days ago
all these 'airy fairy' options for the Picton-Christchurch route.....so don't repair SH1 and send everything over the Lewis pass.......sometime in the future a fault up in the hills is going to 'let rip'. Anyone remember the M 7.1, Inangahua, 24 May 1968......M 6.8 27 May 1992 Wairau Valley, Marlborough, then those routes are stuffed.......FIX SH1.....stop all these 'lets hold hands' with politicians meetings (they are only a photo op for next years election) get the boys in and get on with it !......far too much talk-talk with idiots thinking they know best...the longer we stuff about the more its going to cost...(or is that the plan ?) 0
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