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Design for Emergency Management
Edited by Saskia M. van Manen, Claudine
Jaenichen, Klaus Kremer, Tingyi S. Lin, and
Rodrigo Ramírez
ISBN: 9781032285030 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781032308098 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003306771 (ebk)
First published 2024
Chapter 9
Awareness to preparedness
A design-led approach to building resilience
and readiness for the next Alpine Fault
earthquake
Alice Lake-Hammond and Caroline Orchiston
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
The chapter DOI: 10.4324/9781003306771-10
The funder of the Open Access version of this chapter is University of Otago
NEW YORK AND LONDON
DOI: 10.4324/9781003306771-10
9 Awareness to preparedness
A design-led approach to building
resilience and readiness for the next Alpine
Fault earthquake
Alice Lake-Hammond and Caroline Orchiston
Introduction
There is increasing evidence to support investment in activities which mitigate the impact
of disasters and enable avenues for sustainable development in recovery and reconstruc-
tion. Concepts of Building Back Better, Disaster Risk Reduction, resilience and readiness
are now commonplace not only within agencies working in the disaster and development
fields but also at a governmental (public), business (private) and individual (personal)
level (Aldrich 2012; Rodin 2015; UNDRR 2015). It is generally accepted that invest-
ment in programs which support these objectives, reduce risk and build resilience saves
money and is more eective in the long-term than investment which focuses solely on
disaster response. However, while the potential economic and social benefits of resilience
and readiness initiatives are widely recognized in theory, it is not always clear how this
potential is met in practice.
The United Nations Oce for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) defines resilience
as: “The ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb,
accommodate, adapt to, transform and recover from the eects of a hazard in a timely
and ecient manner” (UNDRR 2017). In New Zealand, this definition is supported by
aNational Disaster Resilience Strategy, which aims to:
Strengthen the resilience of the nation by managing risks, being ready to respond
to and recover from emergencies, and by enabling, empowering and supporting
individuals, organisations and communities to act for themselves and others, for
the safety and wellbeing of all.
(NEMA 2019, 3)
For an individual and their community to have the resources and capacity to act for
themselves and others requires them to be involved in the process of preparing for dis-
aster. Communities need to be active in planning, organizing and actioning initiatives
which reduce risk and increase resilience, pre- and post-disaster. This involvement implies
not only a knowledge of potential risk but also an engagement by the community in
acollective understanding of its vulnerabilities, level of preparedness and its capacity
to absorb, adapt and recover in the face of sudden and often shocking systemic change.
In terms of emergency preparedness, resilience is then not simply an awareness of the
potential impacts of disaster but an active engagement and participation in taking steps
to increase preparedness at both an individual and community level. Initiatives aimed at
preparing communities for emergency events must not only inform about hazards, they
This chapter has been made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.
142 Alice Lake-Hammond and Caroline Orchiston
must also enable the sharing of knowledge which increases awareness and understanding
of risk, supports action toward preparing for disaster and builds resilience across all
levels of acommunity – public, private and personal.
This chapter shares insights from AF8 [Alpine Fault magnitude 8] a collaborative
program of work aimed at building societal resilience to a magnitude 8 Alpine Fault
earthquake across the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. Specifically, it describes
the ‘AF8 Roadshow: The Science Beneath Our Feet’, a central communication and
engagement initiative of the AF8 Programme, as a case study illustrating a design-led
approach to public education aimed at supporting a community-centered journey from
hazard awareness to emergency preparedness. It begins with an overview of the concepts
underpinning the design and delivery of the AF8 Roadshow, highlighting principles from
the fields of design and risk communication to illustrate the value of design thinking in
the development of communications aimed at increasing community readiness. It then
provides a brief summary of earthquake risk and preparedness levels in Aotearoa New
Zealand, the context for this case study. Finally, it outlines AF8’s approach to building
resilience for a large Alpine Fault earthquake and reflects on how principles from design
have been applied in the AF8 Roadshow to support a process of problem-solving for a
future event. This case study does not cover the detailed solutions or preparedness actions
taken because of this process. Instead, it focuses on the process itself, documenting and
explaining the approach taken in the design and delivery of the AF8 Roadshow to oer
insights and learnings on how a design-led approach to public education for emergency
management can support a journey from awareness to preparedness.
Awareness to preparedness: a process of problem-solving
The journey a community or individual takes from awareness to preparedness is
essentially a process of problem-solving. It is neither linear nor straightforward, and tak-
ing a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to engaging communities in activities aimed at reducing
risk and building resilience often proves inadequate (McBride 2017). There has been a
noticeable absence of a coherent communication framework to support such initiatives
(Burnside-Lawry et al. 2013), nor is there a clear definition for what communication
that engages communities in risk reduction activities is (Bryner 2016), making it dif-
ficult to prescribe and implement eectively. Instead, communication activities aimed
at increasing levels of emergency preparedness and building resilience typically employ
a range of approaches often adapting principles and methods from other disciplinary
fields to inform the engagement process (Pal et al. 2020). This adaptation of principles
from other disciplines is supported by hazard risk researchers, who advocate that the
communication of risk:
…should be transdisciplinary and deliberative: it is not linear but rather should be
informed by and through engagement between authorities and audience. Under-
standing the vulnerabilities, values and culture of the audience is critical – not least
because these factors will aect how advice and warnings are interpreted, and
whether or not they are acted upon.
(Donovan et al. 2019, 4–5)
A transdisciplinary, deliberative and non-linear approach is fundamental to methodolo-
gies of design thinking and human-centered design, which recognize that people who
Awareness to preparedness 143
face the problems are the ones who hold the key to their answer and oer a range of
approaches and tools to enable interactive and iterative problem-solving processes
(IDEO2015).
Design as an active process of problem-solving (and not just a product of actions)
oers a means of translating hazard information, interpreting risk and organizing knowl-
edge in ways that can enable preparedness action, through empathy, problem scoping,
ideation, testing and iteration (Repia and Bailey 2021). This active design process is
not limited to designers, hazard risk specialists or emergency management experts, as
Simon proposes: “everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing
existing situations into preferred ones” (1988, 67). The application of design thinking
in emergency management oers opportunities to involve the public in the problem-
solving process, positioning them as active co-creators of solutions alongside scientists
and emergency managers, not simply passive recipients of information. Design provides
eective approaches for the development of community-led readiness and response activ-
ities, recognizing communities and individuals as vital participants in the journey from
hazard awareness to emergency preparedness, both as local knowledge holders and first
responders.
Aotearoa New Zealand: living on the ‘Shaky Isles’
Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ), or the ‘Shaky Isles’ as it is often called, is no stranger to
earthquakes. Located at the boundary of the Australian and Pacific plates at the south-
western corner of the Pacific Ocean, NZ’s geographic location and diverse climate leaves
the island nation vulnerable to a wide range of natural hazards. Earthquakes are par-
ticularly challenging to plan and prepare for due to their unpredictability and the uncer-
tainty of their impacts. NZ’s National Geohazard Monitoring Centre (NGMC) records
an average of ~20,000 earthquakes every year, the equivalent of ~50–80 earthquakes per
day (GeoNet n.d.-a). While most of these seismic events are small and go unnoticed, less
frequent, larger events have shown their ability to cause considerable destruction and
devastation, with long-term implications for recovery, as seen following the 2010–2011
Canterbury earthquake sequence (GeoNet n.d.-b,c) and the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake
(GeoNet n.d.-d) in NZ’s South Island. Despite the destructive potential of earthquakes,
it is also worth noting that NZ exists because of this plate boundary. It is movement on
the plate boundary, with its powerful uplift along the spine of the South Island and deep
subduction o the east coast of the North Island that forms the geological foundations
for NZ’s stunning landscape – which many communities feel fortunate to call home and
others travel across the world to explore.
Since 2006 NZ’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) have commis-
sioned an annual survey to monitor levels of awareness and preparedness and identify
triggers and barriers to preparing for disasters in NZ. The findings are used to inform
NEMA’s public information and national campaign strategies. Data collected by the sur-
vey over the last decade shows levels of preparedness rise after major natural hazard
events, specifically the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquakes, the 2016 Kaikōura earth-
quake and even during the onset of the global pandemic in 2020. However, it also shows
that these levels drop o in the years following a major event, as seen from 2013 to
2016 in the time between the Canterbury and Kaikōura events and from 2017 to 2019
between the Kaikōura earthquake and the start of the pandemic. The most recent sur-
vey in 2021 indicates that New Zealanders continue to have a high awareness (92%)
144 Alice Lake-Hammond and Caroline Orchiston
and understanding (85%) of disaster risk. However, only 20% of New Zealanders are
considered prepared at home and only 13% are considered fully prepared (at home and
away) if a disaster were to strike today (NEMA 2021).
NEMA’s 2021 survey also identified ‘Lack of knowledge’ about what to do to prepare
as a high priority barrier to address to increase preparedness levels. ‘Likelihood of event’,
or complacency about what disasters could happen in their area and ‘Optimism’, or a
belief that they will probably never experience a disaster first-hand, were also identified
as important secondary barriers to address. The ‘Lack of knowledge’ barrier was signifi-
cantly higher in the 15–30 year age bracket (42%), indicating that campaigns and public
education approaches have not been as eective in engaging younger audience groups.
The top trigger to encouraging preparation across all New Zealanders was identified as:
‘Social norm – what friends and family think’, indicating that New Zealanders are more
likely to take action to get prepared themselves if they perceive that their friends and fam-
ily think it’s important to do so. The survey also found that over a quarter (28%) of New
Zealanders think the single most important thing we can do to ensure our communities
can withstand and recover from disaster is ‘Public education about hazards, risks and
preparedness’.
Geography and first-hand experience oer clear evidence that NZ will experience
large earthquakes with potentially catastrophic consequences in the future. While it is
impossible to predict when the next one will occur, more must be done to retain levels of
hazards awareness between events and translate understandings of hazard risk into tan-
gible actions which increase preparedness. There is a need for public education initiatives
that can support this process, bridge knowledge gaps, mitigate complacency between
events and address the perception that disasters happen somewhere else to other people
– particularly initiatives that can reach and engage younger audiences in conversations
about hazard risk and preparedness.
AF8: preparing for an Alpine Fault earthquake
The Alpine Fault represents the meeting of the Pacific and Australian plates in the South
Island of NZ. At its full extent, the fault stretches for ~800 km along almost the entire
length of the island and is deemed capable of generating large magnitude 8 earthquakes,
with major implications for the South Island and nationally. The last event of this size is
understood to have occurred in 1717 and no significant activity on the Alpine Fault has
been recorded since. However, scientific evidence shows that the fault has a history of
generating regular, large earthquakes (Cochran et al. 2017). Newly updated probabili-
ties indicate there is a 75% chance of an Alpine Fault earthquake occurring in the next
50years and that there is an 82% chance it will be a magnitude 8+ event (Howarth etal.
2021). Hazard and risk modeling indicates that the impacts of an earthquake this size
will have major implications for the entire South Island and will generate a disaster of
national significance (Orchiston et al. 2018). Although impossible to predict, the science
strongly indicates that NZ is now at a time where communities, organizations and the
nation should actively be taking steps to build resilience and increase levels of prepared-
ness for a future large Alpine Fault earthquake. It is vital that policymakers, planners
and the public understand the implications of this science in their local context and are
enabled to act to be better prepared.
AF8 [Alpine Fault magnitude 8] is a collaborative program of scientific modeling,
response planning and community engagement designed to build societal resilience to
Awareness to preparedness 145
the next Alpine Fault earthquake. It aims to share the Alpine Fault hazard and impact
science and preparedness information widely, through communication and engagement
activities, to increase awareness, enable conversation and build societal preparedness to
natural hazard events in the South Island (AF8 n.d.). Recognizing that no single body of
information or discipline can solve the complex problem of a magnitude 8 earthquake
on the Alpine Fault, AF8 brings together multiple domains of knowledge across research,
policy and practice, in science, emergency management and community, to co-create
solutions which can enable planning and preparedness activities (Figure 9.1).
AF8 is best understood as a ‘boundary organization’, a concept applied to science/
policy partnerships aimed at the joint construction of knowledge and/or collaborations
involving multiple stakeholders and domains of knowledge (Beaven et al. 2017). This
positioning has enabled the Programme to take an interdisciplinary approach to its
activities, adapting and applying principles of co-design and storytelling to generate new
Figure 9.1 The AF8 co-creation model.
146 Alice Lake-Hammond and Caroline Orchiston
knowledge that can help increase the South Island’s preparedness for a future Alpine
Fault earthquake. Since 2016, AF8 has worked…
…across traditional silos of policy, practice and research to collectively address
acommon objective: to improve the ability of Civil Defence Emergency Management
(CDEM) groups, infrastructure utilities, welfare organisations and communities to
respond to future major earthquakes within the South Island of New Zealand.
An event of this scale will require a collaborative response across regional bound-
aries, so a major focus within the project is to build relationships and increase
collaboration.
(Orchiston et al. 2018, 390)
Now in its seventh year, this collaborative approach has proven eective in facilitating
the problem-solving process, which began by defining the problem, asking: ‘why and
what are we preparing for?’ to inform and explore solutions on ‘how can we plan and
prepare for it?’. A key output of this process is the co-created AF8 Scenario which draws
on interdisciplinary earthquake research to outline a maximum credible event scenario
for a future Alpine Fault earthquake; telling the story of the Alpine Fault and illustrating
the potential risk and impacts it poses for the South Island (Orchiston et al. 2016). In
design, scenarios are applied to explore and test future thinking. Similarly, in emergency
management, hypothetical scenarios are often employed as a tool to frame the hazard
problem to develop and test solutions for future events. They are most often used to com-
municate potential risk pre-disaster, providing a tangible definition of the problem and
identifying key considerations for the collaborative problem-solving process. The AF8
Scenario was workshopped with researchers, emergency managers and their partners,
bringing together multiple domains of knowledge, in the development of the South Island
Alpine Fault Earthquake Response (SAFER) Framework, which has been successful in
providing a concept of coordination for inter-regional and inter-agency response plan-
ning for an Alpine Fault earthquake (AF8 2018).
Another key objective of AF8 has been to increase public awareness and preparedness
for a future event. To do this, AF8 has adapted the AF8 Scenario in the development
and delivery of public education activities aimed at encouraging community readiness,
extending the Programme’s collaborative approach to bridge the knowledge gap between
the problem of a large Alpine Fault earthquake and the people it is most likely to impact
through the engagement platform of the AF8 Roadshow.
The AF8 Roadshow: The Science Beneath Our Feet
The ‘AF8 Roadshow: The Science Beneath Our Feet’ is a key public education activ-
ity of AF8. It aims to share Alpine Fault hazard science with communities likely to be
impacted by the next Alpine Fault earthquake, and is designed to enable conversations,
activate local knowledge and support informed decision-making to increase awareness
of, and preparedness for, a future event. The AF8 Roadshow makes the AF8 Scenario
accessible to South Island communities in a way that encourages critical thinking and
conversation. It raises awareness by illustrating that this event is inevitable and that it
will have long-lasting consequences for the entire South Island. Most importantly, it
creates a space of active engagement where this awareness can begin to be translated
into preparedness.
Awareness to preparedness 147
The 2019 and 2021 AF8 Roadshows featured in this case study visited communities
in geographic locations, rather than distinct communities of knowledge, practice, culture
or ethnicity, focusing first on rural and remote settlements most likely to impacted by
isolation, service outages and communication challenges determined from the AF8 Sce-
nario and its shake-map (see Figure 9.2). The AF8 Roadshow is not the only activity AF8
delivers to engage communities in conversations about the hazard risk, the Programme
also supports individual public talks for specific groups and community resilience pro-
jects including iwi Māori (the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand) at marae
(community meeting house) and whānau (family) preparedness wānanga (educational
forums) around Te Waipounamu, the South Island. However, a key strength of the AF8
Roadshow is its framing of the next major Alpine Fault earthquake as a South Island-
wide, and indeed national, disaster event. By designing, delivering and promoting the
AF8 Roadshow under one South Island-wide banner it reinforces the message that this is
not an event that is going to happen to someone else over there, it is something that will
impact all of us and we all have a part to play. It supports social networks by providing a
platform for multiple domains of knowledge, experience and expertise to come together
Figure 9.2 Locations visited during the 2019 and 2021 AF8 Roadshows shown on a shake-map
illustrating the potential intensities of shaking of the magnitude 8 Alpine Fault
South-to-North rupture scenario.
148 Alice Lake-Hammond and Caroline Orchiston
in one conversation, emphasizing that the better connected we are beforehand, the easier
it will be to support each other following the next major Alpine Fault earthquake.
New Zealanders have shown their excellence at coming together instinctively to
support each other during emergency events. However, as NEMA’s 2021 survey find-
ings show, it doesn’t take long for complacency (and perhaps fatigue) to set in between
events. The AF8 Roadshow encourages people to have conversations and build commu-
nity networks in advance, to be better prepared for future events. It aims to mitigate com-
placency by sharing the AF8 Scenario in a community setting, making it accessible in a
local context where it is of most relevance to that community and enabling conversations
about the hazard risk, future impacts and readiness. This is where collective knowledge
comes alive and where solutions begin to be considered and acted upon. Whether that
is identifying local vulnerabilities, resources and expertise, prompting discussions with
friends and family or the beginnings of a community plan, anything communities do to
prepare now will make a dierence in the future. The AF8 Roadshow provides a space
where such informed problem-solving and decision-making can happen.
The AF8 Roadshow includes both public talks and school visits with communities
from around the South Island. Schools are a key audience because: the next Alpine Fault
earthquake is likely to happen within the students lifetime and will have long lasting
impacts over many years (meaning young people must be included in this conversation);
the NEMA 2021 survey findings show lack of knowledge as a barrier to preparedness for
young people; and, the AF8 Roadshow oers an opportunity to inspire our young sci-
entists and community leaders of tomorrow. In smaller, rural centers, visiting the school
at the same time as holding a public talk meant that, in some places, the AF8 Roadshow
engaged ~20% of the local population in Alpine Fault hazard and preparedness infor-
mation in one day – maximizing the opportunity for intergenerational conversations to
continue within families and the wider community beyond the AF8 Roadshow visit itself.
Public talks
The public talks are open to all, attracting people of all ages with standing room only at
some venues. They are hosted by the local emergency management group in each region,
who use the AF8 Roadshow to connect with communities and ensure local messaging
is consistent. The presentations run for ~1 hour and feature an adapted version of the
AF8 Scenario using graphics and an animation to illustrate the key information. These are
brought together in a narrative sequence that begins by identifying the hazard, then outlin-
ing the potential impacts and secondary consequences, before finishing with locally specific
information and preparedness messaging. The presentations are typically followed by often
lengthy Q&A sessions of up to ~1–2 hours (depending on the audience), oering the com-
munity an opportunity to clarify the information shared and ask questions about details
relevant to them. These two-way conversations are crucial to the interpretation of risk at a
local level and often continue well beyond the meetings with follow-up emails and on social
media. They also continue within the community itself as networks form and preparedness
plans are made supported by local emergency management (Figure 9.3).
The AF8 Roadshow leverages the close partnership between science and emergency
management, demonstrating the value of working together to be better prepared for
natural hazard events in New Zealand. In 2021, ten presenters with diverse expertise
from various NZ universities and research institutes supported the delivery of 16 public
talks. Where possible, speakers are invited to present in locations where their expertise
Awareness to preparedness 149
was of direct relevance to that community. For example, in Blenheim, Hikurangi subduc-
tion zone science was shared alongside Alpine Fault information, recognizing the transi-
tion zone between these two large plate boundary faults at the top of the South Island.
Additionally, the AF8 Roadshow is not just an opportunity for presenters to share their
expertise, they also learn from the community with local knowledge and points of further
research enquiry often surfacing through conversations in the Q&A sessions. These inter-
actions have the potential to generate new understandings of hazard risk as audiences
and experts collectively seek to find solutions that can increase preparedness levels for the
next Alpine Fault earthquake.
School visits
The school visits vary depending on student population, schools and location. The
sessions are designed to align with the New Zealand Curriculum Levels 4–6 (Minis-
try of Education 2023) and in most cases targeted at Year 9–10 students (ages 13–14
Figure 9.3 AF8 Roadshow public talks at Alexandra and Kokatahi in 2021. Photographs taken
by AF8.
150 Alice Lake-Hammond and Caroline Orchiston
years). However, at remote area schools or schools teaching natural hazards sessions
were expanded to include students from Years 3–13 (ages 6–18 years), adapting the con-
tent to suit the learning level without minimizing the key messages. The school sessions
are designed to increase hazard awareness and risk literacy through interactive tools,
storytelling and solution-focused activities. They run for ~1 hour, for 20–30 students at
a time with enough flexibility to fit with school timetables and class sizes. The sessions
are delivered by a communicator, supported by a local emergency management ocer,
and are broken into three stages, which follow a similar narrative sequence to the public
talks: Stage 1: Discovering the Alpine Fault: What is the Alpine Fault and what can its
past tell us about future earthquakes? Stage 2: Understanding impacts and consequences:
What would an Alpine Fault earthquake be like? Stage 3: Preparing for emergency events:
What can we do to be better prepared? The activities at each stage are designed to ensure
the students depart the session not only with a better understanding of the hazard and its
impacts in relation to them, but also having had multiple conversations with their own
peers about how they can be better prepared for it.
Stage 1 is delivered using a series of mapping activities and narratives to tell the story of
the Alpine Fault – how we know about it, what we know, how it moves and what that
means today and in the future. The centerpiece is a machine-modelled 3D topographic
map of the South Island, painted white so that it can be projected down on to from
above enabling a hands-on experience (instead of the formal PowerPoint used for the
public talks). The students gather around and locate themselves and other communi-
ties around the South Island on the map using mini monopoly houses. The projections
are then used to communicate the geography, geology, the location of the Alpine Fault
and its movement, all in relation to their location, demonstrating how clues in our
own landscape can help to better understand and investigate hazard risk. The map
provides an engaging tool that makes the AF8 hazard and impact information more
tangible and accessible for the students (Figure 9.4).
Stage 2 focuses on key terminology used in describing and defining earthquakes to increase
risk literacy by explaining terms like: magnitude, Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI),
Pwaves, S waves and epicenter. A mini shake-table programmed with the 2016 Kaikōura
earthquake shaking data is used to demonstrate the intensity of shaking generated dur-
ing this real-life event at three dierent geo-locations (Figure 9.5): Timaru (south of the
epicenter), Kaikōura (near the epicenter) and Wellington (north of the epicenter). Each
location shows the same magnitude 7.8 earthquake but with very dierent intensities of
shaking: Timaru = MMI ~2–3, Kaikōura = MMI ~8 and Wellington = MMI ~7. These
numbers are interpreted and explained using a large format MMI scale that students can
walk along to identify how the earthquake felt in the dierent locations. For younger
students this stage can be adapted to simply demonstrate the terms without going into
the detailed definitions, while the shake-table can be used to practice life safety actions
e.g., the students must stay in their Drop, Cover and Hold until the table stops shaking.
Stage 3 is designed to involve students in conversations with their classmates and peers
about what they themselves can do to be better prepared, rather than tell them what
they should do or give them a list to take home to their parents or guardians. A set of
purpose-designed cards are used to play a game (adapted from McWaters and Moore
2012), each card has an item you might put in an emergency kit on it (Figure 9.6). The
game is designed to facilitate conversations between the students as to what they think
Awareness to preparedness 151
Figure 9.4 Students gathered around the 3D topographic map of the South Island at South
Westland Area School, Hari Hari to learn about the Alpine Fault. Photograph taken by
C. Orchiston.
Figure 9.5 Students at Darfield High School, Darfield and Mt Aspiring College, Wānaka interact-
ing with the shake-table and MMI scale to learn earthquake terminology. Photographs
taken by the author and C. Orchiston.
would be most important or useful for them to prepare in advance, to make their lives
more comfortable in an emergency event. They are asked to consider mini scenarios
based on the impacts of an Alpine Fault earthquake such as, power outages, isolation,
having to evacuate etc.
152 Alice Lake-Hammond and Caroline Orchiston
Each student is given a card with an emergency preparedness item on it and a post-it on
the back to keep score on (Figure 9.6). A space is cleared so there is room to move and the
rules explained. When the students are asked to shue, they are instructed to move around
the space swapping cards with passing classmates. When they are asked to stop, they are
instructed to find a partner and compare cards (if there is an odd number a teacher is asked
to join in). In their pairs they must compare the items on their two cards and decide which
is the most important or useful of the two items to prepare in advance and how much
more important or useful it is compared to the item on the other card. Once this has been
discussed and decided, the two students are asked to score the cards out of a total of 7. For
example, if one item is significantly more important or useful than the other then it would
get a score of 7 and the other would get a 0; or, if the two items are deemed relatively equal
in importance, then one would get a score of 4 and the other a 3. The two scores must add
up to 7 and there can be no half marks. Once the scores are recorded on the back of the
cards the students are asked to shue again. This process is repeated 3–5 times, as time
allows, then the scores are tallied up so that each card has a total.
The students are then asked to form a continuum line from lowest to highest total, before
taking turns to read the emergency preparedness items on their card aloud and revealing
how they have been ranked through the process. There is then another opportunity to dis-
cuss and determine if the ranking is accurate and agreed. Students can opt to move items
up or down the rankings, but they must explain why, before the class takes a vote on the
final placings. These discussions are an opportunity for the emergency management ocer
to share further preparedness information and ideas. For smaller classes, younger students
or if the session is short on time the game can be shortened to a card sorting or continuum
activity (IDEO 2015, 57) without needing to facilitate the active shuing.
Figure 9.6 Students play a preparedness game using purpose-designed cards at Otago Girls High
School, Dunedin NZ. Photograph taken by the authors.
Awareness to preparedness 153
Reception and feedback
Overall, the AF8 Roadshow has been well-attended and well-received. The only negative
feedback has been that the tour should be bigger. With the promotion of each public talk,
there have been several comments and queries from people asking when the AF8 Road-
show is coming to their town. At each talk a quick show of hands at the start identifies
several repeat-attendees who are coming back to hear more about the Alpine Fault, with
some people traveling great distances to get to a talk near them (~220 km one-way in one
instance). The length of the Q&A sessions, where the audience can increase their compre-
hension of the information being shared, find relevance and share their own knowledge
in return, also indicates a high level of active engagement at the public talks.
The reception from schools has been equally positive, with participants often asking
when the AF8 Roadshow can come back and inquiries from new schools asking when
they can host it for their students. The design and delivery of the sessions have received
positive feedback from both teachers and students:
My class was fully engaged in exploring the wide range of activities and informa-
tion as it was presented in a way which really hooked them. They were able to build
a much stronger understanding in a short period of time as the roadshow makes
connections with the way children learn best. The presenters were fantastic! The
experiments, explanations, choices of what they showed the dierent age groups.
The best Science based opportunity I have had as a teacher too.
(Teacher, AF8 Roadshow 2019)
The 3D mapping demonstrated the content really well. Students were able to visual-
ize content that had been previously discussed. The tutor was inclusive and made
sure everyone could see and have input into the discussions.
(Teacher, AF8 Roadshow 2021)
Thank you for coming, this was really interesting and really useful.
(Student, AF8 Roadshow 2021)
I’m really scared of earthquakes. But now I understand why we have them and
what I can do about them, I feel much better. Thank you for coming.
(Student, AF8 Roadshow 2021)
Feedback from local emergency management ocers has also been positive, many
recognize the AF8 Roadshow as the most eective way to bring their communities
together to connect, learn more about their landscape through science and develop
community plans:
This is a fantastic opportunity for our communities to be involved in learning more
about an event that could impact on them. The Roadshow really makes science
accessible.
(Emergency Management Ocer, AF8 Roadshow 2021)
The design, delivery and success of the AF8 Roadshow is due to an inclusive, collabora-
tive eort where research provides the foundation for robust community-led discussions
154 Alice Lake-Hammond and Caroline Orchiston
and informed decision-making, supported by hazard risk experts and local emergency
management. By creating a space for knowledge sharing and collective problem-solving
the AF8 Roadshow has been eective in raising and retaining hazard awareness between
events; increasing risk literacy for future events; building trust; and enabling conversa-
tions on how to be better prepared within communities (including young people) in loca-
tions likely to be impacted by the next Alpine Fault earthquake. This success owes a lot
to the breadth and depth of the interdisciplinary collaboration within the NZ earthquake
research and emergency management communities, who acknowledge the importance
of engaging the public in Alpine Fault hazard information and enabling community-led
conversations on its implications. The AF8 Roadshow is now a permanent fixture in the
AF8 Programme’s activities to ensure these valuable conversations can continue over
time. The next AF8 Roadshow is planned for 2023.
Conclusion
This chapter has not attempted to provide a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution or clear definition
of what communication that engages communities in risk reduction activities is. If it did,
it would no doubt be inadequate as previous research has shown. Instead, it oers an
example of how a design-led approach to facilitating the journey of awareness to prepar-
edness positions communities alongside earthquake researchers and emergency managers
as active participants in a process of problem-solving for future events. This application
of design thinking principles in public education for emergency preparedness reflects the
aims of NZ’s National Disaster Resilience Strategy and recognizes that the communities
who face the risk not only hold the key to the solutions but are also those who will act on
these solutions to support themselves and others in a disaster. It is vital that communica-
tion initiatives be designed to include the public, as active participants and contributors
of local knowledge to the process of preparing for disasters, if they are to act for them-
selves and others in response to future emergency events. While the solutions themselves
will vary depending on community, geography, hazard risk, impacts and vulnerabilities,
it is the process of collective problem-solving itself which oers the opportunity to raise
awareness, translate and interpret hazard risk, organize knowledge and identify actions
which can increase preparedness.
The AF8 Roadshow case study also oers a practical example of how we may bridge
the gap between national endorsement and local implementation of initiatives designed to
build trust and increase collective resilience across all levels of community – public, private
and personal. It is not enough to agree with or simply accept the need for investment in
community-centered risk reduction and resilience initiatives. Real sustainable investment
in collaborative engagement activities over time is critical for eective and ecient long-
term planning that can support sustainable development in recovery andreconstruction.
Moreover, intergenerational approaches that enable conversations and the ongoing devel-
opment of knowledge are essential if we are to reduce risk and build resilience for future
events, while also increasing levels of emergency preparedness in the present. In sharing
insights from the AF8 Roadshow, this chapter supports the need for further documenta-
tion, development and evaluation of design-led, community-centered reduction and readi-
ness initiatives to strengthen the investment case and inform how potential returns can be
met in practice. Just as we cannot predict the next earthquake, we cannot know how much
better our response and recovery from the next major Alpine Fault rupture will be because
of the AF8 Roadshow. What we can see and share however, are the ongoing investment
Awareness to preparedness 155
dividends we receive through stakeholder and audience feedback, growing engagement
levels, an increasing appetite for hazard information and opportunities for knowledge
sharing through collaborative initiatives that inform decision-making, support collective
problem-solving and prompt preparedness actions.
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