19th NZGS symposium: Hanging by a thread – Lifelines, infrastructure and natural disasters

In recent memory the Australasian region has suffered tremendous collateral damage and loss of life due to the occurrence of natural disasters. Many of these disasters, in particular earthquakes and flooding, are of direct relevance to geotechnical and engineering geology communities due to the associated adverse effect on the ground and earth structures. Since 2000 these types of natural disaster have caused over $NZD 100 billion worth of collateral damage, resulted in the tragic loss over 389 lives, caused thousands of injuries and an unquantifiable amount of emotional and psychological damage.

The 2010-2012 Canterbury Earthquake sequence, 2011 Victoria Floods and 2010-2011 Queensland Flood events have resulted in an unprecedented volume of disaster-related data, observations and first-hand experience for the geotechnical and wider engineering community. These experiences are currently being incorporated by local engineers in the design of repair and rebuild works in Canterbury, Victoria and Queensland. Moving forward this will ensure these new structures are more robust, resilient and cost-effective.

A key objective of the 19th NZGS symposium is to reduce human suffering due to a future natural disaster.