EASPI: Creating a landslide hazard map of Christchurch in New Zealand

Dunham Lisa A, Renton WA

Investigators

Abstract

From September 2010 to June 2011 the Christchurch area in New Zealand experienced a series of large earthquakes and aftershocks. In February 2011, an aftershock of the first earthquake hit 10 km south of Christchurch, claiming many lives. Some of those people were killed in landslide events triggered by this quake. Subsequent earthquakes triggered landslides in these same areas. As the city rebuilds, there is a need for understanding the hazards and risks associated with coseismal land sliding. This research will result in a hazard map that can be used by the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Science (GNS Science) and other government decision makers. This research will be conducted at GNS Science under the guidance of Dr. Chris Massey who worked to document landslides triggered by these earthquakes. In the non-seismic community, research has been done via statistical analysis using data from landslides triggered by non-seismic methods. These analyses use regression to determine how different factors affect the potential failure of slopes. The method is gaining popularity as it produces a hazard map that covers a great amount of area. Using these same methods, this proposal is to do the statistical analysis so that a hazard map can be created of the Christchurch and surrounding area from a database created after the February earthquake. This hazard map can then be compared to the June earthquake to see how well it predicts the land sliding that actually occurred. The main focus of this project will be to create the statistical model which can be used to analyze the data from the second earthquake in subsequent research projects. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the Royal Society of New Zealand.