Science Media Centre

The Government has revised rules on strengthening earthquake-prone buildings, tightening requirements for some regions while relaxing them in others.  The changes to the policy regarding earthquake management risk was outlined at a conference on Sunday by Building and Housing minister Dr Nick Smith. The country will be divided into high, medium and low risk areas for earthquakes, […]

Technological fixes to combat harmful effects of climate change — even if employed on a massive scale — will be ineffective in the face of ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions, new research suggests. A study from German researchers published this week in Nature Communications found no more than an 8% reduction in warming could result from […]

IPENZ: The Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand (IPENZ) has today released an Engineering Snapshot – key points and lessons learnt from Monday’s 6.5 earthquake to help the public and building owners better prepare for the “big one”. IPENZ chief executive Andrew Cleland said Monday’s tremor was not the “big one”, but building owners and […]

Following from last month’s SMC Q&A with earthquake engineers, we have several more earthquake related questions answered by a panel of expert engineers. The engineers include John Hare, president of the Structural Engineering Society, Win Clark, executive officer at the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering, Mark Batchelar a consultant engineer and earthquake engineering expert […]

Following the release of a new information paper on earthquake engineering, the media have examined new challenges in building safe structures. The paper,  released this week by the Royal Society of New Zealand, was titled “The Canterbury earthquakes: Answers to critical questions about buildings”. The document represented input from several expert groups -the Royal Society […]

As more buildings in Christchurch are tagged for demolition, NZ Herald reporter Paul Harper looks at what the future holds for the city’s planners and how they might be informed by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Conference currently being held in Auckland today. Update: The conference has also received coverage on TV3’s morning show Firstline, which […]

Engineers are calling for a rethink in building design and standards in the wake of the Christchurch earthquakes. Designing to save buildings as well as lives would improve the resilience of crucial infrastructure following high magnitude quakes. A major gathering of earthquake engineers from New Zealand and overseas kicks off in Auckland tomorrow (14-16 April). The […]

Dr Peter Stafford is a New Zealander born in Christchurch now working as the Willis Research Fellow RCUK Fellow / Lecturer in Modelling Engineering Risk Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Imperial College London. He was born in Christchurch and has family and friends living in the city. He completed his undergraduate degree and his […]

A well-developed understanding of seismic hazards and how to construct earthquake-resilient buildings was crucial to avoiding loss of life in September’s 7.1 magnitude earthquake near Christchurch, say scientists who have evaluated the quake damage. In January, more than 200,000 people were killed when a similarly-sized earthquake struck Haiti. The main difference in quake outcomes – […]

Kyoto focus in Cancun climate talks Predictably fraught negotiations appear to have dominated the COP16 climate summit in Cancun, Mexico, as representatives from 190-odd countries try to come to agreement on how to lower greenhouse gas emissions. The overall goal of the conference is to progress the hastily-drafted Copenhagen Accord that was put together at […]