GNS Science

Communicating science during the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence crisis,

New Zealand

22 Feb, 2011

Kelvin Berryman General Manager Strategic Relationships Hazards Division GNS Science k.berryman@gns.cri.nz

GNS Science OECD Workshop on Strategic Crisis Management, Geneva, May 2016

The Canterbury Earthquake Sequence – Sept 2010 to Present

• 15 months of damaging events • Events started in the west and migrated toward the city • 38 events above magnitude 5 • Feb 2016 event not a surprise to scientists but significant psychological impact

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The Canterbury earthquake sequence and NZ impact • A large (for NZ) natural hazard event in a

small economy • ~10% of NZ’s 4.5 million people directly

impacted • Total direct loss estimates c. $45b NZD

– about 8-10% GDP • NZ’s annual GDP about the same size as

Munich-Re or IBM annual revenue Regional economy is strong (based on agriculture) • Port, airport, road and rail networks had very little downtime • 95% of businesses continued to operate albeit with downturn in tourism,

education, and hospitality • Some migration away from Canterbury but by 2015 net increase over

pre-earthquake levels • Early government support for local business continuity and workforce

OECD Workshop on Strategic Crisis Management, Geneva, May 2016

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Science Communication Activities

• Public meetings • Media briefings • Formal and informal briefings to EM Controller,

Ministers, government agencies, City Council, • Talkback radio, TV news (1200 accredited news

media in the immediate response phase), newspapers

• Social media via GeoNet (national monitoring network) and Emergency Operations Centre

OECD Workshop on Strategic Crisis Management, Geneva, May 2016

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Science within the Crisis Communication Structure

OECD Workshop on Strategic Crisis Management, Geneva, May 2016

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What Worked Well – Why? • Good cross-organisation engagement

– Sept 2010 was a good practice exercise, small country “everyone knows everyone”, ‘can do’ attitude;

• Motivated science sector dedicated to community and economic well-being;

• Information on the earthquakes and aftershocks was rapid, high quality, and easily digested;

• With a couple of exceptions relationships with media were frequent, constructive, and effective;

• GeoNet and the EOC were monitoring, and using social media;

• Government agencies engaged with the sense-making efforts of the science sector and acted on the advice.

OECD Workshop on Strategic Crisis Management, Geneva, May 2016

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What were the difficulties and conflicts

• Science sector underprepared to respond to the scale of the event • Pre-event planning on activities, roles and responsibilities was weak • Technical advice was not strongly cemented into official response processes • Science was sometimes debated in public that led to diminished confidence

among the public • Some media continued to look for sensational stories, or were convinced

information was being with-held from the media and public • Communicating science was generally too much ‘uni-directional’ • Science sector was significantly under-resourced and was largely reactive to

rapidly developing needs • Rare, long-lived sequence of earthquakes – sense-making very difficult

OECD Workshop on Strategic Crisis Management, Geneva, May 2016

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Sense-making and communication in Canterbury Recovery - it is complicated!

OECD Workshop on Strategic Crisis Management, Geneva, May 2016

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What do we plan to do differently? • Provide greater resource for the science response – sense-making and especially

crisis communications • Improve engagement with key science stakeholders now with protocols and SOP’s • Exercise various crisis scenarios with partners in crisis response to improve

preparedness • Continue engagement with media on BAU basis bringing research results to the

public to develop good relationships for crisis response • Organise our science response with the same structure as the CDEM SOP • Continue to strengthen engagement (listen) with

the private sector, NGO’s and community now so that science knowledge is better utilised in future (natural hazard) crises

OECD Workshop on Strategic Crisis Management, Geneva, May 2016

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To respond to questions posed for this session • What are examples of successful cooperation, partnerships and good practice that

exist between the public and private sectors in crisis communication? I don’t think the NZ experience is very good but there is better engagement now that hopefully continues into the next crisis • What practices in using social media in times of crisis has the private sector found

useful that could be transferred to public authorities? • What are the human resources that would be needed to do this? • Are there benefits to establishing an international crisis communication platform

that would coordinate messaging between multiple public authorities and other actors?

Identifying good practices and making them easily available will always be of value at times of crisis, but I do believe that local cultural and institutional situations must be respected. Guidance from an international platform would provide value in many crises but communication must be locally owned otherwise local actors are dis-empowered.

OECD Workshop on Strategic Crisis Management, Geneva, May 2016