2012 Winter Lectures: Hazards, Disasters, Risks & Responses

Dr Ljubica Mamula-Seadon, Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, and Laurie Johnson, of Laurie Johnson Consulting, San Francisco, US: Policy responses - what have we learned?

The pressures created by the devastating effects of natural and other large magnitude hazards generate unprecedented expectations in societies and of governments. The vulnerabilities created in society by these large-scale hazards combined with interdependencies of production and supply, urban intensification, population shifts and cultural changes, newly created societal vulnerabilities force governments to turn their attention to the capacity of public, private and civic sectors to withstand disruption, absorb disturbance, act effectively in a crisis, adapt to changing conditions and grow stronger over time. This lecture examines those challenges and suggests policy and planning pathways to surmounting them, using international and New Zealand examples from Christchurch; Tohoku and Kobe, Japan; San Francisco; and New Orleans.

Ljubica works at the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management where she oversees the Ministry's Resilience, Recovery, Infrastructure and Welfare programmes. Ljubica has more than 30 years of experience in interdisciplinary research and practice in the area of environmental risks and natural hazards, including earthquake engineering, urban planning and recovery, sustainability, resilience, policy and integrated planning. She is a member of international and national professional bodies, advisory groups and expert teams. She has published in national and international journals, contributed to books, and has been an invited speaker and presenter at conferences and symposia.

Ljubica's work involves input into international and national policy, development of operational policies and guidelines and strategic programme development in the area of natural hazards risk management, planning and emergency management.

Laurie has more than 20 years of experience in urban planning and disaster-related consulting, management and research. She has written extensively about the economics of catastrophes, land use and risk, and disaster recovery and reconstruction. She has studied most of the world’s recent major urban disasters, including the 2010 Chile and 2008 China earthquakes, 2005 and 2004 U.S. hurricanes, World Trade Center collapse, 1997 North Dakota floods, and 1995 Kobe, Japan and 1994 Northridge, CA earthquakes. In 2006, she was a lead author of the recovery plan for the City of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and coauthored the book, Clear as Mud: Planning for the Rebuilding of New Orleans, published by the American Planning Association in April 2010.