The University of Canterbury held its inaugural Earthquake Forum on the 2nd September 2011. It was an opportunity to hear the diversity of earthquake-related research currently being undertaken in Canterbury and a chance ...

The Avon River is Christchurch’s central landscape feature. Water is potentially exciting, refreshing and organic and can meet many human psychological needs in the synthetic city. As a natural feature in a landscape largely ...

The environmental issues we face today are caused by a historical conceptual separation of nature from culture. In Aotearoa New Zealand, and more specifically Christchurch and Canterbury, one of these issues is a depletion ...

The meaning and purpose of urban public space is constantly being contested and changed by people who associate with it and give it meaning. Botanic Gardens are no exception. Botanic Gardens established in the late 19th ...

This project discusses the complex topic of urban sustainability. I apply an IEM framework to determine the factors which make some cities more sustainable than others. The first four chapters discuss urban sustainability ...

The September and February earthquakes were terrifying and devastating. In February, 185 people were killed (this number excludes post earthquake related deaths) and several thousand injured. Damage to infrastructure ...

Rivers and settlements belong together; there are few urban areas without at least one significant watercourse flowing through them. Urban rivers, and in particular the Heathcote River, are the subject of this dissertation. ...

The greenhouse effect is a phenomenon which is expected to lead to significant global climate changes in the next century and beyond. Because climate is so vital to our lifestyle and food production, changes to it are ...

Promoting cities as tourism destinations is seen as a way to enable growth. This promotion involves the projection of selective imagery to specific target groups and often includes the physical reshaping of places to fit ...

For many years it has been recognised that substances emitted into the air may accumulate to undesirable or unacceptable levels, giving rise to the culturally-determined phenomenon known as pollution. In Christchurch, smoke ...