Wellbeing after a managed retreat: Observations from a large New Zealand program

Abstract

Managed retreat programs aim to relocate households or remove homes and other infrastructure out of harm's way. Managed retreats are most typically considered for coastal areas or floodprone zones. In New Zealand, as elsewhere, managed retreat initiatives generate a highly polemical and emotional discussion within affected communities, and between them and the government. Given the difficult and controversial implementation of managed retreats, understanding what happens to residents who are displaced by these programmes is of immense importance. We examine the wellbeing of the people who were forced to move as part of a large managed-retreat program that was implemented in Christchurch, New Zealand, after the 2011 earthquake the city experienced. We consider three indicators for the measurement of subjective (surveyed) wellbeing: quality of life, stress, and emotional wellbeing. Our aims are: (1) to describe the wellbeing of the relocated residents after they were forced to move, and identify which factors are correlated with their well-being having already moved to new places (2) to describe the subjective experience of the residents in their communication with the government and in their relation with the community: (3) to identify the effect of economic factors (household annual income, home ownership, and financial impacts) on their wellbeing; and (4) to relate these findings to possible lessons for policy makers when designing managed retreat programs. JEL-Codes: Q540.

Comparing earthquake insurance programmes: how would Japan and California have fared after the 2010–11 earthquakes in New Zealand?

“…Damage to all three residential exposures (content, land, and structure) is aggregated to calculate overall insurance payments 17 . After the CES, the Government of New Zealand defined specific zones as ‘red’ (no longer safe) and bought all residential premises located there, around 8,000 houses overall (Hoang and Noy, 2019). It is assumed that these properties were thoroughly damaged and that owners received payments equal to their value.…”

Managed retreat and planned retreat: a systematic literature review

“…Principles and frameworks deemed essential for funding planned relocation, including through aid programmes, are also emerging in the literature [144], as is recognition of the influence managed retreat policy frameworks can have in reducing or exacerbating social inequality [57,58,74,[145][146][147]. The importance of properly assessing the equity of various frameworks for buyout implementation and outcomes is especially emphasized [57,58,71,72,[146][147][148][149]. The challenge of finding suitable land to relocate to is also emerging across the literature [150].…”

Path Dependency and Future Adaptation of Coastal Cities: Examples From the Asia-Pacific

“…In addition, attempts to implement spatially sensitive setback lines based on risk, together with signals in some areas that retreat could be inevitable (following a pathways approach), have led to opposition and retraction (Manning et al, 2015). Yet the enactment of managed retreat in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes provides an example to draw on for future climate-forced retreat from vulnerable coasts in New Zealand (Hoang and Noy, 2020;Nguyen, 2020).…”