With regard to their utility in predicting the adoption of household hazard preparations, traditional approaches to public education directed at increasing awareness and/or risk perception have proven ineffective. Discusses reasons why this may have occurred from public education, vulnerability analysis, and community resilience perspectives and outlines strategies for enhancing preparedness. Describes a model of resilience to hazard effects that has been tested in different communities and for different hazards (toxic waste, environmental degradation and volcanic hazards). Drawing upon the health education literature, introduces a model for promoting the adoption on preparatory behaviour. Discusses links between these models, and the need for their implementation within a community development framework.

Understanding how people interpret risks and choose actions based on their interpretations is vital to any strategy for disaster reduction. We review relevant literature with the aim of developing a conceptual framework to guide future research in this area. We stress that risks in the context of natural hazards always involve interactions between natural (physical) and human (behavioural) factors. Decision-making under conditions of uncertainty is inadequately described by traditional models of 'rational choice'. Instead, attention needs to be paid to how people's interpretations of risks are shaped by their own experience, personal feelings and values, cultural beliefs and interpersonal and societal dynamics. Furthermore, access to information and capacity for self-protection are typically distributed unevenly within populations. Hence trust is a critical moderator of the effectiveness of any policy for risk communication and public engagement

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck the Canterbury Region of New Zealand at 4:35 am on 4 September 2010. It was centred 11km beneath the rural town of Darfield, on the Greendale fault, which was previously unidentified. Christchurch City lies 40km east of Darfield, and was home to a population of approximately 370,000 at the time of the earthquake. There was extensive damage as a result of the MM9 shaking, particularly to buildings and infrastructure, but fortunately there were no deaths. The residents began the recovery process, plagued by frequent aftershocks. Then, more than five months after the mainshock, on 22 February 2011, a M6.3 aftershock occurred 5km south-east of Christchurch at a depth of only 5km. This earthquake struck at lunchtime on a working day, causing catastrophic damage to the city, and resulting in 185 deaths. Most of these casualties occurred as a result of the collapse of two large office buildings, with further deaths resulting from falling bricks and masonry, and rockfalls in city suburbs. The M7.1 earthquake and associated aftershocks have caused extensive impacts on the local built, economic, social, and natural environments. The on-going aftershocks have also caused a disrupted environment in which to recover. This paper will outline the nature of the Canterbury earthquakes and provide an introduction to the ongoing effects the earthquakes have had on these local environments to help frame the growing body of research coming out of the Canterbury earthquakes