Understanding readiness for disasters on the East Coast, North Island, Aotearoa New Zealand: A summary of preparedness surveys

This report summarises a range of disaster preparedness and readiness surveys undertaken along the East Coast of the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand over the past 20 years (between 1999 and 2019), with a view to informing future preparedness surveys. The summary is aimed at providing guidance and insights to Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) organisations and other local authority decision-makers to guide best practice preparedness evaluation approaches. We provide a high-level summary of the results of East Coast preparedness surveys and considering this data (and evidence from other
preparedness/readiness research), provide suggestions for future preparedness surveys. We propose a set of survey questions targeted at understanding people’s beliefs, community participation and feelings of empowerment, as well as more traditional measurements about awareness of hazards and any survival and structural actions people may have taken, or plan to take.