Master of Disaster Risk and Resilience

Summary

The United Nations defines a disaster as a disruption of social and community function, involving so many losses and destructive impacts that affected communities and regions are unable to cope using their own resources. Global efforts to reduce the impacts of disasters over the last decade have failed to keep up with growing exposure of people and assets to natural and other hazards, which is generating new risks and a steady rise in disaster-related losses. To reverse this trend, UN member nations ratified the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in 2015.

The Sendai Framework calls for a broader, more people-centred, preventative approach to disaster risk reduction, in which communities, government and private sectors, civil society organisations, academia, and research institutions work together to build resilience and develop collaborative disaster risk reduction practices.

This Professional Master’s degree provides an introduction to this rapidly evolving interdisciplinary field.

Why study a Master of Disaster Risk and Resilience at UC? The Waitaha Canterbury Laboratory

Aotearoa New Zealand is located on the Pacific ‘rim of fire,’ and has one of the most dynamic environments in the world. Floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, and tsunami threaten a rapidly-growing, high income economy, driving collaboration between policy, practice research, and local communities, and increasing demand for disaster risk reduction. This makes Aotearoa New Zealand an outstanding laboratory for the study of multi-hazard disaster risk and resilience.

Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury is situated in the centre of New Zealand’s South Island, Te Tai Poutini, where the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquakes and the 2016 Kaikōura-Hurunui Earthquakes have had extensive and complex impacts in the central and north-east of the island. This has created considerable scope for highly integrated, cutting-edge disaster risk and resilience research.

The Professional Master's programme is taught by a multi-disciplinary team drawn from the Disaster Risk and Resilience Group in UC's Te Kura Aronukurangi | School of Earth and Environment and from Te Pū Ao | GNS Science. This partnership increases the breadth of teaching expertise, student research projects, and industry practice connections.

The programme has won awards for its innovative content and delivery modes, including from the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM).

Subjects and Courses

• current disaster risk and resilience research and practice fields
• disaster risk drivers, risk communication, and disaster risk reduction strategies
• disaster resilience-building theory and practices.
• DRRE401 Introduction to Disaster Risk and Resilience
• DRRE402 Natural Hazard Risk Assessment
• DRRE403 Disaster Risk and Resilience Applications
• GISC422 Foundations of Geographic Information Systems and Science (unless prior work in GIS has been approved)
• DRRE691 Professional Project in Disaster Risk and Resilience (60 points)
• 60 points of approved elective courses. These courses are strongly recommended .