New Zealand's vulnerability to natural disasters demands its proactive engagement in disaster management programmes so as to reduce ricks and eventually increase its resilience to future events. Previous disaster studies indicate opportunities for improving recovery and reconstruction.

This research study adopts a tripartite approach to evaluate current reconstruction strategies for effectiveness, while also exploring improvement schemes within policies and regulatory provisions. These learning oriented evaluations would provide information and data relevant to support best practice guidelines that will be suggested for achieving more robust reconstruction programmes.