1. Mark Smith, Mack Thompson, Don Grant Land Information New Zealand
Re-establishment of Cadastral Boundaries following the Canterbury Earthquakes, September 2010 to June 2011
Mark Smith, Mack Thompson, Don Grant
Land Information New Zealand
As I am sure you are all aware the Canterbury Region around Christchurch has been hit by three major earthquakes in the last 12 months.
This presentation is a brief overview of the types of problems the earthquakes caused to the Cadastral infrastructure in the area and the statutory response to allow the re-establishment of boundaries to continue as required by holders of rights in the land.
Hopefully, this presentation will inspire you to read the full paper we have submitted to the conference and to make any suggestions or to the office of the Surveyor General that you think may be helpful to us in protecting the cadastre and peoples rights in land.
There were three major earthquakes and many more that would have seemed major a year before!
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NZIS/SSSI Conference November 2011
Wellington, New Zealand

2. Where Were these Quakes?
The little inset map shows the location of Canterbury in NZ for those of you from abroad or from the North Island
The first was the Darfield Earthquake of 7.1 Magnitude on 4 September 2010
This quake was centred about 20km out of Christchurch City and the epicentre is shown with a large green star and left behind the surface fault shown in red and property damage in the area of the fault but also caused liquefaction in some suburbs of Christchurch and in the Waimakariri and Selwyn Districts. Waimakiriri is to the north of Christchurch and Selwyn is to the south and the west.
The second of 6.3 magnitude occurred on 22 February 2011 close to the City in the Lyttleton area and the epicentre is shown with a red star. Damage outside the City was less than in the September quake but extensive liquefaction took place in the eastern suburbs, significant building collapse and damage was experienced in the city, and building collapse and rock falls took place around the Port Hills. This event resulted in fatalities and significant property damage.
The third of 6.3 magnitude on 13 June 2011 was again close to the City and the epicentre is shown with a blue star. Significant liquefaction was again experienced.
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3. Fault shear and distortion
The earthquakes caused:
Displacement of cadastral boundaries and cadastral marks about the fault rupture
Extensive damage to infrastructure such as roads, electricity, sewer and water reticulation and cadastral survey networks
Significant shaking damage to land in the suburbs and the central business district
Discuss these pictures briefly
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4. Liquefaction and surface flow
Other effects were:
Liquefaction of soils in some suburbs resulting in slumping and lateral spreading of the surface of the land – including elements of the cadastral mark network.
Discuss the first three slides, and then
Rock falls – dramatically removing boundary occupation
Block shifts of the land in the affected area of Canterbury displacing all cadastral survey marks from their pre-quake absolute position.
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5. Effects on Boundaries Block shifts Deep Shearing Deep
Angle distortion Deep
Surface flow Shallow
Landslip Shallow
Rock Fall Shallow
Effects of the earthquakes on the cadastral boundaries and cadastral marks were:
Block shifts of the land in the affected area of Canterbury displacing all cadastral survey marks from their pre-quake absolute position – Deep Seated movement.
- block shifts are relatively uniform over the extent of a cadastral survey
In addition some boundaries and marks were affected by:
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Shearing along the Greendale fault rupture from the Darfield Earthquake –Deep Seated
Distortion about the Greendale fault rupture which has caused boundary points to move but the boundary line between end points remains straight within survey tolerances – Deep Seated. I.e. rectangles become rhombus’
Random movement of survey marks in areas of localised surface layer movement due to liquefaction of soils or landslip– Surface movement- Shallow
Rock falls collapse of cliffs causing loss of survey marks –Surface movement - Shallow?
Details about the areas affected by these movements can be found in our full Paper submitted to the proceeding of this conference and degrees of movement can be found in Matt Amos’ paper from yesterday afternoon’s session.
To understand why are we worried about these movements and why are we differentiating between Deep and Shallow movement we need to think a bit about the NZ Cadastral System
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6. New Zealand Cadastral Survey System
Supports Torrens title system
Integrated with geodetic
Private sector surveyors
Cadastral Survey legislation
Hierarchy of evidence
Old Monuments have priority
Certainty of boundaries desired
The NZ Cadastral survey system underpins the Torrens title system with state guarantee of title
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Integrated with geodetic survey control framework
Cadastral surveys are undertaken by private sector surveyors
Cadastral surveys are governed by the Cadastral Survey Act 2002 and the Rules for Cadastral Survey 2010
Re-establishment of boundaries is based on hierarchy of evidence in accordance with common law
Boundary monuments in their original undisturbed position has high priority
Certainty of boundaries important for the cadastre, the title system and holders of rights (including ownership) in the land.
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7. Surveyor-General’s Concerns
Earthquake affect on cadastral boundaries
How to re-establish boundaries?
Statutory intervention required?
Surveyors’ legal authority?
What do the variable movements of marks and boundaries due to the earthquake mean for the Cadastre, cadastral boundaries and boundary marks?
What were the questions the Office of the Surveyor General needed to consider?
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How Were boundaries to be re-established?
Had boundaries moved with the marks?
Should the pre-earthquake positions of the marks be re-instated?
Is it different if the movement is uniform over a survey or varies across the area of the survey?
Should shallow movement be treated differently from deep-seated movement?
Was Statutory intervention required?
Does Common Law cover these circumstances?
Have other jurisdictions created a precedent?
What legal authority could surveyors use?
How could an Licensed Cadastral Surveyors certify their work is compliant with the law if no clear law exists?
The first step was to consider what NZ law had to offer and if there were any experiences from overseas that could be called on.
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8. Statutory intervention required
Precedents?
No NZ Statute or regulation
No common law
Napier Earthquake (1931)
Prior NZ examples
Few overseas precedents
Alaska (1964) and California (1971)
Statutory intervention required
So what did a search of the applicable law find?
No NZ prescriptive law or regulation for re-establishing boundaries affected by movement due to an earthquake or landslip
Lack of applicable common law
The 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake was the last significant earthquake in New Zealand which impacted upon major residential and commercial districts. A further result of that earthquake was the loss by fire of all official title and survey records for the district. Fortunately that has not been a consequence of the Canterbury earthquakes. The Hawke’s Bay Earthquake Act 1931 and the Land Transfer Act (Hawke’s Bay) Act 1931, inter alia, made provision for the reconstruction of records. The Napier Alignment Regulations 1932 provided for standard traverses to re-establish fixed width road alignments. These provisions are of little relevance to the re-establishment of Canterbury boundaries post 2010.
Previous New Zealand post earthquake cadastral surveys (e.g. Inangahua[1968], Edgecumbe[1987], Fiordland [2009]) were largely dealt with on a case by case basis due to the rural nature and smaller number of properties affected by those earthquakes.
In 2004 the Surveyor General had commissioned overseas research (Ballantyne) which provided two useful examples being the 1964 Anchorage, Alaska, earthquake and the 1971 San Fernando, California, earthquake. In those cases special legislation was used to deal with the effects of the earthquakes and while not directly relevant to the Canterbury situation, similar principles, where relevant, could be modified and applied to the re-establishment of boundaries since the Canterbury events.
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Conclusion:
To allow surveyors to certify that their earthquake affected surveys were in accordance with the Rule of Law, some statutory intervention was required.
Normally Statutory Intervention requires a period of preparation, public consultation, review and completion.
However the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act 2010 (CERR Act 2010) provided for the creation of Orders-in-Council to enable fast Statutory action
Order in Council Canterbury Earthquake (Cadastral Survey Act) Order 2010 provided fast track for earthquake Rules
Rules for Cadastral Survey (Canterbury Earthquake) 2010 (CEQ Rules) were published pre Xmas 2010 to provide direction for re-establishment of boundaries affected by movement due to the Canterbury earthquake.
The OSG will produce new longer term Rules for post earthquake surveys, with wider application, before Dec These will be informed by experience to date and will be folded into the standard Cadastral Survey Rules to allow for the effects of the Canterbury Earthquakes and future events involving land movement elsewhere in the country.
So lets have a quick look at the content of the Earthquake Rules
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9. Boundary Re-establishment
Deep Seated Movement
Boundaries move with the surface
Extra angles created in fault-span boundaries
Shallow surface Movement
Boundaries remain relative pre-EQ positions
Specific non-compliances sanctioned by S.G.
Managing the Spatial Cadastre
The Earthquake Rules and the Guideline which was published at the same time were developed in response to the 4 September earthquake
Following the February quake it was anticipated that the Rules would also be suitable for dealing with survey issues resulting from that event although the survey issues resulting from liquefaction movements were more complex than September and may require further dispensations from the Rules in some cases.
There is also provision in the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act 2011, for the normal survey and title requirements to be overruled in some circumstances although this is yet to happen.
When dealing with boundary re-establishment the EQ rules differentiate between movements caused by deep seated movement and Shallow surface movement:
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Deep Seated Movement
Where there has been deep-seated movement due to the earthquake then cadastral boundaries are deemed to have moved with the resulting land movement. We are talking about Block Shifts which affect all marks and boundaries and near fault movements.
Re-established boundary points must hold the same relationship to physical evidence, including survey marks and boundary occupation, as they did prior to the earthquake
Where there has been relatively uniform block shift then the relationship between boundaries and survey marks will remain the same as before the earthquake
Where boundaries have been displaced or distorted by the fault rupture new boundary angle points in existing boundaries may need to be created
Shallow Surface Movement
In the case of shallow surface movement due to liquefaction this is similar to land slip in which case legal precedents indicate boundaries will normally be reinstated to their original positions after taking into account any block movement.
In a particular case where compliance with the Rules is impractical or unreasonable the Surveyor-General can grant an exemption from the requirements, or specify alternative requirements, as provided for by section 47(5) Cadastral Survey Act Granted dispensations will be considered when the EQ Rules are being reviewed and put out for consultation during 2012.
The CEQ Rules also provide for some relaxation of the normal requirements for orientation of surveys and adoption of boundaries in certain circumstances
Managing the spatial cadastre must go hand in hand with the acceptance of post earthquake boundary re-establishment surveys. For more information on this, please refer to our full conference paper and to Matt Amos’s Paper yesterday afternoon.

10. Proceedings of this conference And LINZ web site
Further Information
Proceedings of this conference
And
LINZ web site
Search for “earthquake”
I trust that this brief look at the problems of re-instating the boundaries after an event which results in both deep seated and shallow surface deformations will encourage you to read our paper in the proceedings of the conference and to follow our statutory intervention over the next few years.
Mr Chairman.