Tom Robinson

I am a Senior Lecturer Above the Bar in Disaster Risk and Resilience at the University of Canterbury. I specialise in disaster risk assessment and disaster risk management, with a focus on New Zealand the Himalaya. My interests also branch into Geographic Information Systems (GIS), scenario planning, disaster & emergency management, and emergency response.

My research focusses on developing a greater understanding of earthquake and landslide disaster risk. In particular, I am interested in dynamic risk and understanding how changes over time in the hazard, the movement of people, and our vulnerability to hazards change the underlying risk. My background is in modelling earthquake- and rainfall-triggered landslides and their consequent impacts on people and critical lifelines. I also work on understanding how these landslides change and evolve through time and how this affects the longer-term post-event recovery. In addition, I'm interested in understanding and modelling risk to tourists and tourism facilities, which are often overlooked in risk analyses. My work involves a broad range of techniques including geospatial modelling, scenario modelling, risk analysis, and statistical analyses. I work throughout New Zealand and the Himalaya.

Research Interests
Earthquakes and Landslides
Natural Hazards and Disasters
Disaster Risk Management
Loss and Risk Assessments
Civil Defence and Emergency Management
Scenario Planning
Mountain and Landscape Processes