Displays

Triggered by the technical progress that allows combining information about different natural and artificial hazards, numerous multi-hazard platforms were established over the last years. Despite their increasing use to inform and warn the public, surprisingly, no research has been conducted evaluating their usefulness and effectiveness. This study contributes to fill in this research gap by assessing the public’s preferences, needs, and ability to handle information and warnings presented in a multi-hazard environment.

To this end, we conducted a representative online survey with 810 Swiss Germans. In the framework of a conjoint choice experiment, different scenarios were tested reflecting the diversity of elements used in multi-hazard platforms for information and warning purposes. In particular, we varied the map format the hazard classification as well as visual and textual information. The scenarios were randomly displayed as pairs to the respondents, asking them to first rate the scenarios separately and then to choose which of the two they would prefer. By observing the preferences with regard to the scenarios presented, it was possible to examine the relevance of multiple attributes and their characteristics to individual choices.

Regarding the representation of multiple hazards, first results indicate participants’ preferences for a specific map format, hazard classifications, and the display of textual information. For example, a single map including all hazards is preferred over a set of individual maps depicting the same information. This type of representation additionally has a stronger effect on participants’ motivation to seek for further information and to take (precautionary) action. The classification of hazard information into five categories is preferred over a classification with four or three categories respectively. And a list with additional textual information below the map is highly appreciated compared to a set of pictograms. Furthermore, high levels of trust and high levels of risk perception lead in general to a more favorable rating of the information presented. Regarding the content of messages for earthquakes or thunderstorms, participants appreciated the embedding of a sharing function. Such a function allows them to immediately spread the hazard information or warning among their families and friends. There is no preference between earthquake messages with behavioural recommendations in form of pictograms or those with textual recommendations. In comparison, warning messages for thunderstorms were significantly better rated when the behavioural recommendations were in text format.

To conclude, results indicate that the design of multi-hazard platforms strongly affects the public’s ability to handle the information and the warnings presented. Therefore, in parallel of the continuous improvement of scientific-technical products, social scientists should systematically examine the communication and perception of these products in order to achieve the desired effects.    

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 821115.

How to cite: Dallo, I., Stauffacher, M., and Marti, M.: Understanding public’s preferences for information provided on multi-hazard warning platforms, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-1420, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-1420, 2020.

Communicating earthquake scientific information is very important in countries like Italy, where seismic sequences are frequent, seismic risk is high, and people’s perception of risk is strongly affected by fear.

After the 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila (central Italy), which claimed 309 casualties and triggered a long lasting dispute among scientists, journalists, citizens, including a suite of criminal and civil trials involving scientists and civil protection officers, the scientific and risk communication in Italy (not only on earthquakes) was facing a crossroad. The first choice (feared at that time by many reporters) was to minimize or even elude public communication, in order to avoid misunderstandings and involvement in litigations. The second possibility was to increase the efforts in public communication, getting closer to citizens. INGV definitely opted for the second choice. In the past ten years the INGVterremoti platform has augmented and differentiated its activities on the web and social media, substantially increasing the number of involved people, which amounts today to several hundreds thousand. The platform consists of a coordinated suite of social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and a blog (on wordpress), where we publish both updating during earthquake sequences and scientific topics. Our end users are mostly citizens, but also media and authorities. Our tweets on earthquake activity are often in the first pages of web and TV news magazines.

In September 2018, we started publishing automatic locations/magnitudes for earthquakes in Italy with magnitude equal to or larger than 3, after a careful analysis of the thresholds and of the best format to use, in order to warrant message understandability and to minimize false or incorrect information. This issue is very critical both to provide the best and fastest information to citizens, and to increase people’s trust in scientific information and institutions. These are often blamed by citizens and by media when contradictory information is offered to the public. We will present an analysis of the first 18 months of this testing phase, which has been widely appreciated by the public.

How to cite: amato, A., Casarotti, E., Lauciani, V., Meletti, C., Nostro, C., and Pignone, M.: Communicating earthquake information to the public in Italy: ten years of INGVterremoti, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-18816, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-18816, 2020.

Introduction

Flood early warning systems (FEWS) have the potential to reduce human and financial losses caused by flooding (World Bank, 2011). FANFAR (www.fanfar.eu) is a FEWS currently under development for 17 countries in West-Africa. The success of FEWS depends heavily on the effectiveness of communication between the system and hydrologists on the one hand, and the target audience on the other (UNISDR, 2015). Although the effectiveness of risk communication receives increasing research attention, what this means in the West-African context remains unclear (Perera et al., 2019). Our research aims to uncover effective communication strategies for FANFAR considering content, format and pathways.

Research Approach

FANFAR is co-developed with around 40 hydrologists and emergency managers from 17 West-African countries during four one-week co-design workshops. We apply qualitative and quantitative research methods to elicit information about stakeholders’ understanding and preferences regarding various communication options. Qualitative methods include stakeholder analysis as well as surveys and group workshop sessions during three of the workshops in 2018–2020. Our stakeholder analysis (following Lienert et al., 2013) allowed us to better understand downstream stakeholders. We systematically assessed and discussed risk representation content, format and communication pathway during two workshops. Quantitative methods will include (online) questionnaires among other stakeholders including e.g. civilians, farmers, businesses and media.

Findings

In the stakeholder analysis, 31 participants listed 249 stakeholders, which we merged into 68 stakeholder types. We analysed them according to the “importance” of considering their interests in the FANFAR co-design process, their “influence” (power), and how strongly “affected” they would be by a well-functioning FEWS. Stakeholders that were perceived as being of “high” importance on these three dimensions were: “resource planning” (mentioned by 31%), “economic service and operations planning” (25%) and “rescue aid” (18%).

A survey among emergency managers in a co-design workshop in 2019 indicated that return periods were not very well understood or interpreted, resulting in underestimation of flood risk and insufficient response. This result is significant, as return periods are the primary risk communication format used by most FEWS (Waylen et al., 2011), including FANFAR. Preferred and better understood were statistical information about expected impacts in the form of text, as well as infographics. Our ongoing research aims to uncover the most effective combinations of content, format and pathway to communicate flood risks to different audiences. Thus, we enable the development of tailored communication strategies that trigger the intended response from recipients. Ultimately, this research should lead to more successful implementation of FANFAR and reduced impact of floods in West-Africa.

How to cite: Kuller, M., Pinto, F., Schönholzer, K., and Lienert, J.: Effective Risk Communication for Early Flood Warning in West-Africa, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-9425, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-9425, 2020.

The eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 exposed a large population to volcanic ash that was found to contain cristobalite – a crystalline silica polymorph and known carcinogen. This event triggered an array of epidemiological, toxicological and geochemical studies to assess the toxicity of ash, marking the birth of a new field of research. This talk will take you on an interdisciplinary journey through the work conducted since the 1980s, which has discovered both biological mechanisms in favour of volcanic ash toxicity and inherent physicochemical characteristics of ash particles that may render the silica surfaces non-toxic. A sparsity of longitudinal clinical and epidemiological studies following eruptions means that medical evidence for chronic ash pathogenicity is lacking, but other research has shown that acute exposures to volcanic ash can exacerbate existing respiratory conditions. Additionally, a multitude of techniques and protocols have been developed for rapid, eruption-specific health hazard assessment, but conducting these assessments in a crisis is very challenging. In the absence of definitive information about the harmfulness of ash, many exposed people choose to protect themselves as a precaution, or are advised to do so by agencies, so recent research has focussed on providing them with the knowledge to do that effectively. This laboratory and community-based research, involving collaborations among geoscientists, exposure scientists, social scientists, medical ethicists, agency and community representatives, has yielded critical insight into a chain of communication from researcher, through various local ‘authorities’, to the actions taken by communities. The findings have led to changes in humanitarian and individual practice and have opened up new pathways to effective uptake of evidence-based advice through co-designed informational products. 

How to cite: Horwell, C. J.: The health hazards and impacts of volcanic ash: an interdisciplinary journey towards effective mitigation, protection and communication, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-8651, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-8651, 2020.

Due to the increase of flooding cases around the world, there is a need for producing even more accurate flood susceptibility mapping. For this, different models, software and frameworks have been developed for many years to assist local authorities and policy-makers for forecasting hazards and mitigating flooding impacts. However, spatially model flooding in real-world systems remains considered as a difficult task. Forecasting flooding requires knowledge from past events and mapping flood locations is crucial to explain the correlation among the flooding and the influencing factors as well as model calibration and validation. In developing countries, a collection of flooding records and inventories remains challenging, either because the data is not available, or because it is not in the suitable scale and resolution. Building historical flooding map is considered a time-consuming process with multiple datasets and normally with costly field surveys. Besides, acquiring this data can be harder due to the inexistence of flooding insurance or civil protection agencies support. This work aims to contribute to this context by developing and assessing a GIS-based framework to map historical flooding cases through the use of spatial analysis. In this study, we used ArcGIS Pro software to construct a historic flooding map for Campina Grande, Brazil. The city faces recurrent flooding episodes, but there is not an available official map with flooding locations to guide decisions for mitigation. The GIS-based framework allows analysing and better understand the interactions of flooding locations and geographic features. The analysis obtained 230 flooding locations in different scales (buildings, streets and neighbourhoods) and sources for the period from 2004 to 2018. Topographic and hydrologic flood influencing factors (altitude, slope, distance to rivers and lakes, flow direction and accumulation) were selected and combined as layers in the GIS environment. Further, criteria were modelled based on spatial analysis and relations to estimate proximity areas around flood occurrence points with high probability of flooding conditions. These tools allowed to compare visual and data patterns of features and surfaces. All locations and factors were then integrated through Model Builder in order to generate a surface with flooding locations within the city. The final historical flooding map was evaluated and validated with 172 points of confirmed flood cases in the city. The GIS-based framework represents a way of analysing and producing historical inventory maps for flooding management using spatial analysis.

How to cite: Barros Ramalho Alves, P., Alexandra Alves Rufino, I., Djordjévic, S., and Javadi, A.: Building a historical flooding map through spatial analysis, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-1183, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-1183, 2020.

Given the often disastrous impacts of tropical cyclones on lives, livelihoods and economies, understanding the characteristics of tropical storms and related risks has been of critical concern to a wide range of researchers. While there are pressing efforts to better forecast the track and intensity of tropical storms, and a concerted policy focus on comprehensive disaster risk reduction strategies and financing is evident, there is limited suggestion that climate information is actively being used to understand and communicate storm risk. For instance, do we know the length of time between the first storm advisory/forecast and landfall? How does the forecast skill differ by country? Have we identified the right people to integrate such information into their workflows? Are we prepared to communicate storm risk appropriately and within the timeframes that fit the needs of decision-makers? For Caribbean small islands, which have been historically affected by tropical storms, the answers to these questions are fundamental to improving the context and awareness of local risk, and essential to building early warning systems, disaster preparedness and resilience strategies.

This research first offers an insight into the simple calculation and illustration of storm lead time data, collated from climate information sources including storm tracks and storm advisories for 14 Caribbean countries over the period 1995-2015. It highlights that there is a range of (relatively short) storm lead times across the Caribbean islands, leading to concerns regarding adequate preparedness in countries which may face monetary or other resource-related limitations. Next, it demonstrates how storm risk is generally communicated to various stakeholders within the Caribbean, such as from experts at the US National Hurricane Centre to local Met Offices, and then from the Met Office to disaster agencies and the public. This is done with a view to understanding the enabling factors, as well as challenges of timeliness and other limitations, which may be evident in such information flows.

Alongside other related research, this paper has the potential to deepen the awareness of impending hazard and risk and their associated uncertainties and threats, towards fostering enhanced communication and response options using locally appropriate and timely climate information. Inherent in this discussion is the need for improving the development, dissemination and use of climate information as a critical component of risk management and reduction. This could be considered in the context of better understanding the past, but also noting challenges of non-linear changes. In general, such research aligns well with ongoing regional efforts to strengthen resilience to disaster impacts, complementing strategies focusing on financial needs as well as infrastructural development. Moreover, it advocates the encouragement of climate information within holistic climate adaptation and risk-informed sustainable development policies. Sharing such findings with interested international researchers could be helpful to solicit strategies and solutions which could assist Caribbean decision-makers in national and regional resilience efforts.

How to cite: Dookie, D. S.: More than a Feeling: Using Climate Information to Understand and Communicate Storm Risk in Caribbean Small Islands, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-9198, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-9198, 2020.

We present the results of an ongoing research for assessing tsunami risk perception in southern Italy. The study is motivated by the need of addressing a sound communication strategy for tsunami risk reduction, related to the activities of the Tsunami Alert Centre (CAT) of INGV, operating within the framework of the Italian civil protection system. The area of the second step of this study includes five regions of Italy (Basilicata, Calabria, Molise, Puglia, Sicily), facing on Adriatic, Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas, located in one of the most hazardous areas of the Mediterranean. In all the area the memory of relevant tsunamis is loose, since the last destructive event dates back to 1908 (due to the Messina-Reggio Calabria M~7 earthquake). The main goal of this study is to verify how people’s perception of tsunami risk compares with the hazard assessed by scientific data, and which are the main factors controlling people’s knowledge and awareness. We analysed a sample of more than 1,600 interviewees representing about 4 million people living in the coastal municipalities of the five considered regions. Results show that risk perception appears to be generally low, with significant differences among different areas, likely due to the the time elapsed since the last events. 

The survey results for the first two investigated regions (Calabria and Puglia, see Cerase et al., NHESS, 2019) showed that people’s perception and understanding of tsunamis are affected by media accounts of the mega-tsunamis of Sumatra 2004 and Japan 2011. At the same time, the risk posed by small tsunamis is basically underrated or neglected, posing some critical questions for risk mitigation strategies, particularly in touristic areas. Furthermore, the survey’s results show that for lay people the word ‘tsunami’ has a different meaning with respect to the Italian traditional word ‘maremoto’, implying that the same physical phenomenon would be understood in two different ways by younger, educated people and elders with low education level. In addition, people have high expectations from authorities, CPAs, research institutions about warnings. Moreover, living in different coastal areas appears to have a significant influence on the way tsunami hazard is perceived: Interviewees of Tyrrhenian Calabria are more likely to associate tsunami risk to volcanoes with respect to those living in the Ionian coastal areas, coherently with the presence of Aeolian volcanic islands and feared submarine volcanoes in the Tyrrhenian. A somehow unexpected result is that TV emerges as the most relevant source of knowledge for 90% of the sample. Some categories declared to prefer getting early warnings through broadcast media and sirens rather than receiving by SMS or apps, suggesting the need for redundancy and modulation of EW messages. We will present an update of the survey which is presently ongoing, related to the five regions. These results could help in addressing risk communication and mitigation policies.

How to cite: Crescimbene, M., Cerase, A., Amato, A., Cerbara, L., Cugliari, L., and La Longa, F.: Tsunami risk perception in southern Italy, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-22528, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-22528, 2020.

Over the past decade technologies and social media have been praised a revolution in the way seismic risk and information was communicated to the public. For instance, LastQuake system is crowdsourcing earthquake detections and providing timely information and safety tips to citizens through social media and a free app now used by over 900K users over the world. Through a series of other practical examples and case studies, among which Earthquake Network system and Raspberry Shakes use, we show that smartphones and social media along with other technologies have indeed shaped new ways to detect earthquakes. They also enable to collect key information in order to raise situational awareness and in the end, inform the public in a timely and geotargeted manner, passing from a top-down approach to a two-way communication. Technology use also led to a significant increase of citizens’ role and implication in seismology, not only raising their interest for the risk but also for the science that relies beneath it.

Our analysis demonstrates that in order to be successful, and thus to reduce anxiety and create a trust relationship between scientists and citizens, efficient communication strategies must be based on a thorough knowledge of both risk culture and technological culture. Indeed, such assessment of the audience enables to better meet public’s various information needs in terms of content, format and time frame.

However, technologies as well as their uses have kept evolving and seismologists are now facing new challenges to communicate key information. For instance, in an increasing number of cases, misinformation and rumours about earthquake predictions become viral on social media. This is a critical issue to be addressed, especially in a context of development of both earthquake early warning systems and earthquake operational forecast. Additionally, citizen communication and information routines are evolving, especially with the rise of messaging apps or the development of new social media. However, to date, messaging apps are not designed in a way that facilitates communication of critical seismic information by seismic institutions.

We conclude that lessons learned from previous challenges, especially through a constant return of experience process, will be useful to address contemporary ones. Communicating towards the public is a necessity during all phases of the crisis cycle, from a scientific and risk perspective. Getting to know the audience’s needs, habits, language, emotions or cultural background and show them empathy is a critical part of efficient communication strategies. Finally, technologies should be seized as an opportunity to engage with citizens and build a lasting trust relationship.

How to cite: Fallou, L., Landès, M., Roch, J., Roussel, F., Steed, R., Julien-Laffériere, S., and Bossu, R.: Acknowledging technological and cultural evolutions to communicate seismic information to the public., EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-14514, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-14514, 2020.

In the event of a disaster, most of the response systems are divided into final decision makers who direct overall situation management, preparation, response, and restoration work, and field managers who share the status of the actual disaster at the site and perform the tasks they are directed to.

Although major means of sharing situations between decision makers and field managers in Korea are used, such as telephone, messenger, and report, the information provided in simple text format was inconvenient to decision makers who have to issue business instructions after considering the surrounding status information and concerns over possible future damage.

In response, a GIS-based smart disaster situation management system was established to manage the situation quickly at the site of a disaster.

The system presents 32 types of information related to disaster safety produced by 12 agencies (the Korea Meteorological Administration, the National Transport Information Center, Korea Hydrographic and Oceanographic, etc.) on a single screen (e.g. weather/ ocean observation information, CCTV video information, etc.) and provides detailed location of disaster areas, location of damage sites and photos, and visualizing the weather information on a multidisciplinary basis to enable the decision panel to provide visualisation.

Through mobile applications, we have developed a function that allows field managers to upload information obtained from professional equipment (photo, radar, chemical measuring, etc.) directly into the system and will study various disaster site investigation information so that it can be used to support professional situation management in the future.

How to cite: Kim, O., Park, J., park, H., and lee, J.: A Study on Utilization Information of Disaster Site for Real-Time Situation Management, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-13721, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-13721, 2020.