Evaluation of the Effect of Place Attachment and Perceptions of Living Environment on Disaster Preparedness: A Case Study in Nagano, Japan

Natural disaster preparedness has a significant impact on the magnitude of disasters and damages. Previous studies on disaster preparedness have focused mainly on promoting risk perception by providing disaster information, but this does not have a sufficient mitigating effect because people who are less concerned about disasters have less access to the information. Since disaster preparedness is considered to be defined not only by risk perception but also by the perception of the living environment, it is important to evaluate disaster preparedness mechanisms that take into account the perception of the living environment. On the other hand, Previous studies have pointed out that place attachment promotes preparedness for natural disasters. 

Therefore, this study investigated the effect of place attachment and the perception of living environment, which is also a factor in the formation of place attachment, on preparedness in Nagano City, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. A web-based survey asked about sociodemographic characteristics, perception of living environment, place attachment, and preparedness being implemented, and 1,000 people answered the survey.

The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) performed on the results of the survey revealed that living environment prompts preparedness, and that the structure of preparedness varies with individual attributes. Furthermore, even if there is no direct relationship (path) from living environment to preparedness, it was found that there are factors that have an indirect effect through place attachment. On the other hand, there were also factors whose indirect effects turned negative when mediated by place attachment. Thus, the results indicate that some factors improve disaster preparedness through place attachment, while others decrease it.

These results suggest that for individuals with personal attributes for whom promoting risk perception alone does not lead to improved preparedness, perception of the living environment and place attachment could lead to improved preparedness. Since the target sites include flood-prone areas, it is possible that the social - environmental perceptions of the residents here might diverge from the general perceptions. Therefore, future case studies should be conducted in other areas to explore more general factors.