In recent years, natural disasters such as typhoons, torrential rains, and wildfires have increased due to climate change. Such a phenomenon is an unpredictable meteorological phenomenon. In this kinds of disasters, warning and alert information rapid transition should be made through disaster prevention-related agencies and regional warning systems. Recently, there has been an increasing demand for such rapid transition information. From the point of view of the current transition system for disaster warning and alert system, the severe weather information from the Meteorological Agency in South Korea is transmitted to broadcasting stations and related media using fax, e-mail, and the like. However, these manual transmission of information is not as much fast as it should be required. To make matters worse, there were cases where it did not delivered. In terms of management and operation of this warning system, related agencies have different independent operation systems depending on the type of disaster. For this reason, when multiple disasters occur at the same time or in stages, it is difficult to respond immediately because the systems are not well coordinated. In addition, for the same meteorological phenomenon, the damage that occurs in the area will differ depending on the disaster prevention capacity of the area, the degree of urbanization and industrialization, and the different shape of watershed of the area. In this study, we analyzed existing severe weather information transmission systems. The new novel system shows a prototype that reflects being rapid, being accurate and being integrated. Then, the study presents a methodology for considering the characteristics of the region. Prototypes planned in this way are evaluated whether functional performance is implemented.  The proposed system lets the urgency of weather events make a decision from a meteorological point of view. This will automatically and quickly categorize the level of need you have to be notified of. Depending on the grade, it will promptly and automatically generated and deliver customized information to the public and the government immediately right after any concerned situation occurs. The system has reflected the construction of a standardized information transmission system. Then, the proposed system will enable operation and management by integrating forecasting systems operated independently by each agency into one system. System integration increases the efficiency of generating and transmitting the necessary information, enabling effective response to the complex disasters. Even in the same weather, if the degree of disaster impact varies by region, the customized information level will be differentiated according to vulnerability, exposure, hazardous, and disaster prevention capacity.  

This study will enable the rapid transmission of necessary information to the public and related organizations for efficient response to unpredictable and complex natural disasters through the improved severe weather information transmission system. Finally, It is expected to contribute to minimizing human and material damage due to natural and social disasters by providing alert and warning with customized information for each region that reflects the degree of disaster impact.

How to cite: Jeun, S. and Kwon, K.: System Development of generation and transmission of customized severe weather information for Emergency responses in South Korea, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-4858, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-4858, 2023.

Population information is key to disaster risk reduction and scientists have a key role to play in that respect. However, implementing effective scientific communication is not trivial. We draw lessons from our experience of the seismo-volcanic crisis of Mayotte, France. In May 2018, an unprecedented seismic activity started in Mayotte. It was found, a year later, to be linked to volcanic activity, and the birth of a huge submarine volcano ~50km off the east coast of the island. The activity is still ongoing and is being actively studied to understand the phenomena and estimate associated risks. But there are large uncertainties, due to a lack of preexisting knowledge as the area had been poorly studied before 2018, and is challenging to instrument. In this context, informing at-risk populations is difficult. During the first months of the earthquake swarm, the perceived lack of information led to strong anxiety and a feeling of distrust towards scientists and authorities (Fallou et al., 2020; Devès et al., 2022). Experts in charge of monitoring, who are mostly from mainland France, are attempting to develop new ways of disseminating knowledge (e.g., a simplified monthly newsletter, translated into local languages). Nevertheless, they struggle to overcome the socio-cultural gap between mainland France and Mayotte archipelago (multilingualism, levels of literacy, precarious living conditions, see Roinsard, 2014). There is thus a need to explore alternative ways of communicating scientific information so that it can reach the relevant audiences more effectively. We present an approach drawing on the expertise of earth sciences and human and social sciences that reverse the classic top-down approach (the latter does not generally work very well, even less so in Mayotte). We first develop visual and interactive information tools to better represent the uncertainties associated with the knowledge produced by the volcanological and seismological observation network of Mayotte (REVOSIMA). We focus on the link between seismicity and deformation, two phenomena whose consequences are the easiest to perceive for the populations. We then train secondary school students, in collaboration with their teacher, on the basis of these materials. Finally we accompany those students, with the help of their teachers, to develop their own scientific dissemination materials with the objective to transmit this information to their family and friends. This method has the advantage of delegating the tasks of translating and disseminating the acquired knowledge to individuals from different socio-cultural backgrounds on the island who are familiar with the codes and information habits of their respective communities. As this project is still ongoing, we discuss here its conditions of realisation and its contribution to ongoing research on the communication of scientific information in a context of risks and crises.

How to cite: Le Vagueresse, L., Devès, M., Jacquot, J., Lacassin, R., and Grandin, R.: Participatory approach to adapt scientific communication to the socio-cultural context: the case of the seismo-volcanic activity in Mayotte, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-9182, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-9182, 2023.

In a geologically interesting land like Italy, and in particular Campania, educating and informing about the concept of risk in general, and specifically seismic risk, is of fundamental importance.

The possibilities of seismic risk mitigation, in fact, depend not only on the scientific community but also on how well prepared and informed society is about the risk itself. It is, therefore, crucial to train the local population to increase disaster risk preparedness and resilience within our region.

The Science Capital framework, developed by Prof. Louise Archer er al. (https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21227), refers to a person’s science-related resources, such as their science-related understanding, knowledge, attitudes, activities, and social contacts. It also offers a key to defining how everyone's store of scientific knowledge is enriched and influenced by their habits, family, and network of contacts. Understanding this context and its dynamics helps us to enhance the resources available for scientific culture, with a view to building a competent and inclusive educational community. 

With this in minds, we built a didactic protocol dedicated to seismic risk perception taking into consideration the Science Capital framework.

“Waves…a tool to explore our home!” allows students to acquire both specific topics, such as the physical quantities involved in an earthquake, its generation and its dynamics, and general concepts, such as the perception of seismic risk and the impact of man in the prevention, in the possible induction and in the response to an earthquake.

An evaluation phase was carried out to assess the learning experience and the effectiveness of the science communication technique.

This work has been supported by CORE ("sCience and human factor for Resilient sociEty") project, funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 - research and innovation program under grant agreement No 101021746 .

How to cite: Gargiulo, M. V., Napolitano, F., and Capuano, P.: Waves…a tool to explore our home! A successful experience in improving risk perception, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-6079, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-6079, 2023.

Although anthropogenic global warming is well-known within the scientific community, the public is still not certain how to associate specific local climate events to this global issue. Therefore, it is essential to raise public awareness by providing sound, graphical, interesting and easily understandable scientific information. Our attribution projects aim for this task both in Hungary and Greece – the former started in September 2021, while the latter a year later. Within the projects, we have slightly different approaches for analysis and dissemination as well. In Hungary, seasonally relevant indices are calculated and published in each season near the time of an event occurrence, and the dissemination is done mainly via a national platform aiming for climate awareness (www.masfelfok.hu), but to reach the public even more, a broad media platform and a large social media network is used as well. In Greece, NOA has also developed a dissemination strategy that mainly focuses on weather and climate extremes and produces layman and explanatory articles that are published on www.meteo.gr, which is visited more than 350.000 times daily.

We found common and relevant indices both for Hungary and Greece that can be shown, thus we selected agriculturally-relevant, spring climate indices for both countries: vegetation start for cold-resistant plants, vegetation start for warm-demanding plants, late frost, and possible frost period. The analyses are performed within the two projects based on several data sources with daily temporal resolution: (1) an ensemble of CMIP6 global climate model simulations of both natural-only forcings and historical runs, (2) an ensemble of regional climate model simulations from Euro-CORDEX, including the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, (3) a fine-resolution, homogenized observation-based gridded data for Hungary.

How to cite: Szabó, P., Pongrácz, R., Galanaki, E., and Kotroni, V.: Attribution and communication of climate indices in Hungary and Greece, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-15461, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-15461, 2023.

During and after catastrophes it is important to investigate the role played by key governmental institutions and scientific community in vehiculating correct information to the whole population on how to manage the consequences of disasters in order to minimize losses and avoid other possible cascading effects. Indeed, messages spread out by policy makers and scientific community get positive effects, only if they are trusted by citizens.

The European project entitled “sCience and human factOr for Resilient society” (H2020 CORE) considers trust as a key factor for the individuals’ risk perception, their behavioural response and disaster preparedness. Within this scenario, a survey is promoted by means of an online questionnaire including scales and indicators related to risk perception and trust by controlling for geographical context, socio-demographic and economic backgrounds together with direct and indirect individual experiences. The aim of the survey is twofold: on one hand, it permits to consider the effects on citizens’ behaviors by analysing  different hazards, such as earthquakes, tsunami, wildfire, industrial accident, terrorist attack, flash flood and COVID-19 pandemic; on the other one, it allows to underline best practices adopted by institutions during emergencies in different countries by also investigating the role of fake news.

The final aim is to release guidelines devoted to the policy makers and scientific community experts in order to understand what they can do to be trusted by communities. 

Acknowledgment: The present abstract has been produced for the CORE project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101021746.

How to cite: Russo, R., Gargiulo, M. V., Vitale, M. P., Quarta, S., and Capuano, P.: Investigating the role of citizens' trust during and after emergencies, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-8055, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-8055, 2023.

The OSMOSE project aims to develop citizen seismology in Haiti where seismic risk is high and the scars left by the 2010 earthquake are still very prominent. The project proposes to use low-cost seismic sensors (Raspberry Shake) to (1) complement the national seismic network and (2) improve risk perception, preparedness and scientific knowledge of the population.

This second objective is not self-evident and requires the integration of these volunteers in a wider network, with a real communication strategy towards them but also towards the general population. Originally, the communication strategy was to be established on three levels: the first one for exchanges between the volunteers and the scientists of the project, the second one to support the volunteers in their interactions with their communities so that they become « seismology ambassadors », and the third one to inform the general public. The project planned to support this communication strategy with a series of classic tools (website, social media, partnerships with schools or media), innovative ones (Messaging Apps bots, Virtual Reality...) and already existing tools such as the LastQuake application developped by the EMSC, which allows to collect and give information about felt earthquakes.

During the conception phase some challenges linked to the cultural, economic and hazard context had been considered and taken into account. For instance materials must be translated in French and Creole. Access to technology, whether for practical or literacy reasons, is very unequal.  Moreover, the team had the ambition to study the place of voodoo, religious and scientific culture in the explanation of earth movements in order to adapt the approach and make communication more effective to increase risk awareness and preparedness.

However, we faced many unforeseen difficulties in implementing this communication strategy, mainly related to the security and political context in Haiti. The security context made it nearly impossible to access the field, which would have allowed for in-depth sociological surveys. These surveys had for objectives to better understand risk perception and risk culture, but also educational and cultural barriers (e.g., how can we talk about earthquakes when people do not know that geological faults exist?) or the great differences between the educated people, the urban and impoverished public of the slums and the rural inhabitants. Yet, this knowledge is decisive in the establishment of the communication strategy and difficult to replace by purely quantitative online research. The existing litterature is unsufficient. Beyond these methodological difficulties, the political problems and the disorganization of the State have had repercussions on the academic community, and therefore on the project partners.

Through this presentation of a concrete example of communication in citizen science and the difficulties encountered, the authors wish to share their experience and launch a discussion around the solutions envisaged (an even stronger engagement with volunteers through a WhatsApp group, alternative ways to understand risk culture…).

This, in the expectation and hope for the Haitian people that the political and security situation will improve.

How to cite: Fallou, L., Corbet, A., Calais, E., Calixte, N., Bossu, R., and Attiè, P.: Implementing a Citizen Seismology Communication Strategy in a Complex Economic, Political and Security Context: Issues and Feedback from the OSMOSE Project in Haïti, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-16067, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-16067, 2023.

Maps are a widely used mean to communicate spatial hazard and risk information to the public, with the aim to increase individual risk awareness. The use of maps is triggered by scientific evidence that maps are the format most preferred by the public. However, past studies have shown that, if not well designed, maps are often misinterpreted and can trigger wrong attitudes. Thereby, the different elements such as the icons on the map, the chosen layers, the legend, or the used color scale influence the comprehension of the information on the map. In the context of natural hazards, and more precisely earthquakes, research has so far mainly focused on the design of hazard maps, and little is known about the effective design of risk maps. We thus assessed how to design understandable, useful, and actionable seismic risk maps for the public.

To this end, we conducted a transdisciplinary project in Switzerland by ensuring an interdisciplinary co-production of the map and testing it with the public. First, we – an interdisciplinary group at the Swiss Seismological Service at ETH Zurich – co-designed different versions of the seismic risk map varying the color scale and legend format. Second, we tested these versions with a public survey (between-subjects experiment); representative for the German- and French-speaking part of Switzerland. We assessed which map version was correctly interpreted, perceived as useful, increased people’s risk perception, and triggered people to take protective actions. Further, we analyzed whether certain social groups (e.g., house owners) had different preferences, risk perception, or intentions to take action.

At the conference, we will present the preliminary results of the survey and provide evidence-based recommendations on how to design user-centred seismic risk maps. This should support institutions responsible for public communication to add seismic risk maps to their products to effectively inform the public about seismic risks and, in turn, increase their risk awareness and intention to take protective actions. 

This project has received funding from the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), the Federal Office for Civil Protection (FOCP), and the Swiss Federal institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich).

How to cite: Dallo, I., Schnegg, L. N., and Marti, M.: The design of user-centred seismic risk maps – the Swiss case, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-3241, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-3241, 2023.

In Korea, disaster broadcasting online system and disaster information delivery platform provide disaster information broadcasting and text messages as well as various multimedia services to inform the public. However, it is not possible for Disaster Prevention-Related Organizations and accurately acquire disaster situation information in real time and provide information for preemptive response.

Therefore, in order to quickly deliver weather emergency information to the Disaster Prevention-Related Organizations like fire fighter, we analyse necessary meteorological information for fire fighting and transfer the customized contents that can effectively respond to disaster situations are developed. We propose a system architecture to deliver meteorological information to the person in charge.

How to cite: Lee, B. and Jung, W.-S.: Design of Weather Emergency Information Delivery System to Disaster Prevention-Related Organizations, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-1956, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-1956, 2023.

Serious games (SGs) for natural hazards (NHs) can provide an artificial space for players to understand the risk they face through defined rules and quantifiable results. Here, we deduce a scoring system for natural hazard SGs to understand whether these games introduce and communicate the interplay between social/physical vulnerability, exposure, hazard, and uncertainty (called ‘four elements’ here forth) to target players. We first identified 48 natural hazard SGs via a critical review of peer-reviewed and grey- literature. From these 48 SGs, we select 22 that were accessible and scored them on a 12-point scale through a two-stage process: (i) identify the indicators (or evaluation criteria) for three risk elements – vulnerability (6 indicators), hazard (7 indicators), and exposure (7 indicators) – along with uncertainty (8 indicators); and (ii) deduce the scores of the games by employing the evaluation criteria on 22 games. Based on the scores, we found that 70% of the 22 SGs could be applied to more than one hazard type (one of the hazard indicators), whilst 52% of the games included social vulnerability and/or critical loss facilities as exposure. About half of the SGs (48%) fostered player unpredictability which means that the focus of most natural hazard SGs is to indicate how decisions taken by one community member can impact the whole community or another individual in a community. Comparing the game scores, four games ranked highest with a score of 9 out of a possible 12; showing that such games can communicate hazard risks into an appropriate context. Games with high scores (above 10 out of 12) can help the people-at-risk (who are the target players in SGNHs) weigh up in their mind the costs and benefits of different actions, empowering communities to take disaster risk reduction, preparedness, and resilience actions.

How to cite: Choudhury, S., Malamud, B. D., and Donovan, A.: An effectiveness scoring system for risk and uncertainty in serious games for natural hazards, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-15970, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-15970, 2023.

Disaster risk is expected to amplify in the forthcoming years considering the recent climatic projections that highlight that the frequency of shifting weather events is expected to increase posing a significant threat to the resilience of critical assets and societal functions [1]. The increasing trend of extreme weather events and natural hazards highlight the urgency of societies to adapt to current and future evolving hazards. Emerging technologies can play a significant role towards the preparedness and response of societies to disaster risks; however, the vast majority of existing solution are customised to the needs of citizen protection authorities and do not enable interaction with citizens to bridge the risk perception action gap.

This work presents AEOLIAN AR mobile application which focuses on actively engaging both citizens and citizen protection authorities (CPAs) to enhance their risk perception but also response actions during an emerging crisis. AEOLIAN is a new crowdsourcing solution which is following a co-creation design process, through various development iteration phases with main end users [2]. The solution places at the centre both relevant authorities and vulnerable citizens, in an effort to deliver functionalities focused on knowledge generation and exchange among target users. This involves the dissemination of early warnings and real-time bi-directional interaction and exchange of crowdsourcing information between experts and vulnerable communities in case of evolving hazards, allowing for precautionary actions to be employed in areas of concern. It is coupled by Augmented Reality (AR) technology, which seamlessly blends real environments and virtual objects [3], to enrich the knowledge of citizens by providing an immersive storytelling of ‘disaster tales’ to inform users about historical hazardous events that have occurred in their region. Gamified disaster risk training modules also aim to empower participation and learning for climatic and anthropogenic related risks. AEOLIAN has the potential to improve understanding and risk communication between CPAs and citizens towards building disaster resilient societies.

Acknowledgments:

This research has been financed by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 101019707, project RiskPACC (Integrating Risk Perception and Action to enhance Civil protection-Citizen interaction).

References:

[1] Michalis, P. and Vintzileou, E. (2022). The Growing Infrastructure Crisis: The Challenge of Scour Risk Assessment and the Development of a New Sensing System. Infrastructures. 2022; 7(5):68. https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures7050068.

[2] Michalis, P., Anniés, J., Papathanasiou, C., Ouzounoglou, E. and Admitis, A. (2022). Co-creation as an approach to bridge the Risk Perception Action Gap and customise crowdsourcing tools to respond effectively to climatic risks. Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Natural Hazards and Infrastructure, 5-7 July 2022, Athens, Greece, ISSN 2623-4513.

[3] Katika, K., Karaseitanidis, I., Tsiakou, D., Makropoulos, C., Amditis, A. (2021) Augmented Reality(AR) Supporting Citizen Engagement in Circular Economy, Circular Economy and Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-021-00137-7.

How to cite: Michalis, P., Georgiou, K., Sampson, O., Nousis, V., Palazis, M., Papathanasiou, C., Ouzounoglou, E., and Amditis, A.: AEOLIAN: A new Augmented Reality mobile application to enhance disaster training and response to evolving hazards, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-1073, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-1073, 2023.

Natural and man-made disasters are associated with significant impacts on society, economy and the environment and are considered an issue of national priority at a global level. Further to that, such disasters are exacerbated by climate change (EC DG-ECHO, 2021) and their frequency of occurrence and impact intensity is expected to increase significantly, further affecting the countries’ interlinked economies. The standard practice adopted to mitigate risks includes the undertaking of measures, customized to the needs, particularities and socioeconomic features of the area under threat (Papathanasiou et al., 2015). Informed policy- and decision-making processes need to be outlined from relevant stakeholders. However, this top-down approach, which currently involves policies and measures decided by relevant authorities is not only outdated, but has also been proven to be insufficient. Currently, there is a justified tendency to actively include citizens in disaster management, fostering thus a more citizen-oriented, bottom-up approach. State-of-the art technological tools with advanced functionalities offer extended capabilities towards this direction. RiskPACC project brings together researchers, practitioners and first responders from nine European countries in at least 21 co-creation workshops at 7 case studies, enhancing the communication between local Civil Protection Authorities (CPAs) and citizens and bridging the risk perception-action gap (RPAG) (Michalis et al., 2022).

This work outlines the co-creation approach adopted for the Municipality of Rafina-Pikermi (MRP) use case workshops that focus on wildfires and floods. The functionalities of the AR Aeolian mobile application were defined based on feedback by CPAs and citizens, as provided during workshops, successive iterations and response to appropriate questionnaires posed by the tool providers. User-friendliness was a core design element of the tool to ensure its easy applicability by citizens and control by CPAs, meeting at the same time the need to train the local community how to effectively manage disasters. The process of familiarizing CPAs and citizens with such solutions and encouraging their active participation in relevant training sessions supported them to better understand their particular role in disaster risk reduction, fostering improved situation awareness and risk perception, which is strongly encouraged by immersive technologies. Lessons learnt from citizen empowerment to adopt technical solutions for disaster risk management can be replicated to other use cases with similar population features.

Acknowledgments:

This research has been financed by European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 101019707, project RiskPACC (Integrating Risk Perception and Action to enhance Civil protection-Citizen interaction).

References:

EC, Directorate-General ECHO, (2021). Overview of natural and man-made disaster risks the European Union may face: 2020 edition, Publications Office.  

Michalis, P., Anniés, J., Papathanasiou, C., Ouzounoglou, E. and Admitis, A. (2022). Co-creation as an approach to bridge the Risk Perception Action Gap and customise crowdsourcing tools to respond effectively to climatic risks. Proceedings of 3rd International Conference on Natural Hazards and Infrastructure, 5-7 July 2022, Athens, Greece, ISSN 2623-4513.

Papathanasiou, C., Makropoulos, C. and Mimikou, M., (2015). Hydrological modelling for flood forecasting: calibrating the post-fire initial conditions, Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 529, Part 3, pp. 1838-1850, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2015.07.038

How to cite: Papathanasiou, C., Michalis, P., Stavrou, K., Tsougiannis, E., Anniés, J., Papageorgiou, S., Ouzounoglou, E., and Amditis, A.: Enhancement of local community resilience to natural and man-made disasters through the application of co-created novel technological tools, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-1381, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-1381, 2023.