Two decades of seismic risk communication in Europe: where did we head to?

Understanding what are the main characteristics of seismic risk communication
practice and research is essential to depict best practices and gaps that can provide
insights for future improvements. Towards this task, and focussing on the European
framework, a scoping review based on the analysis of scholarly literature databases,
was conducted. It reveals that, over the last 20 years, seismic risk communication has
been a research topic of increasing interest, trying to keep up with current risk
communication trends and yet mostly under-researched. Recommendations from
international disaster risk reduction frameworks show up also through the increasing
interest on the communication of seismic risk in Europe. However, it appears to be
practiced in an uneven way in the different European countries and not necessarily
linked to the level of hazard.
It mostly occurs in the pre-crisis phase of the disaster lifecycle when risk awareness
and capacity to cope with hazards can be effectively built.
An increasingly proactive, with an emphasis on a bottom-up strategy that relies on
youths to build the resilience of future generations is another key issue of the
communication of seismic risk in the last 2 decades.
Social media have had an increasing impact to provide timely and actionable
information in times of crisis and to engage citizens, in the pre-crisis and post-disaster
phase.
Our data highlights that the future agenda for the communication of seismic risk
should be set on building trust with the public, tailoring communication to its needs.
Actions are even more necessary to curb the spread of fake news and its negative
impact on disaster management and build the communication practices on a
theoretical background