Implementation of community flood risk communication in Kumamoto, Japan

Abstract

SUMMARYTo enhance local flood disaster mitigation, participatory approaches for community-based flood risk communication are proposed using the workshops based on a Plan-Do-Check-Action (PDCA) cycle. In our case study, risk communication for floods due to heavy rain and river flooding was implemented at the Kosen community in Kumamoto City, Japan, during 2006-2007. A community-based flood hazard and evacuation route map were produced during the workshops and verified through virtual desktop evacuation drills. The fundamental resident flood evacuation data was obtained through the evacuation drills and analyzed with respect to the timing of the announcement of evacuation information, walking speed during evacuation, and the locations of evacuation centers. Implementation of flood risk communication was found to be effective for the enhancement of residents' awareness of both self-and mutual-help efforts in community-based flood risk mitigation.

Enhancing flood resilience through improved risk communications

“…Communities are not homogenous in how they understand and respond to information Thrush et al, 2005) and such approaches are therefore unlikely to account for the large number of situational factors (physical characteristics, location) and social, cultural and psychological attributes (cognitive and affective) that influence flood warning response by inhibiting or enabling action by individuals in flood prone locations (Tobin and Montz, 1997;Parker et al, 2007). How risk information is assessed is dependent on an individual's judgement and perception of the risk.…”

“…The ambiguity created by the differences in how people process information, referred to as interpretive (Brugnach et al, 2008) or decision uncertainty (as different to probabilistic or non-probabilistic uncertainty), represents a weakness in information deficit models for flood risk communications. It is unsurprising therefore that, as reported by Twigger-Ross et al (2009b) and Miceli et al (2008), changes or improvements to any single factor of risk communication strategies based on the information deficit model are unlikely to achieve significant changes in response.…”

“…Focused flood risk communication serves to ensure that on receipt of some information, the public will behave in a way where appropriate and effective steps to reduce and mitigate the risk are taken (Yamada et al, 2011). Ineffectual communications or breakdowns in the channels along which information is conveyed have been cited as significant factors in the inadequate or failed response to previous natural disasters, including, for example, the Easter and summer floods of 1998 and 2007 in the UK (Horner and Walsh, 2000;Pitt, 2007) and the floods that resulted from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (Gheytanchi et al, 2007).…”

“…At one end of the spectrum, the complex social dynamic between government, responsible authorities and the public at large is at the forefront of the decision making process and in some instances, the political and social consequences of conveying the risk directs the communication process (Terpstra et al, 2009;Martens et al, 2009;United Nations, 2006). At the other, a failure by the public to simply comprehend received information is problematic (Twigger-Ross et al, 2009a;Du Plessis, 2002;Faulkner et al, 2007). Distrust and low confidence levels in the authorities that provide information (Basher, 2006;Renn and Levine, 1991), sometimes compounded by misleading or contradictory information reported in national and local media, can also serve to diminish the public response to flood risks (Martens et al, 2009;United Nations, 2006;Miles and Morse, 2007).…”

Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (LHMP) is Properly Working?: Evaluation for the LHMP of Kumamoto City

“…To do that, it is necessary that current natural hazard mitigation plan should be assessed whether or not where a gap exists between two measurements. Furthermore, there have been many researches for community-level risk perception (Amao et al, 2007;Yamazaki et al, 2008), the level of community capability for potential disasters (Matsuda and Okada, 2006), community level of flood risk communication (Yamada et al, 2011), and even citizen participation improvement strategies (Okada, 2013a;Okada, 2013b). However, there was little research for administrative level of research to mitigate local hazards.…”