Social science perspectives on natural hazards risk and uncertainty

Jackson, Murray

doi:10.1017/cbo9781139047562.016

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 137 publications

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“…People with a higher educational qualification are more likely to have better knowledge about natural hazards in their area and basic knowledge about tsunamis. Such a knowledge, in some situations, may reduce the response time in case of emergencies and fosters appropriate and effective behaviors [11,21,22,69,74,[84][85][86][87][88].…”

Section: Socio-demographic and Spatial Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Something Still Remains: Factors Affecting Tsunami Risk Perception on the Coasts Hit by the Reggio Calabria-Messina 1908 Event (Italy)

Cerase

Cugliari

2023

Sustainability

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Mediterranean coasts are prone to tsunamis due to high seismicity in some well-known areas near plate margins. However, tsunamis have a low frequency of occurrence despite having highly destructive potential. The low frequency of occurrence and historicity of the most destructive events lead to minimizing or neglecting this risk. Past research identified socio-demographic and spatial factors that may affect tsunami risk perception. This research is based on CATI survey (Computer Assisted Telephone Interview) to a sample of 5842 respondents designed to investigate whether and how risk perception and risk knowledge were affected by a major event such as the 1908 Reggio Calabria Messina tsunami, by making a comparison between areas hit by that event and unaffected areas, also providing some explanatory hypotheses. Despite differences between Calabria and Sicily, data show higher levels of tsunami risk perception in the area affected by the 1908 event, along with a major role of interpersonal sources, playing a relevant role in information gathering and understanding. Research also suggests the need to better integrate different sources of knowledge to improve people’s understanding so as to effectively cope with tsunami risk.

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Section: Socio-demographic and Spatial Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Something Still Remains: Factors Affecting Tsunami Risk Perception on the Coasts Hit by the Reggio Calabria-Messina 1908 Event (Italy)

Cerase

Cugliari

2023

Sustainability

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“…Uncertainty in the context of the communication of warnings mainly relates to epistemic concerns, miscommunication, and misunderstanding of the situation. This is due to the fact that risk assessments (and assessors) use concepts with often probabilistic outputs, which are difficult to understand, even for sophisticated decision makers (Cornell and Jackson 2013;Kox et al 2015). Good training in communication and use of such risk assessments is important, but fundamental political and institutional challenges in using such information might also exist (Demeritt et al 2010).…”

Section: Communicating Weather Information and Uncertaintymentioning

confidence: 99%

Anticipation and Response: Emergency Services in Severe Weather Situations in Germany

Kox

Lüder

Gerhold

2018

Int J Disaster Risk Sci

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Communicating meteorological uncertainty allows earlier provision of information on possible future events. The desired benefit is to enable the end-user to start with preparatory protective actions at an earlier time based on the end-user's own risk assessment and decision threshold. The presented results of an interview study, conducted with 27 members of German civil protection authorities, show that developments in meteorology and weather forecasting do not necessarily fit the current practices of German emergency services. These practices are mostly carried out based on alarms and ground truth in a superficial reactive manner, rather than on anticipation based on prognoses or forecasts. Emergency managers cope with uncertainty by collecting, comparing, and blending different information about an uncertain event and its uncertain outcomes within the situation assessment to validate the information. Emergency managers struggle most with an increase of emergency calls and missions due to the impacts of severe weather. Because of the additional expenditures, the weather event makes it even harder for them to fulfill their core duties. These findings support the need for impact-based warnings.

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“…8 DEVORA is a multi-agency, multi-disciplinary collaborative research programme which is led by volcanologists at the University of Auckland and GNS Science. 9 Weinberg 1972;Freudenburg 1988;Horlick-Jones 1998;Funtowicz and Ravetz 1990;Wynne 1992;Funtowicz and Ravetz 1992;Gibbons et al 1994;Laudan 1996;Bruijn and ten Heuvelhof 1999;Lupton 1999;Van Asselt and Rotmans 2002;Jasanoff 2002;Merz and Thieken 2005;IRGC 2005;Renn 2008;Mellor 2008;Parascandola 2010;Jasanoff 2010;Spieghalter and Riesch 2011;Aspinall and Cooke 2013;Rougier 2013;Rougier and Beven 2013;Hincks et al 2014;Cornell and Jackson 2013;Freer et al 2013;Beven et al 2015;OECD 2015. 10 Renn andLevine 1991;Siegrist and Cvekovich 2000;Frewer et al 2003;Poortinga and Pidgeon 2003;Poortinga et al 2004;Siegrist and Gutscher 2006;Hemlin and Rasmussen 2006, 188;Pielke 2007;Wilson et al 2007;Eiser et al 2009;Renn 2008;Haynes et al 2008b;Fischhoff 2013;…”

Section: Endnotesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…16 Renn (2008) is more specific arguing that deliberation can assist scientific analysis in several ways. Deliberation can enhance analysis by incorporating information from disparate sources including local, indigenous, experiential and circumstantial knowledge sources Such as those championed by Baxter et al (1998), Loughlin et al (2002), Cronin et al (2004aCronin et al ( , 2004b, Cashman and Giordano (2008), Mercer and Kelman (2010), McCall and Peters-Guarin (2012), Cornell and Jackson (2013) and Pardo et al (2015); representing an indirect endorsement of our materiality and integrity standards. Deliberation can determine what kind of analysis a risk-mitigation decision requires (a direct reference to the need for materiality), and whether that analysis is appropriately balanced (an indirect reference to a need for integrity).…”

Section: Integritymentioning

confidence: 99%

Hazard communication by volcanologists: Part 1 - Framing the case for contextualisation and related quality standards in volcanic hazard assessments

2018

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Scientific communication is one of the most challenging aspects of volcanic risk management because the complexities and uncertainties of volcanic unrest make it difficult for scientists to provide information that is timely, relevant, easily comprehensible and trusted. When poorly handled, scientific communication can cause social, economic and political problems, and undermine community confidence in disaster management regimes. This is the first of two related papers that together investigate the interface between the scientific consideration of volcanic hazards and the governance of volcanic risks. Both papers are principally concerned with issues of risk governance, and their focus is hazard communication by volcanologists at this hazard-risk interface (the interface) during periods of volcanic unrest. In this paper, we argue that the working practices of contextualisation must be more methodical and propose four quality assurance standards that will enhance hazard assessments. To improve hazard communication between volcanologists and risk-mitigation decision-makers (decision-makers), we argue that volcanologists need to adopt a more iterative and structured approach that openly embraces the benefits, and confronts the challenges, of stakeholder-orientated 'contextualisation'. Our analysis of the published literature reveals evidence of a slow paradigm shift from practices based upon strict linear technocratic approaches to more iterative stakeholder participation. The extent of this shift varies in different regions, however, the rules and practices of deliberation often appear ad hoc and unstructured. Since there is currently insufficient guidance for managing the practicalities and standards of contextualisation, we introduce two novel concepts; the 'scrutiny dimension' of risk governance, which is the slow changing governance context that may influence the processes of contextualisation, and the dynamic 'equilibrium of contextualisation', which is the metastable product of regulatory standards, natural and organisational constraints, and stakeholder pressures. We argue that the working practices of contextualisation must be more structured and should strive to be open, transparent and fully articulated. Contextualisation, which meets proposed quality assurance standards of materiality, proximity, comprehensibility and integrity, will enhance hazard assessments and, thereby, the utility of their outputs. In our second paper (Bretton et al, J Appl. Volcanol.

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Social science perspectives on natural hazards risk and uncertainty

Cited by 8 publications

References 137 publications

Something Still Remains: Factors Affecting Tsunami Risk Perception on the Coasts Hit by the Reggio Calabria-Messina 1908 Event (Italy)

Something Still Remains: Factors Affecting Tsunami Risk Perception on the Coasts Hit by the Reggio Calabria-Messina 1908 Event (Italy)

Anticipation and Response: Emergency Services in Severe Weather Situations in Germany

Hazard communication by volcanologists: Part 1 - Framing the case for contextualisation and related quality standards in volcanic hazard assessments

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