Understanding the Impact of Visual Imagery in Emergency Warning Messages

Abstract

Study/Objective: Personal preparedness is a cardinal step to a better prepared community. For the purposes of personal preparedness planning mind maps can be strategically implemented in personal preparedness efforts to structure and synthesize key information. Background: Mind-mapping is a tool, which visually organizes information portraying complex hierarchies and relationships. As applied to personal-preparedness context, mind maps have potential for: 1) structuring existing information framework 2) conveying knowledge to the public in an accessible intuitive format. Demonstrated mastery of personal and family preparedness for disasters and public health emergencies includes certain objectives, all of which may be tracked or maintained through mind mapping technology. Mind-mapping is vastly superior to traditional checklists in its capability to highlight how, when and what needs to be done. Not only can mind maps be constructed with modest effort to visual-spatially represent and organize relevant information and interrelationships but can also serve as a living document. Methods: A mixed methods approach was adopted. First, competency sets addressing personal preparedness planning were identified through the peer-reviewed literature. Existing checklists from a variety of sources including ready.gov, FEMA, the American Red Cross and academic centers were systematically reviewed. Commercially available software, TheBrain v9.0 beta (Los Angeles, CA, 2016), was used to develop a draft personal preparedness template. https://www.thebrain.com/ products/thebrain/ Results: Mind maps enable visual-spatial representation of both concrete and abstract elements of personal preparedness planning. The software features an intuitive interface, collapsible windows and hyperlinks as well as embedded notes and collaborative sharing. Each section of a personal preparedness plan developed in this way, can be examined in further detail and in turn should be continually updated and revised. Conclusion: Mind mapping offers a feasible alternative to traditional modes of information management for disaster preparedness and personal preparedness planning. Study/Objective: These days, the human world copes with global (warming, agricultural drought, armament, displacements, terrorism, etc.) issues. Even if any issue is a regional one, it fastly becomes a global concern and affects the world over.When a problem occurs, not only does it affects the poor, the indigents, but also the wealthiest. Unfortunately, wars cause more deaths, casualties, and orphan populations than earthquakes and hurricanes. In this day and age, on one hand, advanced technologies make life easier for humanity; on the other hand, it leads the human world vulnerable to man-made disasters never-before-seen. The study aims to define the risks for the future and determine solutions for mankind. Background: An outlook to the world panorama shouts the fact: deaths, victims, casualties, orphans, and narcotic addicts are due to ongoing wars, terrors, conflicts, forcibly...

Introduction to the Australian Fire Danger Rating System†

“…The system architecture for the AFDRS is based on four modules: (i) a fuel state editor (an interactive tool for capture, upload and approval of the fuel inputs); (ii) fire danger calculations (implementation of the fire behaviour models and forecast calculations); (iii) a fire danger viewer Work has also been under way to develop and evaluate additional risk products that complement the Fire Behaviour Index in the form of indices for (Fire) Ignition, Suppression and Impacts (FISI Indices) (Jenkins et al 2021(Jenkins et al , 2022. Categories of Fire Danger Rating for the public-facing system were also developed to include lessons from research findings for improved communication of fire danger to the community (Tippett et al 2018), integration of findings from a recent nationwide survey (Metrix 2019) and consultation with stakeholders that make use of the fire danger rating system to inform decision-making. During implementation of the AFDRS, categories for the Operational Decision-making Framework were linked to the Public Facing Framework based on the Fire Behaviour Index to enable forecasting suitable for the general public.…”