15:30 - 17:00
Room: Foyer
Parallel Sessions
Chair/s:
David Ball
Increasing preparedness at individual and community level
Jose Kerstholt 1, 2, Hanneke Duijnhoven 1
1 TNO, 3769 ZG, Soesterberg, Netherlands
2 University of Twente, 7500 AE, Enschede, Netherlands

Several societal trends underscore the need for preventing and mitigating the impact of hazards by making communities more resilient. Worldwide, the interaction between factors such as population growth, urban developments and natural hazards has underpinned the growing incidence of disasters. At the same time, the recognition of people’s role in increasing the risks posed by natural hazards, has fueled the belief that safety should not be the sole responsibility of professionals but of citizens as well. Despite the fact that many countries encourage their citizens to prepare for disaster, the results of those efforts are quite discouraging. I will present the results of two studies that aimed at increasing preparedness at both individual and community level.

The goal of the first study was to examine whether the multi-level variables (at individual, community and institutional level) as distinguished by the Community Engagement Theory of Douglas Paton (2008) could account for the variance in flood preparedness of 629 Dutch citizens resident in The Hague (an area below sea level). Overall, the results point to the need to address both cognition and affect in communicating risks and to make better use of social networks in facilitating citizen preparedness for hazards.

In the second study, workshops were conducted as a method of facilitating resilience awareness. Participatory workshops can be used to facilitate a “bottom-up” approach, with the aims of raising awareness and increasing the likelihood of resilient behaviours being adopted. We used the CART methodology (Pfefferbaum et al., 2013) which distinguishes a range of participatory methods including an assessment survey, community ecological maps, stakeholder analysis a SWOT analysis and vulnerability assessment. Eight workshops were held in Scotland in both rural and urban communities. The overall result is that members of communities became more aware of their own vulnerabilities and capabilities, both at the individual and collective level, encouraging action as to increase their resilience.


Reference:
We-S76-TT03-OC-004
Session:
Multi-actor approaches in risk analysis, management and governance II
Presenter/s:
Jose Kerstholt
Presentation type:
Oral Communication
Room:
Foyer
Chair/s:
David Ball
Date:
Wednesday, June 21st
Time:
16:30 - 16:45
Session times:
15:30 - 17:00