Conference Agenda

Warning communication is effective if it reaches people with the information that they need, at the right time and in a format that they find useful and usable. This task appears to be particularly difficult when decisions by stakeholders and citizens have to be made within contexts where uncertainty is high, multiple sources of information are available for the receiver, and decisions are urgent. This poses several challenges for the development of two-way and people-centred communication for risk information management. In this presentation, we discuss some of these challenges. By focusing on natural hazards, we look at the evidence of how information sources, social and environmental cues, channel access/preferences, and receiver’s characteristics influence behavioural responses to warnings. Moreover, we present research findings of how people respond to different types of warnings (standard vs. impact based) and to inconsistent warning information provided by public and private weather offices in Switzerland. We focus also on evaluating the results of warning communication efforts and on the role of new technologies that increasingly allow to evaluate communication effectiveness, sometimes even in real time through smartphone applications. We conclude with some reflections about the key aspects of the warning that need to be considered to improve the relationship between warner and receiver, when designing or upgrading communication strategies for risk information management.

The climate crisis enhances early warning systems' relevance and impact on preparedness. By tailoring their messages to the receiver, they become more effective. However, this requires personal data that is not always openly accessible. Employing a representative study, we explored whether the Swiss population

• i) likes to receive tailored warnings in the event of a severe heatwave
• ii) whether these would help them to better prepare for the situation
• iii) And whether they would be willing to share the necessary data.

The results are consistent with previous findings: Tailored warnings are attractive and improve preparedness, but there are concerns about data protection. As a result, warnings can currently only be tailored to a limited extent. We would like to discuss our findings and share further implications in our presentation.

Risk communication is critical to build resilient communities, raise awareness and increase preparedness. Moreover it contributes to advance knowledge and to infleunce the adoption of protective behaviours before, during and after a disaster. Over the last two decades, seismic risk communication has evolved significantly, as shown also by trends in scientific publications. This evolution has led to a reorientation from a predominantly “one-way”, top-down communication model to promoting new models that focus on people, their needs and their participation in disaster risk management. The recommendations of the Sendai Framework 2015-2030, recent disaster experiences and research have made it clear that new models of risk communication can improve its effectiveness. In this contribution, we critically address this transition by conducting a scoping review (n=109 publications) on seismic risk communication in Europe. We analyze the approaches, messages, tools and channels used for seismic risk communication and how they have changed over time. The results show that the stated objectives of seismic risk communication are, in decreasing order, to share information, raise awareness, change behaviors/beliefs and increase preparedness. Pupils, students and citizens are the main addressees of communication activities. Over the years, one trend has emerged quite clearly: communication has been progressively aimed more at encouraging proactive behaviors than simply informing the public. To do so, face-to-face conversations, hands-on activities, serious games and videos have been increasingly used as risk communication tools. The results also show the growing importance of social media for reaching different target groups. A striking result is that only a fifth of the analysed publications explicitly build on or test risk communication theories. Future research could focus on comparing practices in different countries and for different risks (e.g. earthquakes and floods) and on innovating communication theories and methods, particularly by incorporating the role of information technologies and social media.

Informing the public about natural hazards enables informed decision-making and enhances resilience. Achieving this requires translating scientific information into accessible and understandable formats. This presentation demonstrates how incorporating evaluation into the design process can improve these efforts. Our findings reveal that neither professionals nor the public consistently make optimal decisions.