Carina J. Fearnley

Framing volcanic risk communication within disaster risk reduction: finding ways for the social and physical sciences to work together

Abstract Sixteen years have passed since the last global volcanic event and more than 25 since a volcanic catastrophe that killed tens of thousands. In this time, volcanology has seen major advances in understanding, modelling and predicting volcanic hazards and, recently, an interest in techniques for reducing and mitigating volcanic risk. This paper provides a synthesis of literature relating to this last aspect, specifically the communication of volcanic risk, with a view to highlighting areas of future research into encouraging risk-reducing behaviour. Evidence suggests that the current ‘multidisciplinary’ approach within physical science needs a broader scope to include sociological knowledge and techniques. Key areas where this approach might be applied are: (1) the understanding of the incentives that make governments and communities act to reduce volcanic risk; (2) improving the communication of volcanic uncertainties in volcanic emergency management and long-term planning and development. To be successful, volcanic risk reduction programmes will need to be placed within the context of other other risk-related phenomena (e.g. other natural hazards, climate change) and aim to develop an all-risks reduction culture. We suggest that the greatest potential for achieving these two aims comes from deliberative inclusive processes and geographic information systems.

Evaluating critical links in early warning systems for natural hazards

Early warning systems (EWSs) are extensive systems that integrate different components of disaster risk reduction for the provision of timely warnings to minimize loss of life and to reduce economic and social impact on vulnerable populations. Historically, empirical research has focused on the individual components or sub-systems of EWSs, such as hazard monitoring, risk assessment, forecasting tools and warning dissemination. However, analyses of natural hazard disasters indicate that, in most cases, the processes that link individual components of EWS fail, rather than the components themselves. This paper reviews several case studies conducted over the last 40 years to present common emerging factors that improve links between the different components of EWSs. The identified factors include: (1) establishing effective communication networks to integrate scientific research into practice; (2) developing effective decision-making processes that incorporate local contexts by defining accountability and responsibility; (3) acknowledging the importance of risk perception and trust for an effective reaction; and (4) consideration of the differences among technocratic and participatory approaches in EWSs when applied in diverse contexts. These factors show the importance of flexibility and the consideration of local context in making EWSs effective, whereas increasing levels of standardization within EWSs nationally and globally might challenge the ability to incorporate the required local expertise and circumstances.

A classification of mitigation strategies for natural hazards: implications for the understanding of interactions between mitigation strategies

The unexpectedly poor performances of complex mitigation systems in recent natural disasters demonstrate the need to reexamine mitigation system functionality, especially those combining multiple mitigation strategies. A systematic classification of mitigation strategies is presented as a basis for understanding how different types of strategy within an overall mitigation system can interfere destructively, to reduce the effectiveness of the system as a whole. We divide mitigation strategies into three classes according to the timing of the actions that they prescribe. Permanent mitigation strategies prescribe actions such as construction of tsunami barriers or land-use restrictions: they are frequently both costly and “brittle” in that the actions work up to a design limit of hazard intensity or magnitude and then fail. Responsive mitigation strategies prescribe actions after a hazard source event has occurred, such as evacuations, that rely on capacities to detect and quantify hazard events and to transmit warnings fast enough to enable at risk populations to decide and act effectively. Anticipatory mitigation strategies prescribe use of the interpretation of precursors to hazard source events as a basis for precautionary actions, but challenges arise from uncertainties in hazard behaviour. The NE Japan tsunami mitigation system and its performance in the 2011 Tohoku disaster provide examples of interactions between mitigation strategies. We propose that the classification presented here would enable consideration of how the addition of a new strategy to a mitigation system would affect the performance of existing strategies within that system, and furthermore aid the design of integrated mitigation systems.

Disaster risk reduction for natural hazards: Putting research into practice

Disaster risk reduction for natural hazards: Putting research into practice Stephen J. Edwards a c , Carina J. Fearnley a d , Catherine J. Lowe a e & Emily Wilkinson b f a Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK b Department of Geography, University College London, Pearson Building, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK c Now at: Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Centre, Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK d Aberystwyth University, Now at: Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth, SY23 3DB, UK e Now at: Aon Benfield, 55 Bishopsgate, London, EC2N 3BD, UK f Now at: Overseas Development Institute, 111 Westminster Bridge Road, London, SE1 7JD, UK

Observing the volcano world: volcano crisis communication

This volume, Observing the volcano world: volcanic crisis communication, focuses at the point where the ‘rubber hits the road’, where the world of volcano-related sciences and all its uncertainties meet with the complex and ever-changing dynamics of our society, wherever and whenever this may be. Core to the issues addressed in this book is the idea of how volcanic crisis communication operates in practice and in theory. This chapter provides an overview of the evolution of thinking around the importance of volcanic crisis communication over the last century, bringing together studies on relevant case studies. Frequently, the mechanisms by which volcanic crisis communication occurs are via a number of key tools employed including: risk assessment, probabilistic analysis, early-warning systems, all of which assist in the decision-making procedures; that are compounded by ever-changing societal demands and needs. This chapter outlines some of the key challenges faced in managing responses to volcanic eruptions since the start of the 20th century, C. Fearnley (&) Department of Science and Technology Studies, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK e-mail: c.fearnley@ucl.ac.uk A. E. G. Winson Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3FL, UK J. Pallister U.S. Geological Survey, David A, Johnston Cascades Volcano Observatory, 1300 SE Cardinal Court, Building 10, Suite 100, Vancouver, WA 98683-9589, USA R. Tilling U.S. Geological Survey, Volcano Science Center, 345 Middlefield Rd, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA https://doi.org/10.1007/11157_2017_28

Engaging Hashima: Memory Work, Site-Based Affects, and the Possibilities of Interruption

How is memory embodied, narrated, interrupted, and reworked? Here, we take a postphenomenological approach to memory work that is attentive to how site-based affects prompt and ossify, but also transmogrify, memory of place. With reference to an intensely traumatized, but also domesticated and entropied, environment—the island of Hashima, off the coast from Nagasaki City in Japan—we demonstrate the relevance and explanatory reach of culturally specific accounts of memory, time, and place; how an attentiveness to cultural context in the making of meaning helps mark out the epistemological violences that accrue around sites such as Hashima as objects of analysis in and of themselves; and the affective capacities of the materialities and forces that compose such sites, which can present a welter of surfaces and interiorities that are sensuously “felt” as memory.

Challenges and Benefits of Standardising Early Warning Systems: A Case Study of New Zealand’s Volcanic Alert Level System

Volcano early warning systems are used globally to communicate volcano-related information to diverse stakeholders ranging from specific user groups to the general public, or both. Within the framework of a volcano early warning system, Volcano Alert Level (VAL) systems are commonly used as a simple communication tool to inform society about the status of activity at a specific volcano. Establishing a VAL system that is effective for multiple volcanoes can be challenging, given that each volcano has specific behavioural characteristics. New Zealand has a wide range of volcano types and geological settings, including rhyolitic calderas capable of very large eruptions (>500 km3) and frequent unrest episodes, explosive andesitic stratovolcanoes, and effusive basaltic eruptions at both caldera and volcanic field settings. There is also a range in eruption frequency, requiring the VAL system to be used for both frequently active ‘open-vent’ volcanoes, and reawakening ‘closed-vent’ volcanoes. Furthermore, New Zealand’s volcanoes are situated in a variety of risk settings ranging from the Auckland Volcanic Field, which lies beneath a city of 1.4 million people; to Mt. Ruapehu, the location of popular ski fields that are occasionally impacted by ballistics and lahars, and produces tephra that falls in distant cities. These wide-ranging characteristics and their impact on society provide opportunities to learn from New Zealand’s experience with VAL systems, and the adoption of a standardised single VAL system for all of New Zealand’s volcanoes following a review in 2014. This chapter outlines the results of qualitative research conducted in 2010–2014 with key stakeholders and scientists, including from the volcano observatory at GNS Science, to ensure that the resulting standardised VAL system is an effective communication tool. A number of difficulties were faced in revising the VAL system so that it remains effective for all of the volcanic settings that exist in New Zealand. If warning products are standardised too much, end-user decision making and action can be limited when unusual situations occur, e.g., there may be loss of specific relevance in the alert message. Specific decision-making should be based on more specific parameters than the VAL alone, however wider VAL system standardisation can increase credibility, a known requirement for effective warning, by ensuring that warning sources are clear, trusted and widely understood. With a credible source, user groups are less likely to look for alternatives or confirmation, leading to faster action. Here we consider volcanic warnings within the wider concept of end-to-end multi-hazard early warning systems including detection, evaluation, notification, decision-making and action elements (based on Carsell et al. 2004).

Volcano Crisis Communication: Challenges and Solutions in the 21st Century

This volume, Observing the volcano world: volcanic crisis communication, focuses at the point where the ‘rubber hits the road’, where the world of volcano-related sciences and all its uncertainties meet with the complex and ever-changing dynamics of our society, wherever and whenever this may be. Core to the issues addressed in this book is the idea of how volcanic crisis communication operates in practice and in theory. This chapter provides an overview of the evolution of thinking around the importance of volcanic crisis communication over the last century, bringing together studies on relevant case studies. Frequently, the mechanisms by which volcanic crisis communication occurs are via a number of key tools employed including: risk assessment, probabilistic analysis, early-warning systems, all of which assist in the decision-making procedures; that are compounded by ever-changing societal demands and needs. This chapter outlines some of the key challenges faced in managing responses to volcanic eruptions since the start of the 20th century, to explore what has been effective, what lessons have been learnt from key events, and what solutions we can discover. Adopting a holistic approach, this chapter aims to provide a contextual background for the following chapters in the volume that explore many of the elements discussed here in further detail. Finally, we consider the future, as many chapters in this book bring together a wealth of new knowledge that will enable further insights for investigation, experimentation, and development of future volcanic crisis communication.

Volcanic Crisis Communication: Where Do We Go from Here?

This volume brings together a wealth of undocumented knowledge and first hand experience to provide a platform for understanding how volcano crises are managed in practice, with contributions from authors all over the globe ranging from observatory volcanologists and scientists, government and NGO officials and practitioners, the insurance sector, educators, and academics (multiple disciplines), and last but by no means least, vulnerable and indigenous populations. These diverse contributions have provided valuable insights into the various successes and failures of volcanic crises. This final chapter seeks to summarise the key contributions to identify trends and determine the vital future directions for volcanic crisis communications research.

Part One Summary: Adapting Warnings for Volcanic Hazards

Of all the geophysical threats, volcanic activity is unique in having a particularly large and diverse portfolio of associated phenomena capable of causing death and injury, societal and economic disruption and damage to population centres and attendant infrastructure. Potentially hazardous phenomena as wide-ranging as ash, noxious gases, lava flows, pyroclastic density currents and tsunamis differ in terms of nature, predictability, scale, extent, impact and perception. As such, a ‘one size fits all’ approach does not provide the most effective means of addressing the communication of volcanic hazards, and while general principles apply, warnings that seek to manage and mitigate the effects of individual hazardous phenomena need to be adapted or tailored.