Identifying information voids during weather-related diasters: case studies from the 2024 Europe floods and Florida’s hurricane helene

Risk communication is considered a major factor in disaster risk management by the concerned policymakers and researchers. However, the incoherence of variables affecting risk communication in various studies makes it difficult to plan for disaster risk communication. This study aims to identify and classify the influential components in disaster risk communication. This systematic review was conducted in 2020. Databases included PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. In searching for articles, there was no limit on the date of publication and the language of the article. The research addressed both natural and man-made disasters. The Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols (PRISMA) checklist was followed throughout the research, and the quality of the papers was assessed using the mixed methods evaluation tool (MMAT). In searching the articles, 3956 documents were obtained, of which 1025 duplicated articles were excluded. The titles and abstracts of the remaining documents (2931) were examined, of which 2822 were deleted, and the full text of 109 documents was studied for further assessment. Finally, after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria and reviewing the full texts, 32 documents were considered to extract the data and for quality assessment. On studying the full text of the obtained documents, 115 components were found, which were classified into five groups (message, message sender, message receiver, message environment, message process) and 13 subgroups. In addition, the obtained components were classified as those proposed by the authors of the article and those obtained from disaster risk communication models. Identifying the effective components in the disaster risk communication gives a more comprehensive view of risk communication to the disaster managers and executives and provides the decision-makers with an important platform to be able to use the components of risk communication and increase the impact of messages and ultimately increase people's preparedness for disasters in planning operations for the risk communication.

Nowadays, the use of social media by public institutions involved in disaster management is starting to become common practice. However, despite scientific interest in the effect of social media on disaster risk and crisis communication, data exploring emergency management agencies’ round-the-clock Facebook usage and the impact of their content and media choices on stakeholder engagement is limited. This study set out to investigate Romanian local emergency agencies’ Facebook usage patterns and stakeholders’ engagement with their content. The data is comprised of 7810 messages posted between the 1st January and 25th October 2017 by 32 County Inspectorates for Emergency Situations. First, using content analysis techniques, the topics of the posts were summarized to illustrate how these agencies use Facebook. Second, stakeholder engagement was investigated using social media marketing techniques. Third, messages related to natural hazards were analyzed in greater depth to reveal disaster risk communication patterns. The results suggest that Romanian emergency agencies mainly promote transparency and their institutional image on Facebook. Stakeholders were most likely to engage with brand-oriented posts, especially if these also offered rich multimedia feature. Meanwhile, stakeholders were less likely to interact with messages about natural hazards, particularly if they incorporated educational content. These observations suggest that, while at the moment Romanian local emergency management agencies take advantage of Facebook to create and maintain relationships with their stakeholders, they bypass opportunities to implement communication strategies for effective disaster risk reduction.

Components of health system preparedness in disaster risk communication in Iran: A qualitative study

Indonesia, home to some of the world’s most active volcanoes, faces a challenge in balancing tourism growth with disaster risk mitigation. This study explores the critical role of communication in reducing disaster risks in volcanic tourist destinations, focusing on Mount Merapi in Yogyakarta and Mount Agung in Bali. A qualitative research approach with a comparative case study design was employed. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with disaster management authorities, tourism agencies, community leaders, tourism village managers, and tourism operators in both study locations. Additional data were obtained from policy documents, disaster communication guidelines, and official reports related to volcanic risk management and tourism. Thematic analysis was applied to identify patterns of communication practices, stakeholder relationships, and coordination dynamics. Data triangulation across sources and document analysis was conducted to enhance the validity and reliability of the findings. The findings reveal that disaster risk communication in volcanic tourism destinations remains fragmented, particularly between disaster management institutions and tourism actors. While culturally embedded communication practices and community-based mechanisms effectively enhance preparedness among local residents, they are not systematically translated into communication formats accessible to tourists. Consequently, tourism actors often assume informal intermediary roles in conveying risk information to visitors without sufficient institutional support. This structural gap generates uncertainty during volcanic crises and poses challenges for tourist safety and destination trust. This study recommends the integration of tourism stakeholders and culturally grounded communication practices into formal disaster risk communication frameworks. By positioning disaster risk communication at the intersection of disaster governance, tourism governance, and local cultural systems, the study offers an original empirical and conceptual contribution to the literature on disaster risk reduction and sustainable tourism. The findings provide evidence-based insights to support the development of more inclusive, context-sensitive, and sustainable risk communication strategies for community-based tourism destinations in volcanic regions.

This 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference clearly pointed out that global warming is progressing. The threat of climate change and extreme disasters will increase rapidly, and the risk of community disasters will increase significantly. Therefore, effective disaster risk management and risk communication can enable community residents in disaster potential areas to understand disaster risks and build disaster prevention organizations, which has become a Practitioner in Disaster Risk Management. This study aims to explore training methods for resilient Communities. These include community environment diagnosis map making, including natural disaster risk and vulnerability discussion and disaster prevention map drawing, and secondly, how to train resilient community to conduct disaster risk control and disaster management measures before or during disaster events and recovery periods. Finally, combine the geographic information of the public sector and volunteers to conduct public-private cooperation to build disaster risk management and practice with resilient communities as the key players.

This review synthesizes recent evidence on whether gender-responsive disaster management and risk communication improve disaster resilience and reduce impact. It identifies mechanisms and barriers, and highlights best practices and research gaps. The study uses the Disaster Crunch model, also known as the Pressure and Release (PAR) model, to clarify how disasters stem from hazards and underlying vulnerabilities. Researchers used a systematic literature review to identify, select, assess, and synthesize relevant studies. A literature search in Semantic Scholar and PubMed produced 1,050 potential papers, of which 86 were included. The review shows that gender-responsive disaster management and risk communication enhance resilience and mitigate the impacts of disasters. They do so by addressing gendered vulnerabilities, adopting intersectional and inclusive approaches, and fostering adaptive capacity. The analysis also notes barriers to effectiveness, such as persistent patriarchal norms and implementation gaps. However, further research and action are needed to close existing gaps and achieve truly inclusive and effective disaster risk reduction.

Disasters have featured in film and television since the earliest days of moving pictures, and over time various patterns and trends have emerged in how they are depicted. Against a backdrop of natural hazard disasters as entertainment and vicarious spectacle, most obvious in the cycles of disaster movies since the 1930s, the depiction of disasters and disaster risk in film and television documentary has taken several directions. Disasters as entertainment have persisted into the era of factual entertainment television, and the rise of “disaster porn” since the 1990s, so that notion of disasters as spectacle has remained. Yet documentaries have also played key roles in bringing environmentalism into wider public and political debate, such as in the television documentary about Rachel Carson’s pivotal environmental text Silent Spring in the 1960s or the phenomenal success of Al Gore’s climate change warning film An Inconvenient Truth in the 2000s. As well as the wider environmental politics surrounding disaster and climate change risk, documentaries have been utilized directly in disaster risk communication and disaster risk reduction projects, typically targeting specific vulnerable communities. Such efforts highlight questions around the uses of documentary within science communication more generally and around notions of public understanding, public action, and behavioral change. The development of strategies in disaster documentary production with these pro-social aims highlights questions of narrative forms, functions, and impacts, as well as demonstrating the importance of the sociopolitical and sociocultural contexts in which disaster risk communication efforts occur. Using documentary for disaster risk communication therefore needs to take into account the range of uses of disaster documentary in the cultural landscape, from vicarious entertainment, through rhetorical appeals (both championing and challenging environmental concerns), to instrumental efforts at enhancing disaster risk preparedness and disaster risk reduction.

The Badan Penanggulan Bencana Daerah (BPBD or Disaster Management Agency) of Banda Aceh City was established through Banda Aceh bylaw (or Qanun) No. 3 of 2011 following the significant 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Meanwhile, as Banda Aceh’s population has grown, an increasing number of people have moved to and decided to stay in areas once affected by the tsunami. Given this background, disaster risk communication is indispensable. It is important for the BPBD of Banda Aceh City to disseminate risk messages throughout the community. Disaster risk communication is informed by the communication targets set by the BPBD of Banda Aceh City. The purpose of this study is to explore the issues and challenges in implementing disaster risk communication in the Banda Aceh community and across various sectors. A qualitative research design is applied to gain an insight into the disaster risk communication of the BPBD of Banda Aceh City. Data were collected through interviews and document analysis. The results of this study show that the BPBD of Banda Aceh City has carried out disaster risk communication in accordance with its primary mandated tasks and functions. However, there have been several challenges and issues, namely limited funding and a lack of technology and disaster knowledge. Consequently, the BPBD of Banda Aceh City has been unable to efficiently realize its disaster risk communication goals.

Effective communication of disaster risks is crucial to provoking appropriate responses from citizens and emergency operators. With recent advancement in Artificial Intelligence (AI), several researchers have begun exploring machine learning techniques in improving disaster risk communication. This paper adopts a systematic literature approach to report on the various research activities involving the application of AI in disaster risk communication. The study found that research activities focus on two broad areas: (1) prediction and monitoring for early warning, and (2) information extraction and classification for situational awareness. These broad areas are discussed, including background information to help establish future applications of AI in disaster risk communication. The paper concludes with recommendations of several ways in which AI applications can have a broader role in disaster risk communication.

Effective risk communication is essential in addressing the complex challenges posed by biological events in the healthcare system. This scoping review study aims to identify key concepts, highlight existing gaps in risk communication, explore factors influencing risk communication during biological events, and uncover areas of insufficient knowledge. This study scoping review employed a domain review methodology following Arksey’s approach, utilizing five key stages: determining research questions, identifying relevant studies, selecting studies, recording data, and collecting, summarizing, and reporting findings. Data extraction sources included studies from some international databases including Scopus, Web of Science and PubMed, and Google Scholar Motor enjone from 2000 to 2023 Inclusion criteria encompassed studies on disaster risk communication, while exclusion criteria included non-English articles and those not focused on disaster risk communication. The study analyzed 18 articles on risk communication in disasters, revealing key factors such as cultural, technological, organizational, and socio-economic influences. Trust-building, transparent communication efforts and collaboration among experts and media professionals are essential for enhancing risk communication and fostering public dialogue. Comprehensive risk communication should address uncertainties, complex decisions, and shared responsibilities, resonate with individuals’ concerns, and ensure inclusivity for vulnerable populations. Risk communication is one of the important components of disasters management, which plays an important role in making informed decisions, changing positive behavior, and maintaining people’s trust during disasters, which becomes more important in biological events, so there is a need for policymakers and managers to take into account the identified factors. Plan to educate and increase the awareness of the public in order to reduce the vulnerability of society in the event of biological events. It is suggested that due to the importance of the issue of designing a local model of the communication of the risk of accidents and disasters in biological incidents, it should be done in the next studies.

Pakistan’s vulnerability to disasters necessitates effective disaster risk communication. This study presents a conceptual model of the PDMA Madadgar Application (hereinafter Madadgar) for subsequent code development and testing. Employing the design science research approach, data were collected through in-depth interviews from the purposefully selected sample participants and analyzed through the content analysis method. Our findings highlight the conceptualization of the app and the strengths it provides in real-time disaster alerts, early warnings and critical information dissemination. The data reveals that the model is highly interactive. A major stake has been provided to the local communities and field-based staff to receive and disseminate early warning messages, locate evacuation centers, report disasters without warning, and digitally conduct damage assessment. This study enhances disaster risk communication in Pakistan and informs the global development of effective mobile-based solutions. Maddagar is Pakistan’s pioneer interactive Android-based disaster risk communication app for communities in Pakistan. Madadgar directly contributes to the local implementation of Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Act 2010 and National Disaster Risk Reduction Policy-2013 as well as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Sustainable Development Goals. While the current Madadgar model is specifically designed for use within the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, reflecting the decentralization of disaster risk reduction to the provinces following the 18th constitutional amendment, its underlying principles and architecture offer a scalable blueprint for adaptation and replication in other provinces and similar contexts.

Natural hazards pose insurmountable challenges to sustainable human development because they shake the structure of social systems and the built environment. Contemporary studies in the “hard” sciences, commonly known as the scientific-technical or technocratic perspectives, have dominated the disaster risk literature, which posit that risk is quantifiable and objective. Contrary to existing literature, risk is not a neutral concept. Disasters are socially and culturally constructed and perceived by different people differently. This paper highlights the value of integrating different social actors’ socio-cultural constructions in disaster risk communication. To explore the characteristics of the riverine community, the communication channels and strategies for disaster risk communication, and the community’s constructions of risk, this study employed purposeful sampling from 38 research participants using focus group discussions and key informant interviews to gather data. While information from media and early warning signals are important sources of disaster information, the community heavily relies on local forecasting as a metric for disaster risk. For a community that depends heavily on agriculture for livelihood, being aware of and acknowledging risk is the first step to preventing disasters. In sum, disaster risk communication must consider the underlying sociocultural factors influencing the community’s construction of risk.

Communicating risk has been widely accepted as a key strategy in mitigating the the impact of disasters. The concepts and practices of risk communication have been evolving since the 1980s due to the complexity and diversity of risk, developments in the communication sciences, and the complex nature of stakeholders and media. Failure to communicate risk may lead to an increase in the number of fatalities in future events. In this study, disaster risk communication (DRC) is proposed based on Lasswell's communication model and seen as an interactive process of exchanging information and opinions about risk among individuals, groups, and institutions to help them reduce uncertainty and undertake appropriate decisions and actions in the event of disaster. This study also describes the case study of the Smong story, which was successfully used to convey a simple tsunami risk message and help people make appropriate decisions, undertake appropriate actions, and save lives during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. It involves multiple factors, such as messages about the nature of risk and other messages, not strictly about risk, that express concerns, opinions, or reactions to risk or to legal or institutional arrangements for risk management in strengthening community preparedness before, during, and after disasters. Effective risk communication is essential for disaster risk management. It is necessary to understand the present contextual factors to select appropriate strategies to enhance risk communication. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the factors that create challenges for risk communication in Iran. Using a qualitative methodology, this research included 25 managers, rescuers, and event survivors with prior experience responding to disasters. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews and analyzed using conventional content analysis. Data analysis resulted in the identification of four categories and eleven subcategories related to the factors that facilitated the formation of challenging risk communication. These categories include distrust (distrust in public warnings, public distrust in relief organizations), ineffective information dissemination (ineffective informing authority, irresponsible dissemination of information, negligence in information transparency), insufficient educational communication (limited training capacity, universal education restriction, extensive educational infrastructure), and uncertain warning messages (uncertain content of warning messages, alert channels diversity, delayed warning messages). Multiple contextual elements thus contribute to ineffectual risk communication, the most significant of which is diminished public confidence in relief organizations. Identifying these factors provides a basis for relief organizations to anticipate and plan long-term strategies to improve communication between relief organizations and the public, thereby increasing the preparedness of individuals for disaster response.

Geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDAs) such as Barangay Mabuhay in Carmen, Davao del Norte, face greater disaster risks because of their remoteness, lack of infrastructure, and limited economic resources. Through a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) approach, this study examines the main challenges in disaster risk communication and identifies targeted interventions that can help address them. The results point to several barriers, including limited technical knowledge, poor access to localized risk information, weak communication systems, and language or cultural gaps, which lead to delayed responses and heightened vulnerability among residents. To address these issues, this policy brief advocates for the adoption of a Community-Based Risk Communication and Early Warning Enhancement Program that promotes inclusive, localized, and culturally sensitive strategies that translate Priorities 1 and 4 of the Sendai Framework into actionable and community-based interventions. It places priority on building the skills of barangay leaders, focal persons, and residents, promoting the use of visual and participatory tools, and investing in technologies that people can access. In the end, the goal is to strengthen a community-based approach to disaster preparedness, ensuring that no one is left behind.

Once conceived as a complement to traditional media, social media now appears to have eclipsed the former in importance with regard to disaster risk communication. Social media possesses distinct advantages that enhance its role in disaster risk communication. Specifically, it is marked by greater capacity, dependability, and interactivity. The increasing adoption of social media worldwide necessitates a critical examination of how it can be optimally utilized in disaster risk communication. To enhance societal readiness in the face of disasters, it is imperative to test new methods that can harness the capabilities of social media for effective disaster risk communication.