Abstract
BackgroundIn risk-prone areas, measuring risk representation can help implementing communication and disclosing information among the population, in order to increase individual initiatives to protect themselves and their properties or to provide a better knowledge of the appropriate measures to be adopted during or after a disaster. The perceived legitimacy of authorities disclosing information is a key issue in individuals’ beliefs. Then, to compel the population to follow the authorities’ recommendations and to adopt the suitable behaviour in case of a disaster, the information needs to be targeted, in order to take into account (a) the individuals’ representation of the risk they incur and (b) the level of legitimacy received from the authorities in charge of risk management. Consequently, the question of the modalities to qualify the relations between information and representation and risk management arises?ResultsTo solve this issue at the foot of El Misti Volcano (Arequipa, Peru), we conducted surveys in lahars (debris flows on and from volcanic slopes)-prone areas and unexposed ones. The methodology is based on self-administrated questionnaires (N = 209). The results show that respondents endow legitimacy in risk reduction (more than 70%) to a national authority (Defensa Civil) in charge of the management of risk in the city of Arequipa. More than 64% of the respondents consider that they are not sufficiently informed on the behaviours to adopt in case of a disaster. It leads to a weak implication of the respondents in the adoption of individual initiatives to protect themselves (23%) and to important expectations towards authorities’ actions in decreasing their vulnerability (50%).ConclusionSuch results are relevant to other context as mentioned in the literature: knowing the nature of the link between self-protection, prevention policies and national regulation is essential to decide the best way to manage risk.
Highlights
In risk-prone areas, measuring risk representation can help implementing communication and disclosing information among the population, in order to increase individual initiatives to protect themselves and their properties or to provide a better knowledge of the appropriate measures to be adopted during or after a disaster
Implementing questionnaires to understand the risk representation The use of questionnaires was motivated by the necessity (1) to understand the participants’ representations (defined by Moscovici as “systems of values, ideas and practices with a two-fold function; first, to establish an order which will enable individuals to orientate themselves in their material and social world and to master it; secondly, to enable communication to take place amongst members of a community by providing them with a code for social exchange and a code for naming and classifying unambiguously the various aspects of their world and their individual and group history” and (2) to find the explanatory factors of these representations by datacrossing between the social indicators and the questioned behaviours (Rohrmann 2002)
Relations between risk, social concerns, experience and representation We focus our results on our three main hypotheses: (1) the lahars are a major issue for the population of Arequipa; (2) the level of information on lahars is linked to confidence and trust in the authorities that disclose this information; (3) the individuals who have been affected to lahars are more aware of their level of exposure and of the severity of lahars than those who did not experienced a lahar
Summary
In risk-prone areas, measuring risk representation can help implementing communication and disclosing information among the population, in order to increase individual initiatives to protect themselves and their properties or to provide a better knowledge of the appropriate measures to be adopted during or after a disaster. For mud-flood prone areas, Heitz et al (2009) have proven that information campaigns are useful to explain the processes of formation of a risk to the population They have shown that (1) knowing the formation about the risk contributes to decrease the level of threat perceived by the individuals and (2) providing information can help increasing the implementation of individuals’ protections and the modification of behaviours decided by the individuals. In their study on floods risks in Germany, Bubeck et al (2012a, b) show that information can encourage individuals to protect their private proprieties and modify their point of view on safety measures they can be implemented at the individual scale Regarding this point, information could directly improve the adoption of appropriate behaviours in case of a disaster. The main issue is to adapt the way information is provided to the population
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