Citation

King D. Int. J. Mass Emerg. Disasters 2004; 22(1): 57-74.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, International Sociological Association, International Research Committee on Disasters)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Globally there is an increase in the social and economic impacts of all natural hazards, and especially those that are generated by weather systems. Climate change is apart of this process, but it is most likely that long-term climate change will first become evident as an increase in natural disasters, especially flooding and drought. However, a major cause of increasing natural disasters is the growth and relocation of population, concentrating into complex urban settlements that proliferate infrastructure and property in vulnerable floodplains and the coastal fringe. While Australia has experienced a decline in the loss of life from natural hazards, the loss to business, agriculture, and the economy in general has increased exponentially. Weather-generated natural disasters dominate the total disaster bill. Vulnerability to natural hazards may be reduced through hazard education and effective warnings. The communication of weather information is inevitably a top-down process. Understanding of information and in particular, warnings about hazardous events involves a public safety transfer of knowledge from highly specialized scientists through emergency managers, local politicians, and the media, to every member of society. Research shows that selection, interpretation, and expression of information and warnings occurs at institutional and societal levels. Both the media and the general public select, reinterpret, and weigh up information about weather and hazards, applying a complex set of attitudes, perceptions, experience, and misinformation to the initial message. An understanding of how people interpret the message is essential to the accuracy and safety for warning and forecasts. Examples and case studies from post-disaster and behavioral research carried out by the Centre for Disaster Studies and hazard events illustrate the issues of understanding the message.