Making sense of natural hazard mitigation: Personal, socialand cultural influences

摘要

Worldwide, recognition of the growing risk faced by communities in many countries from natural hazard events has stimulatedinterest in promoting people's capacity to co-exist with often beneficial, but occasionally hazardous, natural processes byencouraging the adoption of preparedness measures. Starting from recognition that levels of hazard preparedness are generallylow, this paper examines how people's decisions about hazard mitigation derive from how they interpret the hazards, theirrelationship with the hazards and the sources of information about hazards. It describes how interpretive processes at the person(outcome expectancy), community (community participation and collective efficacy) and societal (empowerment and trust) levelinteract to predict levels of hazard preparedness. The data support the argument that the effectiveness of public hazardeducation strategies community preparedness can be increased by integrating risk management activities with communitydevelopment strategies. The cross-cultural validity of the model is discussed using data from communities in New Zealand,Indonesia and Japan. Testing the model across countries and hazards (e.g. earthquakes, volcanic hazards) supports itsall-hazards and cross-cultural applicability. The theoretical (e.g. identifying the degree to which the processes that underpin howpeople respond to hazard threats are culturally equivalent) and practical (e.g. providing a common basis for collaborativelearning and research between countries and providing risk management agencies in different cultures with access to a widerrange of risk management options) implications of the cross-cultural equivalence of the model are discussed.