Title

Critical Issues in Multi-Hazards Warning and Community Resilience

Bio

Since 1972 Ian’s primary work has been Disaster Risk and Recovery Management, as academic, author, researcher, consultant, NGO Board member and advisor to Governments and UN Agencies. He wrote the first PhD on Disaster Shelter in University College London (UCL) from 1972-85 and coordinated the first UN Guidelines on ‘Shelter After Disaster’ (1982) He is author, co-author or editor of 16 books and over 90 articles on disaster/ development related fields. In 1996 he was awarded the UN Sasakawa Award for his ‘International Contribution to Disaster Prevention’ Currently, he is an Adjunct or Visiting Professor in Universities in Australia, India, Japan, Sweden and the UK

Abstract

Critical Issues in Multi-Hazards Warning and Community Resilience

Ian Davis

• Visiting Professor, Kyoto, Lund and Oxford Brookes Universities
• Honorary Visiting Professor, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Europe
• Adjunct Professor & Advisor to Amrita School of Sustainable Development and UNESCO Chair on Experiential Learning for Sustainable Innovation and Development, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kerala, India

Context

Having worked continually for fifty years in varied aspects of International Disaster Risk and Recovery Management, this Keynote Address provides a welcome opportunity to reflect on some of the critical issues that have continually surfaced with regard to warnings of impending disasters on local communities. My experiences of hazard warnings relate to varied roles: teaching, consultancy, research and advocacy and they have occurred in relation to differing hazards: volcanic, high winds, flooding, storm surges, tsunamis, rock- falls and landslides.

Some of the critical issues to be discussed are as follows

• Local perceptions of the significance of threatening hazards as compared to official reactions and actions
• Frequent mismatches between the content and importance of a warning, the ability to communicate it to those who need to receive it, and the responses by communities to protect themselves.
• The widespread neglect of community actions to protect themselves prior to the impact of seasonal hazards such as monsoon and cyclone seasons
• The implicit danger in considering multi-hazard warnings in not recognizing their distinctive probability and other characteristics.
• The need to develop multiple warnings to meet the needs of different actors (for example in an impending cyclone specific warnings for railway companies and fishermen with different timings and focal points than the warnings directed to the general public
• The value and danger of sending individual warnings through personal telephones
• No cost or low-cost community actions to provide warnings of impending hazards

The paper will conclude with advice on critical actions needed by whom and for whom