TITLE:
Reducing seismic risk by understanding its cultural roots: Inference from an Italian case history
AUTHORS:
Francesco Stoppa, Chiara Berti
KEYWORDS:
Seismic Risk; Risk Mitigation; Alert Communication; Social Representations; 2009 L’Aquila Earthquake
JOURNAL NAME:
Natural Science,
Vol.5 No.8A,
August
20,
2013
ABSTRACT: The paper discusses
how to approach the problem of the social mitigation of seismic risk, in order
to reduce damage and grief consequent to earthquakes. An alert protocol,
intended as a working hypothesis, is proposed based on the experience gained from analysis of the behaviour
and social response to the threat before and after the great disaster of the
L’Aquila earthquake on 6th April 2009. Authors propose a protocol addressing
four levels of increasing alert based on signs of earthquake preparation and
social concerns. In this sense, it works as an intensity scale and does not
strictly relate to earthquake size (magnitude) or seismic hazard. The proposed
alert protocol provides sensible measures for reducing vulnerability, which is
the only factor that can be more or less efficiently controlled, based on
structural and behavioural adjustments. Factors indicating the difficult relationship
between politicians, scientific community and citizens are considered: 1) a serious
gap between researchers and citizens; 2) measures adopted by local
administrators and the National Civil Protection Service not agreed by the
population; 3) misunderstanding originated from a lack of clarity of
communication about scientific terminology; and 4) the lack of an alert
procedure protocol. In the current situation, all these problems are crucial
and contribute to the unpreparedness to face a seismic event, and thus greatly
increase the risk. The adoption and implementation of an alert procedure
protocol requires a preliminary assessment of the context and should be adapted
to the local sensibility and culture. The application of a protocol may reduce
the contrasts between preventive measures and individual responsibilities, making mitigation measures more feasible and socially acceptable. In this
paper, risk evaluation is not strictly related to probabilistic or deterministic
predictions. In fact, this is a result of a project that comes from the general
analysis of risk and is not intended to give an alternative hazard estimate
method. This paper proposes an alert protocol addressing four levels of increasing
alert based on signs of earthquake generating preparation and social concerns.
Finally, there is a suggestion on how to gradually communicate the threat and
get citizens involved in the risk mitigation process.