Landslide risk perception and communication for disaster risk management in mountain areas of developing countries：a Mexican foretaste

The increasing impact of disasters at local,national,regional and global scales in recent decades has provided enough evidence to urgently direct attention towards the necessity of disaster risk reduction and management,and this requires knowledge.Knowledge without communication is barren,and to communicate the risk of disaster it is necessary to understand the perception of the people at risk.In particular,this paper deals with the necessity to delineate strategies of risk communication in pursuance of risk knowledge as a core of disaster risk reduction and management,especially in mountain areas of developing countries.To portray this issue,an analysis of landslide risk perception in terms of experience,landslide risk awareness,exposure,preparedness,and risk communication and trust was undertaken in the municipality of Teziutlán,Puebla,Mexico,an area that has been affected for several decades by episodes of mass movement.Analysis of the responses to a risk perception questionnaire has offered valuable insights in terms of the information and knowledge most required by the people living in the area of interest,in order to devise a realistic and functional strategy to communicate the risk of a landslide disaster.This includes better understanding of controlling factorsand drivers of this risk,and the establishment of potential trusted sources of risk communication.Beyond considering practical matters of risk assessment and management,risk perception and communication can increase the resilience of vulnerable people,and can enhance capacity building for present and future generations.

Disaster Tales as Communication Tool for Increasing Risk Resilience

Agencies in charge of flood management use disaster reports(DRs)as the preferred source of information on past flooding events.A systematic survey of DRs prepared by Italian agencies suggests that DRs could be widely enhanced in view of targeting more effective communication to citizens,reinforcing the communication pillar in civil protection planning and management,and improving the resilience of the population to extreme events.Without loss of the rigor and details required for all the usual technical uses of DRs,we suggest recompiling them in the form of"disaster tales"(DTs),as tools that offer wider knowledge of the events to improve people’s preparedness and self-protection behavior.Recent major flooding events have demonstrated the communication potential that videos and pictures taken by citizens have for risk perception and disaster preparedness.By watching and listening to what has happened the communication recipient can better understand the feelings of the people experiencing an emergency.The structure of the improved reports,we suggest,will finally integrate data,graphs,and maps with interactive tools and be able to present handier multimedia views of the events.Application to three case studies of flooding in Italy illustrates how to concretely implement the suggested disaster reports to create more readily accessible disaster tales.

Health and Risks:Integrating Health into Disaster Risk Reduction,Risk Communication,and Building Resilient Communities

In recent years,‘‘health’’has been recognized explicitly as both a determinant and an outcome of the human dimension of disaster risk reduction(DRR).Every disaster creates significant public health needs that can exceed local capacity to respond,resulting in excess mortality and morbidity.The European Union report on Science