Content uploaded by Risa I Palm
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Risa I Palm on Feb 02, 2018
Content may be subject to copyright.
Public Response to Earthquake Hazard Information
Abstract
ABSTRACT Consumer protection legislation has been based on the assumptions that people prefer to avoid risks and that they make rational decisions given a bounded field of information. Mandated disclosure of information about environmental hazards in limited areas should therefore result in the avoidance of such areas by homebuyers or the adoption of mitigation measures subsequent to the move. The response of California homebuyers to mandated disclosure of the location of special studies zones or surface fault rupture districts was negligible, both because of the failure of the law to specify rigorous disclosure procedures and also because the law was based on the assumption that the mere provision of information will result in a predictable and rational behavioral response.
... Despite the disclosure of the location of Special Studies Zones, empirical studies of home buyer behavior showed that most buyers who had recently signed the disclosure forms within no more than six months of the time of the survey did not purchase earthquake insurance and that a very large number did not understand or remember the Special Studies Zone disclosure (Palm 1981). Homeowners who knew they were in a Special Studies Zone were, however, more likely to have purchased insurance than those not aware of their location (Palm 1981). ...
... Despite the disclosure of the location of Special Studies Zones, empirical studies of home buyer behavior showed that most buyers who had recently signed the disclosure forms within no more than six months of the time of the survey did not purchase earthquake insurance and that a very large number did not understand or remember the Special Studies Zone disclosure (Palm 1981). Homeowners who knew they were in a Special Studies Zone were, however, more likely to have purchased insurance than those not aware of their location (Palm 1981). ...
... Promisingly, this means any regularity of small-scale disasters is directly informative for neighbouring individuals which may help to rally a community response. However, policy makers may also be conscious that an extensive history of disaster exposure may encourage a culture of risk tolerance, regardless of how explicit the warnings of the risks may be (Palm, 1981;Nakayachi, 2014;Oki & Nakayachi, 2012). ...
Using data from seven microworld experiments (N = 841), we investigated how participants reacted to simulated disasters with different risk profiles in a microworld. Our central focus was to investigate how the scale of a disaster affected the choices and response times of these reactions. We find that one-off large-scale disasters prompted stronger reactions to move away from the affected region than recurrent small-scale adverse events, despite the overall risk of a disaster remaining constant across both types of events. A subset of participants are persistent risk-takers who repeatedly put themselves in harm’s way, despite having all the experience and information required to avoid a disaster. Furthermore, while near-misses prompted a small degree of precautionary movement to reduce one’s subsequent risk exposure, directly experiencing the costs of the disaster substantially increased the desire to move away from the affected region. Together, the results point to ways in which laboratory risk-taking tasks can be used to inform the kinds of communication and interventions that seek to mitigate people’s exposure to risk.
... It has also been argued that providing this type of information raises public awareness regarding risks, and it may assist with responding to a sudden onset event if the public have prior knowledge, information and training in relevant actions and behaviours (Lindell, 2013;Rapaport & Ashkenazi 2019). Palm (1981) argued that providing seismic preparedness information may result in changes to behaviour, since when individuals become more aware of risks they may undertake mitigation activities to reduce the impact of the hazard. Roces et al. (1992) studied risk factors following the 1990 earthquake in the Philippines, and concluded that the preparedness of communities must be strengthened by knowing the correct actions to take during earthquakes, and conducting drills to enhance this. ...
Earthquake preparedness advice, including exercises, aims to reduce injury and increase survivability. However, the relationship between official advice, such as drop-cover-hold, and actions taken during an earthquake has been largely overlooked in previous research. The aim of this study has been to investigate the protective actions that people take during earthquakes, and the influence of preparedness advice, along with variables such as age and gender, on these actions. Two surveys of earthquakes from New Zealand and Japan, and an analysis of earthquake preparedness advice from 67 countries, formed the basis of this study. This approach allowed for comparisons to be made between different earthquake events, using identical methodologies. This research has shown that actions commonly taken include, to seek shelter, stand in a doorway, remain in the same place, or to attempt to leave a building. Not all reported actions are included in relevant official advice and, despite high levels of awareness of current guidance, this did not always translate into recommended actions being taken. Actions most frequently advised in official guidance were to ‘avoid glass or loose and falling objects’ and ‘shelter under furniture’ when indoors, and ‘keep clear of buildings and tall structures’ when outside. The research concluded that behaviour during earthquakes is determined by the interaction of human and environmental factors in addition to the earthquake itself. The efficacy of earthquake advice in its current form was questioned and arguments were made for improving the communication of preparedness messages with more positive, action-orientated messaging. Additionally, messaging needs to address the requirements of a variety of groups in society. It is further suggested that disaster risk reduction experts acknowledge that people will not always behave as advised during an earthquake, and to incorporate this into their planning.
... Thus, by relaying information about the vulnerability of buildings in a way that is comprehensible to the general public, earthquake risk rating systems can effectively enhance the understanding about the probable consequences of earthquakes on buildings. Enhancing the perception of the community about the earthquake risk can adjust the willingness of tenants to choose safer buildings and shift the market demand toward these buildings (Erdik and Durukal 2008;Thiruppugazh 2008;Palm 1981). ...
Interventions such as seismic retrofits and reconstruction of vulnerable buildings can minimize the social and economic consequences of future earthquakes. Various policies can reduce the vulnerability of communities in the face of future earthquakes by enhancing the public risk perception and reducing the costs of interventions for the landlords. There is a need for appropriate tools that can characterize the dynamics of the housing market in response to these policies. The simulation model presented in this manuscript addresses this need. In this model, the decision of the tenants and landlords is characterized by utilizing prospect theory. The impact of candidate policy interventions on the housing market dynamics, the vulnerability reduction measures implementation rates, and the resultant reduction in the vulnerability of the building stock can be evaluated using the proposed model. The capabilities of the proposed model in simulating the policy-induced shifts in the demand between the housing units with different levels of seismic vulnerability, the response of the landlords to these shifts in the demand, and the consequent price movements are shown in the illustrative example. The results indicate that subsidizing the costs of interventions or solely enhancing public awareness may not lead to desired outcomes. It also provides valuable insights into the impact of individuals’ risk- and loss-aversion on their response to the evaluated policies. Practitioners can use the proposed model to design new policies that effectively enhance the resilience of communities.
... The efforts and responses of households to resist flood depend on their consciousness (Fielding et al., 2005). However, Palm (1981) found that disaster education does not guarantee 'risk avoidance behavior', but is about 'preventive measures' to protect households (Howe, 2009). Therefore, there is a need to create consciousness, and competencies among households for their livelihood resilience (Dufty, 2008). ...
Flood is a perennial problem in the state of Bihar, India with devastating impact on the livelihood of people. In spite of the government’s measures of flood mitigation, households continue to live with sufferings on account of severe damage to their material and non-material assets. In this background, the objectives of the study are (1) to assess the mediating role of risk perception, and flood preparedness between flood experience and livelihood resilience; and, (2) to assess the mediating role of risk perception, and flood preparedness between flood education and livelihood resilience. The primary data were collected from 472 households by using multi-stage random sampling technique from seven blocks in river basins of Ganga and Kosi in the district of Bhagalpur, Bihar. To analyze the data descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling were used. However, risk perception is not found to mediate between flood experiences, flood education, and livelihood resilience. Households adapt the strategy of ‘wait-watch-act’. Households do not perceive flood as a threat but they have learnt to ‘live with flood’ as a ‘way of life’. The study recommends that the active involvement of the local people can be made mandatory with due consideration to their indigenous knowledge, flood experience, and flood education in order to make flood measures effective and successful.
Previous research has identified a diversity of personal and individual factors that influence household preparedness for earthquakes. However, societal influences on the preparedness process are less well studied. In particular, there is limited understanding of the impact that wider society has on people's interpretation of earthquake and preparedness information, and how this relates to people's decisions about getting prepared for earthquakes. To address this gap, a New Zealand-based project was initiated to investigate how social factors interact with individuals’ meaning-making of earthquake information and how this affects subsequent earthquake preparedness behaviour. A range of social factors were identified as being influential on the meaning-making and preparedness process, including community (community participation, sense of community); leadership; responsibility (responsibility for preparing, responsibility for others); social norms; trust; and societal requirements.
The genesis of this book was the 50th Anniversary Workshop and Celebration of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware in 2014. In marking that milestone in the history of the center, we wanted a workshop in which participants would reflect on what is known about disaster science—much of which is owed to DRC, to its long lineage of intellectual descendants, and to their scholarly cousins in a variety of fields. We wanted to assess where that knowledge is uncertain, where new or reinforced knowledge is needed, and also to think about the state of practice. For this collection, authors were explicitly encouraged to be provocative; to be iconoclastic; to be speculative; to try as best possible to bring in new ideas or different approaches to familiar themes. In this first chapter, we consider some of today’s pressing environmental challenges and the associated research needs, moving from there to introduce the chapters and their overall contributions to this volume.
This chapter describes the state of our knowledge about the impacts of disaster insurance. To narrow our discussion, we concentrate on agricultural insurance (for droughts and floods) and earthquake insurance (for buildings and infrastructure) and describe the current state of these two markets globally. We then briefly discuss the more commonly investigated puzzles about the demand and supply of insurance in these domains. Potential purchasers of insurance (households, commercial firms, infrastructure owners, local and central governments) appear to undervalue catastrophic insurance and thus the demand for insurance is typically below what standard economic models with risk averse agents would predict. Equally, the supply of insurance contracts also appears to be limited in both of these markets. Both of these puzzles have been surveyed before. Our main focus is to describe the more sparse literature about the impacts of having these insurance covers. We ask how the presence of insurance may change the ways the insured assess risk, and how its presence changes outcomes following catastrophic events. We end with some directions for future research on the impacts of disaster insurance.
The chapter examines a series of concepts or concerns that we believe represent the most productive and innovative ways of approaching the study of language from a geographical perspective. We examine in turn: (1) the connections and tensions between the way in which languages are represented through different media, practised by individuals and become materialised through different things; (2) the way in which languages are embedded within particular places and spaces, whilst also being connected to distant spaces through a series of networks and flows; (3) how language use is framed and influenced by particular, often subtle, spatial and environmental contexts or, as it is fashionable to refer to them these days, ‘choice architectures’; (4) the strong connection that exists between languages and institutions of different kinds. We conclude the chapter by providing a conceptual framework that structures the remaining empirical chapters within the book.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.