Matching risk perception with disaster preparedness
From earthquakes to wildfires, terrorism to pandemics, risks are becoming increasingly complex and interconnected. Yet, despite a growing need to enhance disaster resilience, Europe remains inadequately prepared. “There are significant gaps between how we perceive risks and how prepared we are to react to such risks,” says Maike Vollmer, senior researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute for Technological Trend Analysis INT(opens in new window). Helping to close this gap is the EU-funded RiskPACC(opens in new window) project.
Introducing the risk perception-action gap
According to Vollmer, who served as the project coordinator, there is often a mismatch between risk perception and subsequent actions. While this mismatch is particularly pronounced in an individual’s preparedness, there’s also a difference in how citizens and civil protection authorities (CPAs) view risk and preparedness. “In addition, expectations between citizens and authorities are often not aligned,” explains Vollmer. “Citizens tend to expect support from CPAs that the CPA simply cannot fulfil, while CPAs expect a certain level of preparedness from citizens that does not reflect reality.” These mismatches are what RiskPACC calls the risk perception-action gap (RPAG) and are what the project focused on.
Bringing together citizens and civil protection authorities
With the goal of narrowing the RPAG, the project looked to advance our understanding of not only why these gaps exist, but also what drives citizen engagement. “Recent disasters underline the need to develop collective and individual resilience to increasingly complex systemic risks,” remarks Vollmer. “To achieve this, strengthening citizen risk awareness and preparedness, as well as communication between citizens and CPAs, is indispensable.” To facilitate such engagement and communication, the project brought together both CPAs and citizens to identify needs and co-developed technical and non-technical solutions designed to answer these needs. “The RiskPACC collaborative framework helps guide citizens and CPAs in understanding the context of a risk, sharing knowledge and risk perceptions and expectations, creating relationships of trust, and building collaborative solutions to enhance communication and resilience,” adds Vollmer.
A better prepared and more disaster-resilient Europe
Using the collaborative framework, the project came to some interesting conclusions about risk perception versus risk preparedness. One of those conclusions is that the characteristics of a specific location shape how its citizens perceive risks and the actions they take to prepare and respond. “Understanding the local context is essential to developing risk communications that are tailored to real experiences,” notes Vollmer. Based on these new findings, the project created several innovative solutions, including a board game designed to help municipalities identify their most relevant RPAGs, as well as the right strategic, conceptual and technical solutions to address these gaps. The project also developed digital communication tools. For example, the crowdsourced AEOLIAN app enables the dissemination of timely bidirectional information such as early warnings, as well as photos and videos, between citizens and CPAs. HERMES, on the other hand, is a social network-like web application where citizens can create and receive useful emergency information. All solutions were tested in dedicated case studies(opens in new window), ensuring practical relevance from the outset. “By fostering communication between citizens and CPAs, the RiskPACC project has delivered practical solutions that help close the risk perception-action gap and, in doing so, create a better prepared and more resilient Europe,” concludes Vollmer.
