Operationalizing risk perception and preparedness behavior research for a multi-hazard context

Increasingly, citizens are being asked to take a more active role in disaster risk reduction (DRR), as decentralization of hazard governance has shifted greater responsibility for hazard preparedness actions onto individuals. Simultaneously, the taxonomy of hazards considered for DRR has expanded to include medical and social crises alongside natural hazards. Risk perception research emerged to support decision-makers with understanding how people characterize and evaluate different hazards to anticipate behavioral response and guide risk communication. Since its inception, the risk perception concept has been incorporated into many behavioral theories, which have been applied to examine preparedness for numerous hazard types. Behavioral theories have had moderate success in predicting or explaining preparedness behaviors; however, they are typically applied to a single hazard type and there is a gap in understanding which theories (if any) are suited for examining multiple hazard types simultaneously. This paper first reviews meta-analyses of behavioral theories to better understand performance. Universal lessons learnt are summarized for survey design. Second, theoretically based preparedness studies for floods, earthquakes, epidemics, and terrorism are reviewed to assess the conceptual requirements for a ‘multi-hazard’ preparedness approach. The development of an online preparedness self-assessment and learning platform is discussed.     

Emission projections for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Section 812 second prospective Clean Air Act cost/benefit analysis

Section 812 of the Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) of 1990 requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to perform periodic, comprehensive analyses of the total costs and total benefits of programs implemented pursuant to the CAAA. The first prospective analysis was completed in 1999. The second prospective analysis was initiated during 2005. The first step in the second prospective analysis was the development of base and projection year emission estimates that will be used to generate benefit estimates of CAAA programs. This paper describes the analysis, methods, and results of the recently completed emission projections. There are several unique features of this analysis. One is the use of consistent economic assumptions from the Department of Energy's Annual Energy Outlook 2005 (AEO 2005) projections as the basis for estimating 2010 and 2020 emissions for all sectors. Another is the analysis of the different emissions paths for both with and without CAAA scenarios. Other features of this analysis include being the first EPA analysis that uses the 2002 National Emission Inventory files as the basis for making 48-state emission projections, incorporating control factor files from the Regional Planning Organizations (RPOs) that had completed emission projections at the time the analysis was performed, and modeling the emission benefits of the expected adoption of measures to meet the 8-hr ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), the Clean Air Visibility Rule, and the PM2.5 NAAQS. This analysis shows that the 1990 CAAA have produced significant reductions in criteria pollutant emissions since 1990 and that these emission reductions are expected to continue through 2020. CAAA provisions have reduced volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions by approximately 7 million t/yr by 2000, and are estimated to produce associated VOC emission reductions of 16.7 million t by 2020. Total oxides of nitrogen (NO(x)) emission reductions attributable to the CAAA are 5, 12, and 17 million t in 2000, 2010, and 2020, respectively. Sulfur dioxide (SO2) emission benefits during the study period are dominated by electricity-generating unit (EGU) SO2 emission reductions. These EGU emission benefits go from 7.5 million t reduced in 2000 to 15 million t reduced in 2020.     

The Risks from Flooding: Which Risks and Whose Perception?

Four main groups are considered in relation to the risk from flooding: the engineers involved in the design of flood alleviation schemes, emergency planners, the public, including both the population at risk from flooding and the rest of the population who will bear all or most of the cost of flood alleviation schemes and the researchers, such as geographers and economists concerned with flood hazards and scheme appraisal. It is argued that these different groups vary significantly in their selection and definition of risks from flooding as a focus of concern and that their definition of risk influences their expectations about future events and the appropriate response to those events. But the different groups share two tendencies: the expectation that the future will be a replication of the past; and the neglect of "uncertain uncertainties" in favour of known uncertainties of risk.     

Multiplicity-adjusted Inferences in Risk Assessment: Benchmark Analysis with Continuous Response Data

We develop and study multiplicity adjustments for low-dose inferences in environmental risk assessment. Application is intended for risk analysis studies where human, animal, or ecological data are used to set safe levels of a hazardous environmental agent. A modern method for making inferences in this setting is known as benchmark analysis, where attention centers on the dose at which a fixed benchmark level of risk is achieved. Both upper confidence limits on the risk and lower confidence limits on the “benchmark dose” are of interest. In practice, a number of possible benchmark risks may be under study; if so, corrections must be applied to adjust the limits for multiplicity. In this note, we discuss approaches for doing so with continuous, nonquantal response data.     

Postnatal confirmation of prenatally diagnosed trisomy 16 mosaicism in two phenotypically abnormal liveborns

Two phenotypically abnormal liveborns in whom trisomy 16 mosaicism was diagnosed prenatally by amniocentesis are described. Analysis of a percutaneous umbilical blood sample in one case revealed a normal chromosomal complement. Ultrasound examinations performed at the time of amniocentesis were normal. Serial sonography during the late second and third trimesters demonstrated progressive intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR) in both fetuses and a cardiac defect in one. At birth, both infants had dysmorphic features and multiple congenital anomalies. Trisomy 16 mosaicism was confirmed postnatally in both infants in skin fibroblasts; however, peripheral blood samples contained only chromosomally normal cells. The two mosaic trisomy 16 cases described in this report, together with the five confirmed cases reported previously, demonstrate the need for caution in the counselling of patients when trisomy 16 mosaicism is diagnosed prenatally in amniotic fluid samples. Such cases potentially can result in the birth of dysmorphic infants with significant birth defects, growth retardation, and possible developmental disabilities.     

Understanding climate,adapting to change: indigenous cultural values and climate change impacts in North Queensland

Many authors have suggested that Indigenous communities are especially vulnerable to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change, yet there remains a paucity of fine-grained geographic data on the particular impacts of climate change on specific places and on local communities, especially Australian Indigenous communities. While there are some recent studies being undertaken with Australia's Torres Strait Island people, our research takes up the issues of vulnerability and resilience with two Indigenous communities from different environments on the mainland in North Queensland. They are the Aboriginal peoples of the rainforest and reef environments of the Wet Tropics and the Aboriginal people of the discontiguous rainforest, grasslands, dry forests and marine environments of Cape York. The results demonstrate variability in their understandings of climate change and in their capacities to anticipate and manage its impacts, while at the same time illustrating some common held themes about environmental and cultural values, observed environmental change, attributions of cause and effect, and of climate in general.     

Social sustainability and the art of engagement—the small towns: big picture experience

Governments everywhere are recognising environmental sustainability as a major driver of technological and economic development—with innovative direction being found at the interface of our efforts to become more socially and environmentally sustainable. Rural communities, faced with the pressures of unprecedented change, have an opportunity to embrace the principles of sustainable development, to create a new future at the leading edge of global change—but they need help. They need both knowledge and skills to enable them to self-evaluate and strategically plan, and they need a highly motivated, creative, and coherent community to carry it through. Small Towns: Big Picture is a community development process designed to foster creative, energetic, and collaborative action by five small rural communities in central Victoria—focusing on the development of social, environmental, and economic sustainability indicators. The project bought together artists, researchers and local communities to produce a coherent and shared understanding of the sustainability issues and opportunities. This paper presents Small Towns: Big Picture, focusing specifically on the social dimension and the development of a Community Cohesion indicator through an arts-led community engagement process.     

Establishing management standards: Selected examples of the normative approach

The importance of developing evaluative standards for judging the acceptability of impacts caused by recreation is common to all recent natural resource management frameworks. A normative model has been advanced as a useful way to conceptualize, collect, and organize empirical data representing standards for resource management issues. This article summarizes the findings from social and ecological research to illustrate the utility of the normative approach from a manager's perspective. The social data (e.g., encounter norms, proximity norms, and tolerances for launch wait times) were obtained from 13 different study sites, while the ecological data (e.g., tolerances for the amount of bare ground, size of fire rings, instream flows, and wildlife management practices) were collected at three specific sites and from one statewide survey, Findings from the social research indicated that encounter norms exist for particular types of contacts with certain types of visitors at particular places and for certain types of experiences. The recreationists reported norms for acceptable distances between individuals, encounters with others at campsites or attractions, and waiting times to run rapids. These social norm evaluation techniques were also shown to be transferable to normative evaluations of ecological impacts. The users had opinions about ecological impacts and were willing to express them. In addition, the ecological norms were of moderate to high intensity. It is argued that the usefulness of normative approaches lies in their ability to characterize group agreement about appropriate use conditions or impact levels for a particular recreation experience, thus providing the evaluative information needed to establish management standards.