Synergistic Integration of Detailed Meteorological and Community Information for Evacuation from Weather-Related Disasters: Proposal of a “Disaster Response Switch”

Abstract

Meteorological information used for disaster prevention has developed rapidly in terms of both type and specificity. The latest forecasting models can predict weather with very high resolutions that can characterize disaster risk at the local level. However, this development can lead to an overdependency on the information and a wait-and-see attitude by the public. At the same time, residents share and use various types of information for disaster response, such as local conditions, in addition to official disaster information. Our research in Japan verified the practicality and efficiency of synergistically integrating these types of information by examining actual evacuation cases. The current numerical forecasting models sufficiently identify locality from the viewpoint of various administrative scales such as prefectures, municipalities, and school districts, but the improvements to these models have failed to improve residents’ judgment in successful evacuation cases. We therefore analyzed the relationship between meteorological information and residents’ disaster response and confirmed that they were strongly correlated and were contributing factors in preventing disasters. We revealed differences between a community’s disaster prevention culture and the disaster information provided. This led us to propose a new concept in community disaster prevention that we call the “disaster response switch,” which can serve as a data-driven risk management tool for communities when used in combination with advanced meteorological disaster information.

Keywords

Community disaster prevention / Disaster response / High-resolution forecasting model / Japan / Meteorological information / Risk communication

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