8 - Developing an indicator of a community's disaster risk awareness

Summary

ABSTRACT

The primary objective of this chapter is the development of an appropriate social indicator which represents society's robustness against disaster risk. With a focus on the risk of drought, a sociopsychological approach based on the concept of social representation is presented. As the working hypothesis, the society's perceived level of readiness against drought (SPRD) is defined in terms of the social message of relevant newspaper articles by its article area. Using actual drought cases for the cities of Takamatsu and Fukuoka, this working hypothesis has been examined and reexamined from two different analytical viewpoints – that is, a contextual analysis and an analysis of the water-saving phenomenon. It is shown that the results are basically positive in support of our working hypothesis.

INTRODUCTION

The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, which struck the heart of the Kobe-centered metropolis on January 17, 1995, has demonstrated the often forgotten fact that the citizens of a large city are bound to coexist with the risks of an urban disaster. Though not so catastrophic as this earthquake, several metropolitan regions in Japan experienced a drought of unprecedented scale during the preceding summer. Among them are the cities of Fukuoka (on Kyushu Island) and Takamatsu (on Shikoku Island), which underwent the most serious socioeconomic damage. This must have strengthened the awareness that in society, large cities are bound to coexist with the risks of urban disaster. In both cases, citizens seemed to have learned that the community's disaster risk awareness makes a difference when examining the criticality of the disaster damage.