Name: Upasna Sharma
Mentor: Prof. Anand Patwardhan
External Mentor: Dr. Mahendra Shah
Supervisor: Dr. Neil Leary
Assessing adaptive capacity (ability to respond) to tropical cyclones in the East coast
of India: A pilot study of public response to cyclone warning information
Abstract: From a policy perspective, enhancing the ability of the exposed units to
respond positively to hazards (including climate hazards), often requires some kind of
generation, communication of information for use by the exposed units. For example, the
cyclone early warning systems is a policy intervention which aims to generate and
communicate information to the people about the possible cyclone occurrence, so that
people (the exposed units) could respond (change behaviour) in terms of evacuating the
risk prone areas and/or take refuge in a cyclone shelter etc. In this paper, using the mental
models approach, we identify the factors that affect the perceptual and evaluative
processes underlying the ‘warning-response’ process i.e. evacuation behaviour of the
exposed units once they have received the cyclone warning. An understanding of such
factors would help improve policy response like the cyclone warning systems, which
were set up to reduce the threat to life due to cyclones.
1. Introduction
Climate change is expected to manifest as changes in nature, frequency and intensity of
climate variability and extremes (Smit et. al., 2001). Extreme weather events like severe
tropical cyclones have an impact on life, property and livelihoods of communities
affected by these extreme weather events. The extent to which socio-economic system
are vulnerable to impacts of climate hazards is mediated by two concepts – exposure and
adaptive capacity. Exposure is the socio-economic components, including human and
manufactured capital as well as natural ecosystems that are exposed to climate risk.
Adaptive capacity is the ability of the exposed units to respond positively to
environmental change with a view to reducing impacts. While there are opportunities for
reducing exposure for example through resettlement, in many countries these
opportunities are limited. Therefore ability/capacity of the exposed units (individuals,
households, communities) to manage climate and other risks they face determines to a
large extent, the vulnerability of the exposed units to the impacts of climate hazards they
experience. Enhancing the adaptive capacity would therefore ideally be the aim of policy
related to reduction of vulnerability due to climate hazards.
Adger et al (2003) define adaptive capacity as the potential or capability of a system to
adjust, via changes in its characteristics or behaviour, so as to cope better with existing
climate variability, or with changes in variability and mean climatic conditions. Changes
in the characteristics and behaviour of systems require that the units of the system are
able to perceive the risk (need for change in behaviour), formulate a response and then
implement the response with the view to reducing climate risk. Hence, for this study we
adopt Patwardhan et al’s (2003) definition of adaptive capacity, where adaptive capacity
is defined as the ability of the exposed units to perceive, formulate a response and
implement response to climate risk, with a view to reducing impacts.
The exposed system or unit has some inherent capacity to perceive risk and formulate and
implement response to reduce that risk. But often it is the common day to day hazards
such as auto-accidents, conventional pollutants and other economic, health and safety
risks of immediate concern that preoccupy the decision-making of the exposed units
(Morgan et al, 2002). The risk from relatively infrequent hazards (such as cyclones) or
less-known hazards (such as climate change) receive limited attention from people until
they are directly affected by the consequences of these hazards or until their attention is
directed to such hazards through the process of communication about the risk from the
hazard. From a policy perspective, it would be prudent to direct the attention of the
exposed units to relatively infrequent or less-known hazards through a risk
communication program, so that the exposed units are better prepared to respond to the
risk. This class of policy intervention is broadly termed as ‘risk communication’. In the
climate context, the risk communication can be for two broad categories of hazard – one
is the when the threat is from a relatively rapid onset hazard agent (e.g., severe storms,
riverine floods etc.); and second, when risks are developing slowly over time (e.g., global
climate change). Empirical research has demonstrated that risk communication processes
are qualitatively quite different for these two types of events (Nigg, 1993).
The focus of this paper is relatively rapid onset hazard, which requires a short-term
forecast, and communication of danger. Specifically, tropical cyclones experienced in the
East coast of India provide the context for this study. Every year the Indian coastline
experiences cyclones of differing severities – varying from depressions to severe storms.
An analysis of all the cyclones that arose in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea from
1877 to 1990 (IMD, 1996) shows that on an average 8 cyclones crossed the Indian
coastline per year with the majority making landfall on the East coast of India, which
mainly comprises of the four states of West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil
Nadu. A cyclone causes considerable damage to human life and property in its wake as is
evident from numerous reports on disasters such as India Disasters Report (Oxford,
2000), World Disasters Report (IFRCRCS, 2001) by International Federation of Red
Cross and Red Crescent Societies and media reports. The cyclone early warning systems
were set up, as a policy measure to reduce human mortality due to cyclones. It aims to
generate and communicate information about the possible cyclone occurrence to those
who need it so as to facilitate good decisions and timely response by the people in
danger.
The target group’s response to the warning information may or may not be in accordance
with the desired response. In fact anecdotal evidence suggest that many a times the
cyclone warning message is not able to generate the desired response from the target
audience of the warning. This may be because often there is a tendency on part of
warning generators and disseminators to assume that the public response to warning is
based on a stimulus-response model of behaviour i.e. if people hear the message, they
will take the appropriate and suggested actions (Nigg, 1993). Public reaction to warnings
of impending disaster is not well characterized by a stimulus-response model (Mileti,
1995). The cyclone warning systems aimed at generating a specific adaptive response
(evacuation) interact with exposed unit’s perception of the cyclone risk and the proposed
risk reducing measure (evacuation) the policy is proposing. Therefore understanding the
factors affecting the risk perception and evaluation underlying the responses of exposed
units would provide insights about appropriate points of policy intervention for
enhancing the adaptive response by the exposed units. Whether the exposed unit actually
evacuates or not is also linked to the availability of resources to respond or other factors,
for instance the exposed unit may want to/ intend to evacuate his/her home but may not
have the means of transportation or money to evacuate. Or an exposed unit may have the
means to evacuate and also the willingness to evacuate but other factors such as being
sick or infirm might hinder the evacuation response. Therefore it is not the actual
observed response that is of interest here. It is the ‘willingness’ to respond or the
contingent response that is of interest in this study. ‘Response’ in this study would refer
to this willingness to respond and not the actual observed response. The objective of this
study therefore is to identify the factors affecting the perceptual and evaluative processes
underlying the ‘warning-response’ process i.e. willingness to evacuate by the exposed
units once they have received the cyclone warning.
The adaptation to climate change literature does not have any studies to draw upon for
addressing the research objective of this study. But because the adaptation and adaptive
capacity is being studied in the context of extreme weather event i.e. tropical cyclones,
the natural hazards literature (also known as the disasters literature) would be a rich
source to draw upon. Section 3 gives a brief review of the relevant literature from the
disasters and natural hazards discipline. But before that section 2 presents an overview of
the path through which warning flows before it reaches the target audience at the local
level. The research approach and methodology used in this study are discussed in section
4. Section 5 presents the analysis and results of the study and section 6 discusses the
observations and directions for future work.
2. The path for flow of cyclone warning
Figure 1 presents a visual representation of the entire path that the warning information
flows through before it reaches the target audience. A cyclone warning system can be
classified into two sub-systems – detection and monitoring sub-system and the
dissemination sub-system. Figure 1 does not include the information on the detection and
monitoring sub-system i.e. the entire network of observatories, radars and satellites
through which the cyclones are monitored before the warning is issued. Figure 1 only
depicts the dissemination subsystem. Even in the dissemination sub-system only those
components of the cyclone warning system are depicted and described that are involved
in the dissemination of cyclone warning to the local people in the area likely to be
affected by an impending cyclone. It does not include the other departments such as
railways, irrigation, the armed forces etc. which also receive the warning for taking
precautionary measure. These recipients are not included in this figure as they are not
involved in the warning dissemination to the local public likely to be affected. A
flowchart that would include all aspects of detection, monitoring and dissemination of the
warning would be a part of another study.
Indian Meteorological Department, New Delhi
Area cyclone warning center (ACWC) at
Calcutta, Chennai, Mumbai); and
Cyclone warning centers (CWC) at
(Bhubneshwar, Vishakhapatnam, Ahemdabad)
State Chief
Secretary
Fishery
Officials
Ports
Super-intendent
of Police
District Collector
Mandal Revenue Officer
(MRO)
Control
Room
Announc
emnet
Notices
Messenger
Messenger
Fishermen
and others
Fishermen
1. Munsif
Magistrate
2. SubRegistrar
3. PHC
4. Medical
Officer
5. Asstt.
Engineer
(R&B)
6. Section
Officer
(PWD)
7. Astt.
Engineer
(Floods)
Block Dev.
Officer (BDO)
Media: Newspapers,
Radio and Television
Circle Inspector
of Police
Revenue
Inspector
Village Dev.
Officer (VDO)
Station
House
Village
Secretary
Villagers
Villagers
Figure 1: Flow-path of the cyclone warning
(Source: Interviews with different officials in the cyclone warning system)
General Public
The Cyclone Warning Division of Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) at New
Delhi has been set up in New Delhi to co-ordinate and supervise the whole cyclonewarning program in the country. The Cyclone Warning Division at IMD, New Delhi coordinates with the Area Cyclone Warning Centres (ACWCs) at Calcutta, Chennai and
Mumbai, and Cyclone Warning Centres (CWCs) at Bhubaneswar, Visakhapatnam and
Ahmedabad and the forecasting division at Pune, for detection and monitoring of
cyclones and when required takes the decision to issue cyclone warning. Once the
decision for issuing a cyclone warning has been taken by IMD New Delhi, it is notified to
the ACWCs and the CWCs and the secretary of the concerned state. The actual cyclone
warning bulletin is issued by the concerned ACWC and the CWC for that state.
The ACWC and the CWC send warning messages to the state chief secretary, district
collectors of the districts likely to be affected by the cyclone, port officials, fisheries
officials, superintendent of police, the media (local dailies and national newspapers, All
India Radio and local radio stations, Local television stations and the national television
stations) and to other about 140 officials of departments such as railways, irrigation,
armed forces etc. (which are not depicted in figure 1). ACWC also send the warning
directly to the Mandal Revenue Office (mandal is a sub-district administrative unit)
through a specially designed Cyclone Warning Dissemination System which works via
the INSAT satellite provides area-specific service in local language even when there is a
failure of conventional communication channels. The main drawback with this system is
that the analogue device that would receive the warning at the mandal office works on a
battery and if there has been carelessness about keeping the battery charged, the receiving
device would not work.
Based on the intensity of the cyclone in the warning, the port officials hoist the
appropriate warning signals during the day and warning lights in the night for the ships
and the fishermen on the seas. The fisheries officials communicate the warning by
sending messengers to the fishermen dwellings.
The responsibility of alerting the general public about the cyclone and the evacuation of
the people from the danger zones, lies largely with the district collector (DC) and the
mandal revenue officer (MRO). The DC and his team (which consists of the joint
collector, the district revenue officer etc.) pass the warning message to the MROs and the
block development officer (BDO) of the coastal mandals and other mandals likely to be
affected by the cyclone. The DC also keeps the police officials informed to render
necessary services in case of emergency. The MRO after receiving the warning sends
copies of the telegrams/wireless messages to various local officials such as the the BDO,
munsif magistrate, sub-registrar, primary health center officer, taluks medical officer,
roads and building engineer, public works department section officer, assistant engineer
of floods and the police circle inspector (the police circle inspector also receives the
cyclone warning from the superintendent of police). The MRO sets up a round the clock
control room in his office. He arranges microphones for public announcement in the town
and if possible to other roadside villages. He orders the closure of schools, colleges and
cinema theatres and school and college buildings are often used as relief centers for
people who have been evacuated from the coastal villages.
The MRO, sends instructions to the Revenue inspectors through, telephones, messenger,
telegrams who further pass on the warning to the village secretaries. These village
officials announce the cyclone warning in the village either through beating drums or by
door to door visits. The MRO is also expected to visit the most vulnerable places by a
vehicle to caution the general public and officials so as to facilitate timely evacuations..
Similarly the BDO is expected to inform the village development officers and through
them alert the people in their jurisdiction. In addition the media also plays its role in
disseminating the cyclone warning to the public.
3. Insights from literature
Disasters and risk communication literature provide an extensive study of the warningresponse process. The general questions that researchers have attempted to answer are how people decide whether to respond to disaster warnings and then how they decide
what to do (Nigg, 1993). The fundamental process underlying the warning-response issue
is the risk assessment by the unit of analysis (individual in this case). The social and
psychological disciplines have provided the theoretical concepts and models to structure
these empirical investigations.
Though there are studies by authors such as Mileti and Fitzpatrick(1991), Renn (1992),
Rohrmann(2000) that present a framework or a model to explain the warning-response
process, all these studies make it clear that warning-response process is embedded in a
social context and issuing warnings that will be taken seriously and acted upon is far
from an easy process (Tierney, 1993). Most of the studies in this area focused on selected
factors to explain the warning response process. Sorenson (1993) (cited in Nigg, 1993)
did a review of such studies and identified the factors that affect the warning-response
process and also indicated the extent to which empirical evidence exists to substantiate
the importance of these factors. These are presented in Table 1.
Table1: Major factors co-varying with warning response
Factor
Direction: As
Level of empirical
factor increases
support
response….
Physical cues
Social cues
Perceived risk
Increases
Increases
Increases
High
High
Moderate
Knowledge of hazard
Experience
Education
Family Plan
Fatalistic beliefs
Resource level
Family united
Increases
Mixed
Increases
Increases
Decreases
Increases
Increases
High
High
High
Low
Low
Moderate
High
Family size
Increases
Moderate
Kin relations (number)
Community involvement
Ethnic STOUD member
Age
Socioeconomic status
Gender (female)
Having children
Channel: Electronic
Channel: Media
Increases
Increase
Decreases
Mixed
Increases
Increases
Increases
Mixed
Mixed
High
High
High
High
High
Moderate
Moderate
Low
Low
Channel: Siren
Personal contact
Proximity to threat
Message specificity
Number of channels
Frequency
Message consistency
Message certainty
Officialness of source
Decreases
Increases
Increases
Increases
Increases
Increases
Increases
Increases
Increases
Low
High
Low
High
Low
High
High
High
High
Fear of looting"
Time to impact
Source familiarity
Source: Sorenson (1993)
Decreases
Decrease
Increases
Moderate
Moderate
High
Besides Sorenson (1993) other researchers such as Quarantelli (1980), Drabek(1986),
Aguire (1993), Riad et al (1998) have conducted similar reviews of literature and have
identified a similar set of factors as in the Sorenson (1993) study. Based on the literature,
figure 1 presents a conceptual framework listing the main elements of the warning
response process and the factors affecting the process. This framework is not a model for
the warning-response process as all the causal links and feedback loops are not defined in
the framework. Rather, it is a convenient way of visually presenting the elements pf the
warning-response process and the major factors affecting this process.
Warning-response process: People who receive warnings typically go through a social
psychological process to form personal definitions about the risk they face and ideas about
what to do before they take a protective action. Mileti (1995) divides the process into
several phases: (1) hearing a warning (2) forming a personal understanding of what was
meant by the warning (3) confirming the warning (4) developing a level of belief in the risk
information conveyed in the warning (5) personalizing the risk or perceiving to be someone
else's problem (6) deciding what if anything to do and responding in ways thought to be
appropriate for the risk personally faced. The warning-response process is affected by the
characteristics of the warning system, message and the senders of the warning message;
and by the characteristics of the receivers of the warning and the situational context of the
receivers.
Warning system/
“sender”
characteristics
Warning-response process
Warning message
Message
Content
* Severity
* Likely time
* Location
*Uncertainty
of occurrence
* Action to
be taken
Hear
Situational /
“receiver”
characteristics
Environmental
cues
* visibility of
hazard
Pre-warning
perceptions
Exposure
conditions
Understand
Social influence
Message
Context
* Source
* Channel
* Language
* Frequency
* Timing
Confirm
Believe
Message
attributes
Sociodemographic
characteristics
* Resources
*Gender
* Age
*Socioeconomic
class
*Ethnicity
*Education level
Personalize
*Consistency
* Accuracy
* Clarity
* Specificity
Response
Psychological
characteristics
* Cognitive
abilities
*Personality
*Attitudes
Figure 2: A conceptual framework of the warning response process and the factors
affecting the process
The warning system or “sender” characteristics: The factors related to warning system
or sender characteristics can be classified into three categories – one, the ‘content’ of the
message; second, the ‘context’ of the message and third, the attributes of the message.
The content generally consists two things – one, the attributes of the cyclone (such as the
probable areas to be affected by the cyclone, the probable location where the cyclone
may cross the land, the severity (in terms of wind speed and tidal surge) of the cyclone,
the time the cyclone is likely to cross the coast and maybe the uncertainty that the landfall
location, severity, timing of the cyclone; second, the action that is proposed (evacuate in
this case) to be taken to mitigate the risk due to that cyclone. The context in which the
cyclone warning message is communicated to the public is defined by the credibility of
the source, the channel used to disseminate the warning, the frequency with which the
warning is disseminated and the language in which the warning is disseminated.
The situational or” receiver” characteristics: These situational and "receiver"
characteristics can be classified into six general categories viz. environmental cues, prewarning perceptions, exposure conditions, social influence, socio-demographic
characteristics and psychological factors. Environmental cues refer to physical
characteristics of an emergency setting such as visibility of the hazard. Pre-warning
perceptions refer to the perception about the risk and proposed measure to mitigate that
risk, based on the past-experience of the individual. Without adequate emergency
information, people may disregard warnings if their risk perceptions are already biased.
Exposure conditions refer to the livelihood and other assets that are exposed to the cyclone
hazard. Social setting factors characterize the context in which the emergency information
is received. Socio-demographic characteristics of the receiver, such as resources, gender,
and socioeconomic class, can influence hearing, understanding, believing,
personalizing, and responding to the warning. Psychological characteristics of the
receiver, for example, cognitive abilities, personality, or attitudes can also influence
reception of a warning.
While the conceptual framework in figure 1 based on disasters’ literature discussed above
provides a useful starting point to understand the phenomenon of ‘response of the public
to hazard warning’, most of the studies cited in the literature have been conducted in the
US context. Some of these factors may or may not be valid in the Indian context. Or
some new factor, which has not emerged in the studies cited in literature, might turn out
to be relevant in the Indian context. Hence an exploratory study was conducted to
identify the relevant factors in the Indian context.
4. Design of the exploratory study
It may not possible to manipulate all the factors (mentioned in section 3) to increase the
likelihood of the adaptive response to warning messages, but an awareness of them
allows informed senders to anticipate their consequences and include information in
warning message to counteract these tendencies, Nigg (1993). The purpose of this study
is not a comprehensive study of all the factors. The objective is to identify those factors
that are particularly relevant in affecting the cyclone warning-response process in the
Indian context. Of particular interest in this study are the beliefs and mental models
(representations people have in mind about real or imaginary situations) of people that
underlie the perceptual and evaluative processes that occur after the warning has been
received and before a person actually responds (either by evacuating or not evacuating).
For eliciting the beliefs of the people underlying the warning-response process, a case
study was conducted in the context of the cyclone that had crossed the coast of Krishna
district in Andhra Pradesh coast on the night of 15th of December 2003.
4.1 Unit of analysis
The majority of the research on risk communication and the warning-response process
has focused on the individual as the unit of analysis to investigate the warning response
process. The unit of analysis for this study too, is an individual.
4.2. Description of the case study area
Krishna district (figure 1), named after the river Krishna that flows through the district
into Bay of Bengal, is located at 15° 43’ N and 17° 10’ N Latitude 80° 0’ and 81° 33’ of
E, on the East coast of India in Andhra Pradesh state. Krishna district has a coastline of
about 88 Km and an area of about 8,727 sq. Km.
Figure 3: Location of the case study area on the map
The district is divided into 50 sub district administrative units called ‘mandals’. Out of
these 50 mandals, 4 mandals i.e. Machilipatnam, Koduru, Nagaylanka and Kruthivenu,
are coastal mandals and most vulnerable in case of a cyclone. 9 villages in these 4 coastal
mandals were visited for interviewing the people of these villages. 3 mandals i.e. ,
Koduru, Nagaylanka and Kruthivenu are entirely rural mandals with absolutely no urban
areas. Machilipatnam mandal has two urban areas with the rest of the mandal being rural.
Table 2 summarizes the demographic details of the villages included in the case study.
Table 2: Demographic details of villages included in the study
Mandal
Village
Hamlets
visited
Machilipatna
m
Machilipatna
m
Nagaylanka
Tallapalem
Giripuram and
Upadda
Malkaylanka
Nagaylanka
Ganapeswaram
Elichetladibba
and Esupuram
Sorlagondi
Koduru
Ullipalem
Palkaythippa
Kruthivennu
Interu
Interu
Kruthivennu
Nidamarru
Varlagondithip
pa
KPT Palem
Edurumondi
No.of
Hous
ehold
s
Total
popul
ation
SC
pop
ulat
ion
ST
pop
ulat
ion
Litera
cy
rate
1955
7876
675
34
50.7
570
2401
0
0
35
1815
6482
383
48
40.3
1405
5217
310
77
43.4
1448
5332
565
167
59.4
279
1243
12
0
31.9
1463
6239
0
22
39
Main
occupation
Fishing and
cultivation
Fishing and
cultivation
Fishing and
cultivation
Fishing and
cultivation
Fishing and
cultivation
Fishing and
cultivation
Fishing and
cultivation
Source: Census of India (2001)
* SC: Scheduled Caste, ST: Scheduled Tribe
4.3. Methodological Approach
The main focus of this study is to elicit the beliefs and mental models of individuals that
affect the risk perception and evaluation process. The methodology for elicitation of these
beliefs has been inspired by the Mental Models Approach to risk communication. Mental
models have been used by psychologists since long for eliciting representations in the
mind of real or imaginary situations. They have been used in diverse domains. This
approach has been made popular in the risk communication domain by Morgan et. al
(2002).
According to Mental Models approach, though the audience for communication does not
have complete understanding of its subject matter, for most risks, people have at least
some relevant beliefs, which they will use in interpreting the communication. If they
must make inferences about the risk, they will assemble their fragmentary beliefs into a
“mental model,” which they will the use to reach their conclusions. Thus this approach
tries to elicit, understand and describe lay beliefs about a risk in terms of mental models,
which can then be compared with the formal, or “expert,” model capturing the pooled
beliefs of technical specialists about the same phenomenon. The comparison shows both
the gaps between the models and the current knowledge which are then used to develop
and design effective risk communication that provide information that people need to
make informed decisions about the particular risk.
Morgan et al (2002) propose the following steps that are typically followed for applying
the mental models approach to risk communication:
Step 1. Create an expert model – based on the review of the current scientific knowledge
about the processes that determine nature and magnitude of risk, by experts from diverse
disciplines. This knowledge is formally represented in the form of an influence diagram
(drawn from decision theory)
Step 2. Mental model interviews – involves conducting open-ended interviews, eliciting
people’s beliefs (both correct and incorrect) about the hazard, expressed in their own
terms. Responses are analyzed in terms of how well these mental models correspond to
the expert model captured in the influence diagram.
Step 3. Conduct structured initial interviews – involves creating a confirmatory
questionnaire whose items capture the beliefs expressed in the open-ended interviews and
expert model. Administer it to larger groups, sampled appropriately from intended
audience, in order to estimate the population prevalence of these beliefs.
Step 4. Draft risk communication –involves using the results from the interviews and
questionnaires, along with an analysis of decisions that people face, to determine which
incorrect beliefs most need correcting and which knowledge gaps most need filing. Then
draft a communication and subject it to expert review to ensure its accuracy.
Step 5. Evaluate communication – involves testing and refining the communication with
individuals selected from the target population, using one to one read aloud interviews,
focus groups, closed form questionnaires, or problem solving tasks.
The Mental Models approach discussed above has not been applied in its entirety in this
study. The approach has been modified to suit the context of this study. Step 4 and step 5
mentioned above are beyond of the scope of this study; hence they have been skipped
completely. The conceptual framework of the warning response process and factors
affecting this process (figure 2) described in section 3 is used in place of the expert
model.
The hazard contexts for applying the mental models approach to risk communication in
the literature and in this study are different. This has implications for ‘about what’ the
metal models are elicited. Most hazards to which mental models approach has been
applied previously have been slow developing hazards environmental and health hazards
like climate change, radon in homes, AIDS risk etc. The time frame for eliciting desired
response from the targets of the risk communication is not very strictly bound in time.
Whereas the cyclone warning is meant for a rapid onset disaster situation in which the
time frame to act is very short (typically 48 to 24 hours only) and strictly bound in time.
The difference in the time frame for eliciting response means the focus of risk
communication differs in both situations -in situations where health or environmental
hazard is slow developing and the main focus of the risk communication is to educate
people about the different aspects of risk due to the hazard so that they could take
informed decisions. In case of rapid on-set disaster situations like cyclones and floods the
main focus of the cyclone warnings is to generate immediate response (generally
evacuation) from people to avoid that risk (specifically the risk of mortality). Therefore
eliciting mental models ‘about what’ varies in these two situations. In the first situation
the mental models ‘about the hazard, its exposure and effects’ are elicited. In the second
situation in addition to the mental models about the hazard, exposure to it and its effect,
the mental models about the warning (risk communication) itself are also elicited. In the
existing studies in literature, mental models underlying people’s response to the risk
communication already being communicated were not studied explicitly. Only the mental
models about the risk at hand were studied. Of course, the gaps that were observed
between the expert models and lay beliefs did point out that the existing risk
communication was not adequate and in an indirect way did include mental models
underlying people’s response to the existing risk communication.
4.4. Sample size
The aim of the mental models interview was to find out which beliefs are “out there” with
some reasonable frequency. Maharik and Fischhoff (1993) cited in Morgan et al. (2002)
had plotted number of interviews conducted against the cumulative number of concepts
encountered in the set of interviews they conducted. They found that each of the first few
interviews yielded quite a few new concepts. However, after about 20 interviews the
curves began to reach an asymptote as very few new concepts arise. In this study 44
individuals in all were interviewed (about 3 to 6 respondents from each village). Table 3
presents the distribution of the sample by village and gender.
Table 3: Distribution of sample size by village and gender
Mandal
Hamlet
Total no. of
Male
respondents
respondents
Machilipatnam
Giripuram
6
4
Machilipatnam
Upadda
2
1
Machilipatnam
Malkaylanka
6
4
Nagaylanka
Sorlagondi
6
2
Nagaylanka
Elichetladibba
4
3
Nagaylanka
Esupuram
3
2
Koduru
Palkaythippa
5
3
Kruthivennu
Interu
7
4
Kruthivennu
Varlagondithippa
5
3
Total
44
26
Female
respondents
2
1
2
4
1
1
2
3
2
18
4.5. Instrument design and mode of conducting interviews
The method for eliciting the mental models varies with domain in which they are being
applied. Incase of eliciting mental models of people for clearly defined tasks it maybe
possible to create computational models that simulate the behaviour following from the
beliefs that investigators have proposed as constituting mental models. In complex
domains with unclear bounds and uncertainty involved, it is difficult to create
computational models that simulate behaviour.
Warning- response process, which is the focus of this study, is complex process without
well-defined boundaries. For eliciting mental models and beliefs of people in such a
situation, we use the approach followed by Morgan et. al (2002) in which they “…use a
form of think aloud protocol that provides as much freedom of expression as possible,
within the constraints of directing attention to the focal topics.” The main idea was to
elicit the beliefs of the people without biasing them about what we wanted to hear.
For guiding the mental models interviews the topics to be explored were put in an openended questionnaire format. The questionnaire included the topics based on the factors
that were identified as relevant from the literature and as presented in the conceptual
framework in figure 1.
Two factors were not explicitly included in the questionnaire – First was message
attributes such as clarity, specificity, consistency and accuracy with the exception of
uncertainity. This was because for evaluating these factors, study of the actual warning
messages passed on to the public would be required. This was not possible as the final
warning that reached the public was rarely in written form. Though there are written
records available of the warnings that were received by the district collector from the
IMD and state relief commissioner final warning that reached the public was almost
always passed on verbally to the village secretaries and hence had no written records.
One could try to elicit the perceptions of the warning audience about the presence or
absence of these attributes. But that was not feasible in this case, due to the time that has
elapsed since the event. In a few cases where we informally tried to elicit their
perceptions about these intangible message attributes, we could only get responses like “I
don’t remember” or some vague impressions.
The second factor not explicitly included in the mental models interview questionnaire
were the psychological factors such as cognitive abilities, personality and attitudes. The
literature in psychology has a number of tools to judge the cognitive abilities, personality
and attitude of a person. But administering these tools was not compatible with the
mental models interview protocol. These tools could be administered later when getting
the confirmatory questionnaires filled. Despite this, one of the psychological constructs,
often called the ‘optimism bias’ literature came up in the interviews.
The procedure began with general questions on demographic details such as age, gender,
educational qualification etc. to give time to the respondent to be comfortable. Then a
opening question was asked – ‘Were you present in the village during the December
2003?’ If the answer was yes, then we proceeded further with that respondent.
1. What was your experience during the December 2003 cyclone?
Basic prompts that were used to keep the conversation going were:


Can you tell me more?
Don’t worry about whether its right or wrong, just tell me what comes to your
mind.

Can you explain why?
During this process the interviewer kept on marking the on the sheet the topics that were
covered by the respondent during his free flow of conversation. If the topic was only
fleetingly mentioned and would require follow up then the interviewer instead of putting
a tick-mark, put a circle around that topic in the questionnaire. The interviewer also noted
any new points that were raised by the respondent, but were not included in the
questionnaire.
In case there was no mention of receiving cyclone warning during his conversation after
the asking the first question, then the second question that the interviewer asked was,
2. Did you receive any warning about the cyclone?
The basic prompts mentioned above were used again to keep the conversation going.
When the respondent started only repeating the issues he /she had mentioned, then the
interview moved onto the next stage. In this stage the interviewer started asking more
focused questions about the topics in the questionnaire that had not been raised or topics
that required more follow-up and continued until all topics in the questionnaire were
covered.
5. Identification and analysis of relevant factors underlying the warning–response
process
The study includes those respondents only, who had received the cyclone-warning
message. Those villages and groups of people, to whom the warning never reached are
not included in this study as the objective is to understand the beliefs and perceptions
underlie response once the warning has been received. The warning dissemination
process and the causes of warning not reaching certain groups of people constitute a
separate paper.
4.1. Identification of the factors underlying the warning-response process
Each meaningful statement in the interview was coded. The template for coding was the
conceptual framework described in figure 2. Each statement in the interview was
assigned to one of the factors in the conceptual framework. Main findings from the
mental models interviews about the warning-response process and the factors that affect
this process in case of the cyclone hazard in the Indian context are:
Warning system / “sender” characteristics
Context:

Source: Mainly three sources of warning were mentioned – The Mandal Revenue
Officer (MRO), the Fisheries department. Both the sources of warning are the official
sources. 77% of the respondents said that their source of warning was the Mandal
Revenue Officer (MRO) of their respective mandals who sent the message about the
warning through the village secretary. Only in Giripuram and Upadda village (18% of
respondents), the source of warning was said to be the fisheries department. In
Elichetladibba, radio was mentioned as the source of warning (This person could not
distinguish between the source and the channel of warning when later in the follow up
questions he was asked again about the source of the warning, after he was told that
radio was only the channel of warning dissemination. Again in Elichetladibba,
another respondent mentioned a private doctor as her source of warning.

Channel: The respondents mentioned three channels through which they received the
official warning from the government – first, door to door message given by the
village secretary and others assisting him, through the public address system in a
moving vehicle with the warning given by the revenue officials and the village
secretary and third, though interpersonal channels and word of mouth. Door to door
messenger was the channel through which 45% of the respondents received warning
message. 14% of the respondents received the message through the public address
system. 41% heard the warning from interpersonal channels. More women heard the
message through interpersonal channels than the men. 18% of the respondents also
mentioned hearing the warning from other channels like television and radio. In each
village about 1% to 10% households in these villages had television or radio sets.
None of the respondents mentioned newspaper as a channel for receiving the
warning. When investigated further, it was found that these villages received at most
two copies of the newspaper (one at the panchayat office and the other usually at the
local shop) which is regional language published in Vijaywada.

Language: 100% of the respondent said that they received the warning in their local
language.

Timing: Only 20% of the respondents had heard the warning 24 hours before the
cyclone was expected to strike. About 43% respondents had received the warning
about 8 hours or earlier. The rest 37% of the respondents received the warning about
4 to 6 hours before the cyclone occurred.

Frequency: 80% respondents had heard the warning at least once. The mean number
of warnings heard were 3.
Content:

Severity: All respondents reported that the warning message conveyed the severity of
the cyclone in terms of expected wind-speed. 61% people even reported that tidal
surge height that could be expected. When asked how much wind speed was
conveyed in the warning, very few remembered a numerical figure between 80 to 120
km per hour. Most of the respondents reported that they didn’t remember the wind
speed that was conveyed in the warning. This could be because a lot of time has
elapsed since the cyclone occurred. The actual expected wind speed conveyed in the
warnings was about 100 Km per hour. When asked, whether the respondents
understood the kind of damages they could expect with wind speeds of 100 Km per
hour, none of the respondents said they understood exactly. Then they were pressed
to give their own estimates of the nature and extent of damage to building structures,
life and livelihood assets and infrastructure due to wind speed of 100 Km per hour;
and expected inland inundation in Km by a tidal surge of 2m. When these estimates
were compared to the estimates of damage given for the similar range of windspeed
and tidal surge at the IMD website, it was found that 82% of the respondents had
underestimated the nature of damages and the expected inland inundation in Kms.
Only 4 % of the respondents were anywhere near the IMD estimates of the damage.
The rest 14% of the respondents had over-estimated the damage.

Likely time: 100% of the respondents reported that the likely time the cyclone was
expected to cross the coast was conveyed in the warning.

Location: 98% of the respondents reported that the location where the cyclone was
expected to cross the coast was mentioned in the warning. The respondents who has
received the warning 8 hours or earlier reported that the warning mentioned that
cyclone warning was expected to cross the coast anywhere between Nellore in South
Andhra Pradesh and Kakinada in East Godavari district. This spans a distance of
about 500 Km of the coastline. Only the warnings that were received a few hours
before the cyclone narrowed this range of distance by mentioning that the cyclone
was expected to cross the coast anywhere between Machilipatnam (Krishna district)
and Kakinada (East Godavari). The distance between Kakinada and Machilipatnam is
about 150 Km. One would expect that larger the range of distance, lesser would be
the belief of the people that the cyclone may affect them. But another factor important
in affecting people’s belief that the cyclone may affect them, is their knowledge
and/or perception about the extent of the area of impact of a cyclone that is expected
to cross the coast at about 100 Km/Hour. When asked about their estimate of the
distance of the coastline that may be affected by the cyclone at 100Km/hour, 77% of
the people failed to give any kind of estimate. The estimate of the rest 33% ranged
between100Km to a 800 Km.

Uncertainty: 100% of the respondents reported that the warning message conveyed
that the cyclone would cross the coast as very certain information. No uncertainty
about the occurrence or estimates of the severity etc. was conveyed to the people. No
attempt by the officials and cyclone warning disseminators, to communicate any kind
of uncertainty associated with estimates of the cyclone, was due to the perception on
the part of the officials that if they communicated any kind of uncertainty in the
estimates about various parameters of cyclone occurrence, then they would not be
able to generate the evacuation response from people. According to the officials, even
with the cyclone being portrayed as certain in the warnings, it is difficult to convince
people to evacuate. In their experience, people had to be forced to evacuate in most
cases.

Actions to be taken: 100% of the respondents reported that the warning
message, warned the fishermen from venturing into the sea. In the warnings that were
received many hours before the cyclone, the message also exhorted people to evacuate to
safer places or be ready to move to safer places. In the warnings received 3 to 6 hours
before the cyclone, the warning message stated that Road Transport buses / Lorries
arranged by the revenue department are waiting at such and such place near the village to
evacuate the people and take them to such and such relief center. The people were
ordered to evacuate their homes.
Situational and “receiver” characteristics
Though the socio-demographic characteristics like age, gender, educational qualification
etc. were asked directly, it was felt that asking questions directly about the other
“receiver” characteristics and situational factors would bias the response of the people by
putting ideas in their head about what we expect to hear. The idea was that the factors
that underlie their perceptual and evaluative stages in the warning response process
should come from the respondents, instead of the interviewer suggesting it to them. So
instead of asking them directly about these factors, the respondents were asked to
describe what did they do once they heard the warning, what was their response
(evacuated voluntarily, evacuated by force, not evacuated at all) and why they chose this
particular response. We inferred the factors that underlie their perception and evaluation
of the cyclone risk, from the reasons they gave for choosing a particular response by
mapping these reasons to the factors in figure 1. In the more focused questioning stage
they were explicitly asked about the “confirmation” and the “belief in the warning” stage
of the warning response behaviour.
Confirmation of the warning: 100% of the people reported that on receiving information
about the cyclone they tried to confirm it in some way or the other. Two sources of
confirmation dominated – friends and neighbours and second the village panchayat
officials and the village secretary. A few reported that they switched on the television for
more news about the cyclone. There were a few who had heard the warning on the radio
or television before receiving the official warning reported that the official warning acted
as a confirmation from them.
Belief in the warning: 93% of the respondents reported that they believed the warning
received from the government. When probed deeper, it was found that the belief was only
limited to the occurrence of the cyclone i.e. most people believed that the cyclone would
occur, but the severity with which it may occur may not be the same as conveyed in the
warning. Most respondents believed that the cyclone might be of lower intensity/severity
than the severity conveyed by the warning message. When asked why they believed that
the cyclone might be of lower intensity/severity, two factors emerged – one , the false
alarms experienced previously and second social cues from the attitude of the village
elders, village leaders and other people known to experienced in the matter of cyclones.
Response to warning: Only 34 % of the respondents said that they evacuated voluntarily.
20% of the respondents said that they were forced to evacuate and 46% of the
respondents did not evacuate at all. When asked about why the respondents chose a
particular response, following factors emerged:
Pre-warning perceptions
 Past experience with cyclones: Before December 2003 cyclone Krishna district had
experienced two very severe cyclones (more severe than the December 2003
cyclone). One of them was the landmark 1977 cyclone in which, Guntur and Krishna
were most severely affected the death toll on the coastal districts of Andhra was more
than 10000. Majority of these deaths had occurred due to the tidal surge. The other
was the 1990 cyclone in which the chief characteristic was the very high wind-speed
experienced. Tidal surge as high and damaging as in 1977 cyclone. The youngest
respondent that had been interviewed was 22 years old. All respondents mentioned
that they had experienced at least one severe cyclone previous to the December 2003
cyclones and a couple of other less severe cyclones. Majority of the respondents
reported experiencing the 1977 cyclone as well. Loss of lives experienced in previous
cyclones seemed like an important factor in explaining the perceived risk of cyclone
to life. For example, Malkaylanka village in Machilipatnam mandal was one of the
villages where extensive loss of life had occurred during the 1977 cyclone as most of
the people had been washed away in the tidal surge. These respondents seemed to
attach a greater perceived risk to life due to a cyclone. Whereas the people in
Girirpuram village, where there had not been many losses of life in 1977 cyclone, the
respondents mentioned that since they had survived other cyclones, they had believed
that they would survive December 2003 cyclone as well. This aspect would need to
be researched further, which would be done in the subsequent stage where a
structured questionnaire would be administered to a larger sample.

Accuracy of the warning about severity of cyclone: the respondents reported that in
the past the government gave the warning about the cyclone and its severity and
though the cyclone occurred each time they received the warning, the severity of the
cyclone was low most of the times. This may have been because the actual severity of
the cyclone may have been lower than what was predicted by the scientists or the
cyclone may have crossed another nearby part of the coast as a result of which the
villages of the respondents may have felt only peripheral effects of the cyclone. When
the respondent’s were asked, whether in their experience majority of the
government’s warnings were accurate about the severity of the cyclones or only a few
of the warnings were accurate about the severity of the cyclones, 73% responded that
in their experience majority of the warnings were not accurate about the severity of
the warning.

Perception about the quality of stay at relief centers: Respondents also stated that the
poor quality of stay at the relief centers was another reason why did not want to
evacuate to go to the relief centers. The factors that made the stay at relief center poor
quality were water shortage, poor quality and insufficient quantity of food, poor
sanitation facilities, no provision of milk for infants, no segregation for men and
women at the relief center, and the fact that once the cyclone was over, people had to
go back home on their own from the relief centers. No buses and lorries were
provided at the time of going back. This perception about the quality of their
experience was formed either by their past experience of staying in a relief camp or
through the anecdotes they heard from others in the community who had a past
experience at a relief camp.
Environmental cues
 Sensory cues from visibility of the hazard: Most respondents mentioned that though
they believed the warning about the occurrence of a cyclone, they were not sure
whether the cyclone would be as severe as conveyed in the warning in the warning.
They followed the wait and watch approach and tried to infer the severity from the
sensory cues they received from the environment just a few hours before the cyclone.
These sensory cues were drop in the temperature of the atmosphere, height of the sea
waves, colour of the sky and the sea, change in the speed of the sea breeze etc.

A peculiar pattern was observed from the responses of the interviewees. It emerged in
the interviews with fisher-folk that their forefathers could predict the occurrence and
severity of the cyclones from the environmental cues many hours before the cyclone
occurred. When asked if the present generation too could predict the occurrence of a
cyclone and its severity from the environmental cues, majority of them responded that
they couldn’t. When asked why, they said that the government had sophisticated
technology and devices to predict the cyclones, so they preferred to depend on the
government warnings. Yet, they believe the government warning, only for prediction
of a possible occurrence of cyclone and for its severity. For inferring the severity of
the cyclone they still depend on sensory cues from the natural environment. But,
because the indigenous knowledge on how to read the cues from natural environment
is being lost gradually, the present generation waits till the last minute when the
cyclone has almost reached them and the natural environment provides direct sensory
cues for inferring the severity of the cyclone. But this leaves very less time for
evacuation and often it is too late for evacuating.
Social Influence
 Level at which the evacuation decision is taken: Many respondents mentioned that
decision for evacuation was taken at the community level. After hearing the cyclone
warning and the message form the revenue department and other government
employees involved in cyclone evacuation, that the RTC buses and lorries were
waiting to take them to the relief centers, the members of the community gather
together at a common place and the village elders and leaders take a decision on
whether to evacuate completely or evacuate partially or not evacuate at all. If there is
going to be a partial evacuation, then these leaders and village elders also decide who
would evacuate. Usually women, children, old and sick people are evacuated first.
The able bodied, strong and younger people often stayed back to ensure the safety of
their livelihood assets. The decision at a community level was more strongly
observed in the cases where the size of the hamlet was quite small such as Uppada
and Interu or where the occupation of all villagers was the same such as fishing
villages, such as Giripuram. In case of villages where the warning reached just a few
hours before the cyclone and there was no time left for the community to gather
together and take a decision on evacuation. In such cases decisions on whether to
evacuate or not were taken at a family level but usually after conferring with friends
and neighbors.
Exposure conditions
 Security of livelihood assets: 100% of the respondents stated this to be a major
concern in their decision to evacuate. This is because main occupation in these
villages was either fishing or cultivation. The livelihood assets i.e. boats, nets and
livestock cannot be evacuated with them and there are high chances of damage to
these assets in their absence during a cyclone.

Perception about security of assets and belongings from theft and vandalism:
Majority of male respondents said that they believed they didn’t face any threat of
theft or vandalism of their belongings in their absence. Lesser number of women had
such a belief. More women than men feared that there might be theft in their absence
during evacuation.

Perception about security of life during evacuation: Because the evacuations were
usually made only a few hours before the cyclone or almost at the last moment, the
weather conditions have already worsened at the time of evacuation. Respondents,
especial at the island villages of Elichetladibba and Esupuram said that they were
afraid to cross the river in worsened weather conditions. Some respondents for
example at Sorlagondi village reported a few mishaps during the evacuation process
in their past evacuation experience and hence felt that evacuation process itself may
not be safe. Another such example was a respondent reporting that he was going to
evacuate but he and some others returned to the village when an electric pole fell
down on the way to the RTC buses and lorries that were waiting outside the village to
take people to relief centers. The falling of the pole made the evacuation process
seem unsafe to him.

Availability of alternatives to evacuation option: Availability of and access to
alternative options to evacuation, like existence of pucca houses, school buildings and
cyclone shelters also played a major role in the decision of the respondents to
evacuate. All respondents showed a preference for the option of taking shelter in a
pucca building in or near their village for duration of the cyclone, rather than
evacuation. This was because they could be at hand then to salvage their livelihood
assets immediately after the cyclone.
Psychological factors
 Optimism bias: A large proportion of respondents believed that they could ensure
safety of their livelihood assets, even if the cyclone is very severe.
5.2. Analysis of association between factors and evacuation behaviour
In section 5.1 the factors that explain the warning response process in case of the cyclone
hazard in the Indian context were identified using the exploratory mental models
interview process. In this section a quantitative analysis is done to further explore
whether these factors are associated to the response. The sample size of the respondents
is small (because of the mental models interview process is time consuming). Therefore,
only a preliminary analysis of the association of the above-mentioned factors with
response is presented here. A more robust analysis would be done once a structured
confirmatory questionnaire made on the basis of the findings of the mental models
interviews, is administered to a larger sample, to explore in depth each of the factors
underlying the warning response process.
Some of the factors could be coded as dichotomous nominal variable. The evacuation
behavior can also be coded as dichotomous nominal variable viz. the respondent
evacuated or the respondent did not evacuate. For the purpose of this analysis those who
were evacuated by force have been classified into the ‘not evacuated’ category. For the
nominal variable representing a factor, one of the two response choices could be selected
for each respondent, on the basis of the interviews of the respondents. Table 4 presents
how some of the factors were coded as dichotomous nominal variables.
Table 4: Factors that were converted to dichotomous nominal variable
S. no. Factor that affects the perceptual and evaluative processes underlying the
response of the individual to the warning
1.
Type of Channel:
Channel through which warning information was received –
(a) official, (b) interpersonal
2.
Number of Channels:
Received warning through –
(a) single channel (b) multiple channels
3.
Timing:
Warning was received –
(a) one day in advance
(b) on the day of the cyclone
4.
Frequency of warning:
(a) Once (b) more than once
5.
Accuracy of the warning about severity of cyclone:
In the experience of the respondent, how many warnings received from the
government are accurate about the severity of the cyclones (a) Majority (b) A few
6.
Environmental cues:
For estimating severity the respondent relies more on the sensory cues received
from the environment- (a) yes (b) no
7.
Safety during evacuation:
Respondent’s perception of safety of life during evacuation – (a) OK (b) not
good
8.
Respondent’s perception of quality of stay at the relief center
(a) OK (b) Not good
The objective was to test whether evacuation behaviour is independent of a particular
factor or whether there is a statistically significant association between evacuation
behaviour and a particular factor.
The hypothesis was specified as:
Ho: Evacuation behaviour and the factor i are independent of each other
H1: Evacuation behaviour and factor i are not independent.
To test this hypothesis Fisher’s exact test, which is statistical test used to determine if
there are non-random associations between two categorical variables. It consists of
calculating the actual (hypergeometric) probability of the observed 2x2 contingency table
with respect to all other possible 2x2 contingency tables with the same column and row
totals. The probabilities of all such tables that are each no more likely than the observed
table are calculated. The sum of these probabilities is the p-value. If the sum is less than
or equal to the specified significance level, then the null hypothesis is rejected. This test
does not indicate the direction of causality or the strength of association between the two
factors. Table 4 presents the results of Fisher’s exact test.
Table 5: Results of the Fisher’s exact test
S. no. Association between the
Criteria 1
Criteria 2
1.
Evacuation behaviour
Type of Channel
2.
Evacuation behaviour
Number of Channels
3.
Evacuation behaviour
Timing
4.
Evacuation behaviour
Frequency of warning
5.
Evacuation behaviour
Accuracy of the government
warning about severity of cyclone
6.
Evacuation behaviour
Environmental cues
7.
Evacuation behaviour
Safety during evacuation
8.
Evacuation behaviour
Quality of stay at the relief center
* denotes the level of significance.
* denotes =0.1, ** denotes =0.05, *** denotes =0.01
p-value from the
Fisher’s test
0.1270
0.0379**
0.2607
0.3950
0.0056***
0.0073***
0.0452**
0.0117**
From table 5, it is evident that evacuation behaviour is significantly related to perception
about the accuracy of the warning about the severity of the cyclone, environmental cues,
perception of safety during evacuation and perception of stay at the relief camps and the
number of channels through which a person receives the warning message. The type of
channel through which the warning was received, the time of receiving the warning and
the frequency of receiving warnings do not seem to be significantly associated with
evacuation behaviour. For exploring the significance of the type of channel on the
response of individual to the warning, experience of the people with more number of
channels would have to be investigated, than just the two channels that people mentioned
in the interviews. Timing of receiving the warning may not have a very significant
association on decision to evacuate, because in the Indian context most people tend to
wait till the last minute to evacuate relying on their sensory cues from environment to
infer the severity of the cyclone. The frequency of receiving warnings may not be
significantly associated with the evacuation behaviour due to the same reason as
mentioned above.
In the next stage of the study, when a survey instrument would be administered to a
larger sample, better ways (than the dichotomous nominal variable) of measuring the
factors would be devised, so that more powerful analysis of association of the various
factors with evacuation behaviour could be done and also multivariate methods to
establish direction of causality can strength of association could be applied.
5. Observations and directions for future work
There are a number of factors that affect the warning-response process of individuals to
cyclone hazard. Four factors that seem to be very important in understanding response of
individuals to the cyclone warnings are – accuracy of the government warning about
severity of cyclone experienced previously, the perception of the people about the
severity of the cyclone, perception of the people regarding the quality of stay at the relief
centers after evacuation and the concern for the security of their livelihood assets.
In the next stage of the study some of the propositions (which have been identified as key
propositions in the Indian context) would be tested and/or developed further. In this stage
the study would have both confirmatory and exploratory components. Some propositions
might be tested empirically using confirmatory methods and survey instruments and
some propositions might be developed further using exploratory methods.
It would be useful to conduct similar studies in case of other rapid on-set natural and
technological hazards, so that common principles underlying the warning-response
process in the Indian context can be elicited.
References
Adger, W. N., S. R. Khan and N. Brooks, (2003). ‘Measuring and enhancing adaptive
capacity’. Technical paper 7 of the Adaptation Policy Framework.
http://www.undp.org/cc/apf_outline.htm
Aguirre, B. E. 1993. ‘Review of Social Science Research on Warning, Evacuation, and
Search and Rescue.’ Paper prepared for Research Seminar on Socio-Economic Aspects of
Disaster in Central America, San Jose, Costa Rica, January 21-23.
Drabek, T. 1986. Human System Responses to Disaster: An Inventory of Sociological
Findings. Springer-Verlag, New York.
IFRCRCS, (2001).World Disasters Report, Jonathan Walter (ed.). Published by
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Switzerland.
IMD (1996).Tracks of Storms and Depressions in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea
published by Indian Meteorological Department, India.
Maharaik, M., and B. Fischoff, (1993). ‘Contrasting perceptions of using nuclear energy
sources in space.’ Journal of Environmental Psychology, 13: 243-250.
Mileti, D.S., (1995). ‘Factors related to flood warning response.’ U.S.- Italy Research
Workshop on the Hydrometeorology, Impacts, and Management of Extreme Floods.
Mileti, D. S., & Fitzpatrick, C. (1991). Communication of public risks: its theory and its
application. Sociological Practice Review, 20-28.
Morgan, G.M., B. Fischhoff, A. Bostrom, C.J. Atman, (2002). Risk communication: A
Mental Models Approach. Cambridge University Press, U.K.
Nigg, Joanne M. 1993. ‘Risk communication and warning systems.’ Series Article
(University of Delaware. Disaster Research Center) 261. Reprinted from Proceedings
Preprint International Conference on Natural Risk and Civil Protection; 1993; p. 209-236
OXFORD, (2000). India Disasters Report. Parsuraman S. and P.V. Unnikrishnan (eds).
Published by Oxford University Press, New Delhi.
Perugia (Italy), November 1995.
Patwardhan, Anand, K. Narayanan, D. Parthasarathy and Upasna Sharma, (2003).
Impacts of Climate Change on Coastal Zones”, in Climate Change and India:
Vulnerability and Adaptation, [(Eds.) Shukla, P.R., Subodh K. Sharna, N.h.
Ravindranath, Amit Garg and Sumana Bhattacharya], Universities Press, Hyderabad,
India, pp 326-359.
Quarantelli, E. L. (with the assistance of Barbara Baisden and Timothy Bourdess) (1980),
`Evacuation behaviour and problems: findings and implications from the research
literature’, (Disaster Research Center, Ohio State University. Misc. Report No. 27:
Columbus, Ohio.)
Renn, O. (1992). ‘Risk communication: towards a rational discourse with the public.’
Journal of Hazardous Materials, 29, 465-519.
Riad, K. J., W.L. Waugh and F. H. Norris, (1998). ‘The psychology of evacuation and
design of policy.’ Preliminary paper 276, Disaster Research Center, University of
Delaware.
Rohrmann, B., (2000). ‘A socio-psychological model for analyzing risk communication
processes.’ The Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies. Vol 2.
Smit, B. and Pilifosova, O. (Coordinating Lead Authors), Burton, I., B. Challenger, S.
Huq, R.J.T. Klein, G. Yohe (Lead Authors), (2001). ‘Adaptation to Climate Change in
the Context of Sustainable Development and Equity’ In: Climate Change 2001: Impacts,
Adaptation and Vulnerability, [J. J. McCarthy, O. F. Canziani, N. A. Leary, D. J.
Dokken, K. S. White, (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, UK.
Sorenson, J.H., (1993). ‘Warning systems and public warning response.’ Paper presented
at the workshop on Socioeconomic Aspects of Disasters in Latin America, held in San
Jose, Costa Rica.
Tierney, K. J., (1993). ‘Research Findings and Guidance from the Social Science
Literature.’ Paper prepared for the US-ROC Workshop on Natural Disaster Reducation,
Taipei, Taiwan, ROC, June 24-26, 1993.