Browsing by Author "Becker J"

Now showing 1 - 11 of 11
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    An earthquake early warning for Aotearoa New Zealand?
    (2021-08-05) Brown A; Parkin T; Tan ML; Rahubadde Kankanamge R; Becker J; Stock K; Kenney C; Lambie E
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    Creating a ‘planning emergency levels of service’ framework – a silver bullet, or something useful for target practice?
    (Elsevier B.V., 2023-06-01) Mowll R; Becker J; Wotherspoon L; Stewart C; Johnston D; Neely D
    ‘Planning Emergency Levels of Service’ (PELOS) are service delivery goals for infrastructure providers during and after an emergency event. These goals could be delivered through the existing infrastructure (e.g., pipes, lines, cables), or through other means (trucked water or the provision of generators). This paper describes how an operationalised framework of PELOS for the Wellington region, New Zealand was created, alongside the key stakeholders. We undertook interviews and workshops with critical infrastructure entities to create the framework. Through this process we found five themes that informed the context and development of the PELOS framework: interdependencies between critical infrastructure, the need to consider the vulnerabilities of some community members, emergency planning considerations, stakeholders’ willingness to collaborate on this research/project and the flexibility/adaptability of the delivery of infrastructure services following a major event. These themes are all explored in this paper. This research finds that the understanding of the hazardscape and potential outages from hazards is critical and that co-ordination between key stakeholders is essential to create such a framework. This paper may be used to inform the production of PELOS frameworks in other localities.
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    Developing, Testing, and Communicating Earthquake Forecasts: Current Practices and Future Directions
    (American Geophysical Union, 2024-09-01) Mizrahi L; Dallo I; van der Elst NJ; Christophersen A; Spassiani I; Werner MJ; Iturrieta P; Bayona J; Iervolino I; Schneider M; Page MT; Zhuang J; Herrmann M; Michael AJ; Falcone G; Marzocchi W; Rhoades D; Gerstenberger M; Gulia L; Schorlemmer D; Becker J; Han M; Kuratle L; Marti M; Wiemer S
    While deterministically predicting the time and location of earthquakes remains impossible, earthquake forecasting models can provide estimates of the probabilities of earthquakes occurring within some region over time. To enable informed decision-making of civil protection, governmental agencies, or the public, Operational Earthquake Forecasting (OEF) systems aim to provide authoritative earthquake forecasts based on current earthquake activity in near-real time. Establishing OEF systems involves several nontrivial choices. This review captures the current state of OEF worldwide and analyzes expert recommendations on the development, testing, and communication of earthquake forecasts. An introductory summary of OEF-related research is followed by a description of OEF systems in Italy, New Zealand, and the United States. Combined, these two parts provide an informative and transparent snapshot of today's OEF landscape. In Section 4, we analyze the results of an expert elicitation that was conducted to seek guidance for the establishment of OEF systems. The elicitation identifies consensus and dissent on OEF issues among a non-representative group of 20 international earthquake forecasting experts. While the experts agree that communication products should be developed in collaboration with the forecast user groups, they disagree on whether forecasting models and testing methods should be user-dependent. No recommendations of strict model requirements could be elicited, but benchmark comparisons, prospective testing, reproducibility, and transparency are encouraged. Section 5 gives an outlook on the future of OEF. Besides covering recent research on earthquake forecasting model development and testing, upcoming OEF initiatives are described in the context of the expert elicitation findings.
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    Evidence-based guidelines for protective actions and earthquake early warning systems
    (Society of Exploration Geophysicists, 2022-01-01) McBride SK; Smith H; Morgoch M; Sumy D; Jenkins M; Peek L; Bostrom A; Baldwin D; Reddy E; De Groot R; Becker J; Johnston D; Wood M
    Earthquake early warning (EEW) systems are becoming increasingly available or are in development throughout the world. As these systems develop, it is important to provide evidence-based recommendations for protective action so people know how to protect themselves when they receive an alert. However, many factors need to be considered when developing contextually relevant and appropriate recommendations. We have reviewed earthquake injury reports, protective action and communication theories, and behavioral research to determine what factors can guide inquiry and decision making when developing protective action guidelines. Factors that emerge from relevant literature include: (1) social, cultural, and environmental context, such as which people are present, what their social roles are, and in what type of building they are located when an earthquake happens, (2) demographic and experiential variables, such as gender and age as well as previous history with earthquakes; and (3) magnitude and intensity that influence the duration and impacts of the earthquake itself. Although we examine data from around the world, we focus largely on evidence-based recommendations for the U.S. system, ShakeAlert, because it provides a timely case study for understanding how people receive and respond to EEW messages. In addition to synthesizing relevant literature, we recommend pathways forward for this interdisciplinary research community that explores EEW and its application around the world. Consistency in collecting and reporting injury data globally may assist in aligning this fragmented literature to develop a richer understanding of how demographic, cultural, seismic, engineering, and technological issues can be addressed to reduce human suffering due to earthquakes.
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    Knowledge, perceptions, and behavioral responses to earthquake early warning in Aotearoa New Zealand
    (Frontiers Media S.A., 2023-08-28) Vinnell LJ; Tan M; Rahubadde Kankanamge R; Becker J
    Introduction: Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) experiences frequent earthquakes, with a history of damaging and fatal events, but currently does not have a national, official earthquake early warning (EEW) system. Since April of 2021, Google's Android Earthquake Alert System has operated independently in NZ. While recent work has identified general public support for such a system, it is important to assess public knowledge of EEW as well as typical responses to receiving an alert. The protective actions “Drop, cover, and hold” are recommended and taught in NZ and previous research found strong intentions to undertake these and other protective actions in response to an alert. Method: However, it is important to explore a range of responses to these novel EEWs, including how much people know about them, what actions they took in response to the warning, and their overall judgment of the system including its usefulness. We undertook surveys following two widely received alerts from the Android Earthquake Alert System to assess public knowledge, perceptions, and responses to these alerts with a total sample size of 3,150. Results: While most participants who received the alert found it useful, knowledge of both EEW generally and the Android System specifically was low and few participants used the time to protect themselves from shaking. Discussion: These findings reiterate the importance of education and communication around a warning system, so that the public know how to act when they receive an alert.
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    Organisational response to the 2007 Ruapehu Crater Lake breakout lahar in New Zealand: Use of communication in creating an effective response
    (Springer International Publishing, 2016-01-05) Becker J; Leonard GJ; Potter SH; Coomer MA; Paton D; Wright K; Johnston DM; Fearnley, C; Bird, D; Jolly, GE; Haynes, K
    When Mt. Ruapehu erupted in 1995-1996 in New Zealand, a tephra barrier was created alongside Crater Lake on the top of Mt. Ruapehu. This barrier acted as a dam, with Crater Lake rising behind it over time. In 2007 the lake breached the dam and a lahar occurred down the Whangaehu Valley and across the volcano’s broad alluvial ring-plain. Given the lahar history from Ruapehu, the risk from the 2007 event was identified beforehand and steps taken to reduce the risks to life and infrastructure. An early warning system was set up to notify when the dam had broken and the lahar had occurred. Physical works to mitigate the risk were put in place. A planning group was also formed and emergency management plans were put in place to respond to the risk. To assess the effectiveness of planning for and responding to the lahar, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with personnel from key organisations both before and after the lahar event. This chapter discusses the findings from the interviews in the context of communications, and highlights how good communications contributed to an effective emergency management response. As the potential for a lahar was identifiable, approximately 10 years of lead-up time was available to install warning system hardware, implement physical mitigation measures, create emergency management plans, and practice exercises for the lahar. The planning and exercising developed effective internal communications, engendered relationships, and moved individuals towards a shared mental model of how a respond to the event. Consequently, the response played out largely as planned with only minor communication issues occurring on the day of the lahar. The minor communication issues were due to strong personal connections leading to at least one case of the plan being bypassed. Communication levels during the lahar event itself were also different from that experienced in exercises, and in some instances communications were seen to increase almost three-fold. This increase in level of communication, led to some difficulty in getting through to the main Incident Control Point. A final thought regarding public communications prior to the event was that more effort could have been given to developing and integrating public information about the lahar, to allow for ease of understanding about the event and integration of information across agencies.
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    Supporting community recovery: COVID-19 and beyond
    (Massey University, 2021-06-30) MacDonald C; Mooney M; Johnston D; Becker J; Blake D; Mitchell J; Malinen S; Naswall K
    The rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented health, social and economic crisis, the long-term effects which are still unknown. It is clear, however that successful recovery will require strong community mobilisation, engagement and participation. Recovery is about regeneration, building back smarter and better following a disaster event, while providing opportunities to contribute to a more resilient and sustainable community for the future. Successful recovery recognises that both communities and individuals have a range of complex and interrelated recovery needs. These can be addressed within a holistic framework emphasising seven ‘community capitals’ (natural, social, financial, cultural, political, built and human). This summary document is provided for further discussion and to support agencies in their recovery planning and actions in the current COVID crisis as well as other disasters.
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    The public's perception of an earthquake early warning system: A study on factors influencing continuance intention
    (Elsevier, 2023-09-26) Tan M; Vinnell L; Valentin AP; Rahubadde Kankanamge R; Becker J
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    Understanding residents’ capacities to support evacuated populations : A study of earthquake and tsunami evacuation for Napier Hill, Napier, Aotearoa New Zealand.
    (Joint Centre for Disaster Research, Massey University, 2019-12-19) Payne B; Becker J; Kaiser L
    Due to a large regional subduction zone (the Hikurangi subduction zone) and localised faults, Napier City located on the East Coast of Aotearoa/New Zealand is vulnerable to earthquake and tsunami events. On feeling a long or strong earthquake people will need to evacuate immediately inland or to higher ground to avoid being impacted by a tsunami, of which the first waves could start to arrive within 20 minutes (based on the Hikurangi earthquake and tsunami scenario presented in Power et al., 2018). Napier Hill is one such area of higher land, and it is estimated that up to 12,000 people could evacuate there in the 20 minutes following a long or strong earthquake. To understand the capacity of Napier Hill residents to support evacuees, three focus groups were held with a diverse sample of residents from Napier Hill on 21 and 22 July 2019. A follow up email was sent to all participants a week after the focus groups, containing a link to a short six question survey, which was completed by 68 people, most of whom were additional to the focus group attendees. Data from the focus groups and the survey was analysed qualitatively using thematic analysis. The findings highlight that in general people were happy to host evacuees and offer support if they were in a position to do so. However, key issues in being able to offer support included the likely lack of resources available after a disaster, ranging from basic needs though to agency support. The research findings will directly inform Napier City Council and Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence Emergency Management Group’s planning for future readiness and response by providing valuable insights for evacuation planning
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    Updated psychosocial support: Evidence base in the COVID-19 context
    (Massey University, 2021-06-30) Mooney M; MacDonald C; Becker J; Blake D; Gibbs L; Johnston D; Malinen S; Naswall K; Tassell-Matamua N; Alefaio S
    This report summarises the emerging evidence base for psychosocial impacts and psychosocial support interventions in the COVID-19 pandemic in the following areas: The psychosocial and mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic to date The evidence base for the effectiveness of psychosocial support services in the response and recovery to COVID-19 in supporting individual and community adaptation and well-being A brief overview of psychosocial interventions related to COVID-19 pertinent to the Aotearoa New Zealand context. Emerging impacts from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic include impacts to physical and mental health, exacerbation of disparities, secondary impacts from public health measures (e.g. social distancing), and negative economic consequences. Several groups appear to be more at risk. Evidence suggests that ensuing psychosocial needs are immediate and are likely to continue long term. Psychosocial recovery plans and interventions need, as much as possible, to be evidence informed, flexible enough to stay relevant to the evolving context, address disparities, and adapt to and reflect different cultural and community contexts
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    Where does scientific uncertainty come from, and from whom? Mapping perspectives of natural hazards science advice
    (Elsevier, 2023-10-01) Doyle EEH; Thompson J; Hill S; Williams M; Paton D; Harrison S; Bostrom A; Becker J
    The science associated with assessing natural hazard phenomena and the risks they pose contains many layers of complex and interacting elements, resulting in diverse sources of uncertainty. This creates a challenge for effective communication, which must consider how people perceive that uncertainty. Thus, we conducted twenty-five mental model interviews in Aotearoa New Zealand with participants ranging from scientists to policy writers and emergency managers, and through to the public. The interviews included three phases: an initial elicitation of free thoughts about uncertainty, a mental model mapping activity, and a semi-structured interview protocol to explore further questions about scientific processes and their personal philosophy of science. Qualitative analysis led to the construction of key themes, including: (a) understanding that, in addition to data sources, the ‘actors’ involved can also be sources of uncertainty; (b) acknowledging that factors such as governance and funding decisions partly determine uncertainty; (c) the influence of assumptions about expected human behaviours contributing to “known unknowns'; and (d) the difficulty of defining what uncertainty actually is. Participants additionally highlighted the positive role of uncertainty for promoting debate and as a catalyst for further inquiry. They also demonstrated a level of comfort with uncertainty and advocated for ‘sitting with uncertainty’ for transparent reporting in advice. Additional influences included: an individual's understanding of societal factors; the role of emotions; using outcomes as a scaffold for interpretation; and the complex and noisy communications landscape. Each of these require further investigation to enhance the communication of scientific uncertainty.