Communicating and understanding risk in dynamic situations

In February 2021, the Disaster Risk Management Professional Practice Group held its first fireside chat. Designed as an informal and friendly conversation, the fireside chat allows audience members to ask experts questions around a common topic. If you missed the event, you can watch a recording of it on this page (scroll down). Here we summarise the key themes discussed by our panellists.

This event’s topic was Communicating and understanding risk in dynamic situations. Four panellists from different sectors of disaster risk management joined Dr Tina Thomson in a one-hour conversation:

• Naomi Morris, Data Manager, World Health Organisation

• Dr Carmen Solana, Reader/Associate Professor in Risk Communication at the University of Portsmouth

• Brian Vinall CGeog, Operations Manager, Environment Agency

• Dr Kelvin Wong CGeog, Senior Product Manager, Risk Management Solutions Inc.

Main challenges of communicating and understanding risk

The conversation opened with Tina asking the panellists about the main challenges they faced when communicating and understanding risks in a dynamic situation. Naomi opened from a humanitarian perspective, where a ‘dynamic’ situation is one that is rapidly changing. She drew from four examples of humanitarian response she had been involved in:

• 2011 Pakistan floods - Larger impact in the South (Sindh) due to to a significant and similar event the year before so minimal coping mechanisms;

• 2010 Haiti earthquake - Major infrastructure damage and loss of life followed by Hurricane Thomas and Cholera outbreak;

• Afghanistan - Multiple complex and cyclical natural disasters combined with on-going conflict;

• Lebanon - Refugees (primarily Syrian, but also secondary and tertiary displacements) crossing the Arsal border, causing impact on host community. Winterisation programming required.

Despite the differences in geography and peril, all four have one thing in common - the speed with which events can move with many variables changing at the same time. The real challenge is then to take all the data available and condense it into something clear and useful.

 

"How do you make that information useful for decision making? How do you make that information useful for actually informing a response?"

Naomi Morris, Data Manager, World Health Organisation

 

Carmen offered a different perspective, drawing upon her academic experience. Working primarily with volcanic emergencies, Carmen noted that there is great uncertainty around spatial and temporal aspects of the hazard occurring. Once it does occur, the static nature of traditional hazard maps can then be difficult to overcome. She further elaborated with an example from the 2017 hurricane season on the island of Dominica, where the hazard developed so rapidly that forecasts became redundant, and keeping on-track with communication presented a major problem.

 

"The situation had changed so quickly that even the forecasts hadn’t managed to capture the growing intensity of the hurricane and the devastation was huge.”

Dr Carmen Solana, Reader/Associate Professor in Risk Communication at the University of Portsmouth, commenting on the impact of Hurricane Maria on Dominica

 

Kelvin shared his views from the insurance and reinsurance sector. He stressed the importance of time and timeliness to the re/insurance industry in communicating risk in what is now a 4D situation. He went on to discuss the challenges of creating a single output to meet the requirements of a diverse audience.

 

"Whether they are an insurer or a reinsurer, or broker, they have different needs and timescales. We have to create a single suite of products that accurately addresses all their varied needs in a timely manner.”

Dr Kelvin Wong, Senior Product Manager, Risk Management Solutions Inc.

 

Brian’s experience at government COBRA meetings for storm Christoph provided some very tangible examples of the challenges of managing the message. The Flood Forecasting Centre uses probabilistic modelling to understand the likelihood of a storm event. Its key focus is condensing all of the information available into a digestible ‘Red, Amber, Green’ status for the government to then take decisive action. Compounding this with a need for a five-day forecast and a burgeoning desire for a seasonal forecast takes the work into the realm of climatology rather than meteorology and this leads to concerns for Brian about people taking action on the back of uncertain information.