The information challenge While much more disaster risk information is

generated today than ever before, it is not neces-sarily accessible to households, businesses and investors.

Under Priority for Action 3, the HFA attached con-siderable importance to improving risk aware-ness and information in order to contribute to the adoption of a culture of disaster prevention and resilience (Box 7.1).

Information management and exchange

(a) Provide easily understandable information on disaster risks and protection options, especially to citizens in high-risk areas, to encourage and enable people to take action to reduce risks and build resilience. The informa-tion should incorporate relevant tradiinforma-tional and indigenous knowledge and culture heritage and be tailored to different target audiences, taking into account cultural and social factors.

(b) Strengthen networks among disaster experts, managers and planners across sectors and between regions, and create or strengthen procedures for using available expertise when agencies and other important actors develop local risk reduction plans.

(c) Promote and improve dialogue and cooperation among scientific communities and practitioners working on disaster risk reduction, and encourage partnerships among stakeholders, including those working on the socio-economic dimensions of disaster risk reduction.

(d) Promote the use, application and affordability of recent information, communication and space-based tech-nologies and related services, as well as earth observations, to support disaster risk reduction, particularly for training and for the sharing and dissemination of information among different categories of users.

(e) In the medium term, develop local, national, regional and international user-friendly directories, inventories and national information-sharing systems and services for the exchange of information on good practices, cost-effective and easy-to-use disaster risk reduction technologies, and lessons learned on policies, plans and mea-sures for disaster risk reduction.

(f) Institutions dealing with urban development should provide information to the public on disaster reduction options prior to constructions, land purchase or land sale.

(g) Update and widely disseminate international standard terminology related to disaster risk reduction, at least in all official United Nations languages, for use in programme and institutional development, operations, research, training curricula and public information programmes.

Public awareness

(p) Promote the engagement of the media in order to stimulate a culture of disaster resilience and strong com-munity involvement in sustained public education campaigns and public consultations at all levels of society.

7.3

Risk awareness and understanding would seem to be fundamentally experiential. For example, Japan has the highest level of hazard exposure in the world and has been dealing with repeated

disasters for millennia. Shaped by that experi-ence, risk awareness is high amongst citizens and government authorities alike, research into risk identification and estimation is a priority, and risk knowledge permeates disaster risk management strategies and policies at all levels. Sustainabili-ty depends on sound disaster risk management.

In contrast, the disaster risk awareness of house-holds, businesses and governments in countries with low levels of hazard exposure and infrequent disasters is likely to lack that essential experien-tial quality. Irrespective of public information on hazards, a strong political and economic impera-tive for disaster risk management is far less like-ly to emerge in those countries (Neumayer et al., 2012).

At the global level, disaster risk awareness is not systematically assessed, and it is difficult to measure how it has evolved since the adoption of the HFA or the declaration of the IDNDR. How-ever, the number of nationally and international-ly reported disasters has shown a strong upward trend since 1990 (Figure 7.2), which could indi-cate that more people have experienced mani-festations of risk first-hand.

Large intensive disasters with major social and economic impacts certainly generate risk aware-ness, at least in the short term, and may catalyse change. As noted in Chapter 1, the impetus to reform risk governance arrangements often sur-faces in the wake of large disasters. This change is not limited to governments. For example, the impact of the 2011 disasters in Japan and Thai-land on global supply chains (UNISDR, 2013a) certainly led to raised awareness of and concern with disaster risk in the private sector.

This awareness (Box 7.2) continues to grow, and disaster and climate-related risks now figure

(Source: UNISDR with data from the HFA Monitor.) Figure 7.1 Progress in risk awareness

HFA progress reports show that countries have made significant progress in this area. Howev-er, progress in general is lower than the average across the various priorities for action (Figure 7.1). With notable exceptions, citizens, business-es and other stakeholders in most countribusiness-es rare-ly have access to risk information before they make investment decisions or undertake prop-erty transactions. As discussed below, there has been explosive growth in the production of risk information and in collaboration between scien-tific and technical institutions, but too little of this information ends up in the hands of users in a format that can inform decisions (CDKN, 2014).

highly on the radar screens of senior executives in global corporations.

Whether risk awareness is maintained over the medium and long term would seem to depend on disaster frequency. When intensive disas-ters are very infrequent, as in the case of Indian Ocean tsunamis, inter-generational awareness of disaster risks may fade. To cite an extreme exam-ple, it is highly doubtful whether earthquake risk awareness is still strong in the south-east of Eng-land as a result of the Canterbury earthquake on

21 May 1382. As a result of migration, popula-tions that may have lived in an area for decades are unaware of the risks manifested in histori-cal disasters hundreds of years ago. In addition, increasing geographical mobility now means that people frequently live, work and travel far from the areas and disaster risks they are familiar with.

As highlighted by the case of Ratnapura, exten-sive disasters clearly shape risk awareness in a far more tangible way in the localities where they

(Source: UNISDR with data from EM-DAT and national disaster loss databases.) Figure 7.2 Disaster records in global (left) and national databases (right)

Box 7.2 Increasing awareness of disaster and climate risks

Around 70 per cent of companies responding to a recent survey by the Carbon Disclosure Project identified clear business continuity risks to their supply chains and thus risks to their revenue streams due to climate change and the resulting extreme weather events (CDP, 2013). Most importantly, more than half of these risks have either already impacted these companies or are expected to do so within the next five years (ibid.).

Local surveys of a similar nature reflect these global results and show that awareness of climate risk in par-ticular is rising across the globe. For example, of more than 300 businesses responding to an annual survey on climate change in Hong Kong, 82 per cent identified disruptions due to extreme weather as critical risks, compared to “only” 44 per cent in 2010 (BEC CCBF, 2014).

However, smaller companies may be less aware of the potential scale of climate risks (Ceres, 2013). Among 184 companies surveyed in the insurance sector, only 23 large companies had a “specific, comprehensive strategy to cope with climate change” (ibid., p. 7). The approaches of others range from viewing climate change as a risk inherently captured in their enterprise risk management strategies to an environmental issue immaterial to their business.

occur. And given their frequency, this awareness is unlikely to fade. However, as they affect mainly low-income households and communities, small businesses and local infrastructure rather than strategic political and economic interests, they are less likely to catalyse an increased imperative for disaster risk management at the national level (UNISDR, 2011a). At the same time, opportunities to manage risks are often severely constrained at the local level.

7.4