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The purpose of this paper is to apply the concept of “Interconnected Geoscience” to a disaster and risk reduction (DRR) case study at SECMOL College, near Leh, Ladakh, N. India. Interconnected geoscience is a model that advocates holistic approaches to geoscience for development. This paper reports research/practical work with Ladakhi students/staff, undertaking community-oriented DRR exercises in hazard awareness, DRR themed village/college mapping, vulnerability assessments and DRR management scenario development. The geoscientific hazard analysis work is published within a separate sister paper, with results feeding into this work. This work addresses aspects of, and contributes to, the DRR research(science)-policy-interface conversation.

Interconnected geoscience methodologies for DRR here are: the application of geoscience for hazard causality, spatial distribution, frequency and impact assessment, for earthquakes, floods and landslides, within the SECMOL area; the generation of community-developed DRR products and services of use to a range of end-users; the development of a contextual geoscience approach, informed by social-developmental-issues; and the active participation of SECMOL students/teachers and consequent integration of local world-views and wisdom within DRR research. Initial DRR awareness levels of students were assessed with respect to earthquakes/floods/landslides/droughts. Following hazard teaching sessions, students engaged in a range of DRR exercises, and produced DRR themed maps, data, tables and documented conversations of relevance to DRR management.

Students levels of hazard awareness were variable, generally low for low-frequency hazards (e.g. earthquakes) and higher for hazards such as floods/landslides which either are within recent memory, or have higher frequencies. The 2010 Ladakhi flood disaster has elevated aspects of flood-hazard knowledge. Landslides and drought hazards were moderately well understood. Spatial awareness was identified as a strength. The application of an interconnected geoscience approach immersed within a student+staff college community, proved to be effective, and can rapidly assess/build upon awareness levels and develop analytical tools for the further understanding of DRR management. This approach can assist Ladakhi regional DRR management in increasing the use of regional capability/resources, and reducing the need for external inputs.

A series of recommendations for the DRR geoscience/research-policy-practice area include: adopting an “interconnected geoscience” approach to DRR research, involving scientific inputs to DRR; using and developing local capability and resources for Ladakhi DRR policy and practice; using/further-developing DRR exercises presented in this paper, to integrate science with communities, and further-empower communities; taking account of the findings that hazard awareness is variable, and weak, for potentially catastrophic hazards, such as earthquakes, when designing policy and practice for raising DRR community awareness; ensuring that local values/world views/wisdom inform all DRR research, and encouraging external “experts” to carefully consider these aspects within Ladakh-based DRR work; and further-developing DRR networks across Ladakh that include pockets of expertise such as SECMOL.

The term “interconnected geoscience” is highly novel, further developing thinking within the research/science-policy-practice interface. This is the first time an exercise such as this has been undertaken in the Ladakh Himalaya.

Food poisoning attributable to the home generates a large disease burden, yet is an unregulated and largely unobserved domain. Investigating food safety awareness and routine practices is fraught with difficulties. The purpose of this paper is to develop and apply a new survey tool to elicit awareness of food hazards. Data generated by the approach are analysed to investigate the impact of oberservable heterogeneity on food safety awareness.

The authors develop a novel Watch-and-Click survey tool to assess the level of awareness of a set of hazardous food safety behaviours in the domestic kitchen. Participants respond to video footage stimulus, in which food hazards occur, via mouse clicks/screen taps. This real-time response data is analysed via estimation of count and logit models to investigate how hazard identification patterns vary over observable characteristics.

User feedback regarding the Watch-and-Click tool approach is extremely positive. Substantive results include significantly higher hazard awareness among the under 60s. People who thought they knew more than the average person did indeed score higher but people with food safety training/experience did not. Vegetarians were less likely to identify four of the five cross-contamination hazards they observed.

A new and engaging survey tool to elicit hazard awareness with real-time scores and feedback is developed, with high levels of user engagement and stakeholder interest. The approach may be applied to elicit hazard awareness in a wide range of contexts including education, training and research.

The Disaster Awareness Game (DAG) was designed to evaluate and promote disaster awareness among children in multicultural societies. This study seeks to discuss this.

The validation methodology was undertaken in four stages: Pre‐Test Stage – this stage is intended to evaluate the existing levels of disaster awareness among the target population using a questionnaire survey. DAG Exposure 1 – This represents the second stage of the pre‐test through exposure of the target population to the DAG. Provision of disaster information – In this stage, participants are provided with disaster management information on hazards that are pertinent to their environment. Post‐test stage – this stage was intended to evaluate the impact of the DAG and the provision of disaster information on the level of awareness among participants.

Preliminary results suggest that the tool is effective in educating children about hazards, and measuring levels of disaster awareness and is interesting enough to hold children's attention.

The present study provides a starting‐point for further research in the design and development of tools for measuring levels of disaster awareness and in educating children about disaster preparedness.

The DAG can be used as a benchmarking tool for gauging levels of diaster awareness within various groups in society (children, adults, gender, language groups etc.) or across regions in a country (rural versus urban) and in different countries in the Caribbean region (e.g. High income versus Low income) in order to determine and prioritize interventions for disaster education.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between participation in hazard education programs and levels of hazard awareness, risk perceptions, knowledge of response‐related protective behaviour and household preparedness.

A questionnaire examining various measures including participation in hazard education programmes, risk perceptions and household preparedness was delivered under teacher guidance to high school students in three different locations in the Taranaki Region of New Zealand. A total of 282 valid questionnaires were returned. Data were analysed by means of chi‐squared, t‐test and ANOVA.

Students who have participated in hazard education programmes are more likely to have better knowledge of safety behaviours and higher household preparedness. However, even with hazard education, some aspects of hazard awareness and the uptake of family emergency plans and practices were found to be poor. Overall, hazard education was found to be beneficial and helps to create potentially more‐resilient children and communities.

The research is limited to the views of the students. The study would benefit from a parallel study of parents or caregivers to give a more accurate report of household preparedness and family emergency plans and practices. The research highlights areas of change for future hazard education programmes and provides support for the continued inclusion of this topic in the curriculum.

The paper offers insight into the effectiveness and benefit of incorporating hazard education into the school curriculum in New Zealand.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the significant antecedents that influence students’ awareness of occupational hazards (AOHs) in their respective institutions. The researchers proposed a theoretical model consisting of three dimensions: knowledge sharing behavior (KSB), sense of spirituality (SS) and awareness of occupational hazards (AOHs).

This study targets students of different public and private higher learning institutions in Bangladesh with a total of 260 respondents, utilizing a survey questionnaire as the data collection instrument to test the proposed conceptual model. The structural equation modeling approach was used to test the proposed model.

The results show that SS has a mediating effect on KSB and AOHs at higher learning institutions.

The study contributes for first time to the theoretical novelty of the body of the existing literature in the domains of students’ KSB, SS and AOHs. The study also provides insight on future research directions by helping in identifying gaps in literature in this field and higher learning institutions in Bangladesh.

The current fire protection measures in buildings do not account for all contemporary fire hazard issues, which has made fire safety a growing concern. Therefore, this paper aims to present a critical review of current fire protection measures and their applicability to address current challenges relating to fire hazards in buildings.

To overcome fire hazards in buildings, impact of fire hazards is also reviewed to set the context for fire protection measures. Based on the review, an integrated framework for mitigation of fire hazards is proposed. The proposed framework involves enhancement of fire safety in four key areas: fire protection features in buildings, regulation and enforcement, consumer awareness and technology and resources advancement. Detailed strategies on improving fire safety in buildings in these four key areas are presented, and future research and training needs are identified.

Current fire protection measures lead to an unquantified level of fire safety in buildings, provide minimal strategies to mitigate fire hazard and do not account for contemporary fire hazard issues. Implementing key measures that include reliable fire protection systems, proper regulation and enforcement of building code provisions, enhancement of public awareness and proper use of technology and resources is key to mitigating fire hazard in buildings. Major research and training required to improve fire safety in buildings include developing cost-effective fire suppression systems and rational fire design approaches, characterizing new materials and developing performance-based codes.

The proposed framework encompasses both prevention and management of fire hazard. To demonstrate the applicability of this framework in improving fire safety in buildings, major limitations of current fire protection measures are identified, and detailed strategies are provided to address these limitations using proposed fire safety framework.

Fire represents a severe hazard in both developing and developed countries and poses significant threat to life, structure, property and environment. The proposed framework has social implications as it addresses some of the current challenges relating to fire hazard in buildings and will enhance overall fire safety.

The novelty of proposed framework lies in encompassing both prevention and management of fire hazard. This is unlike current fire safety improvement strategies, which focus only on improving fire protection features in buildings (i.e. managing impact of fire hazard) using performance-based codes. To demonstrate the applicability of this framework in improving fire safety in buildings, major limitations of current fire protection measures are identified and detailed strategies are provided to address these limitations using proposed fire safety framework. Special emphasis is given to cost-effectiveness of proposed strategies, and research and training needs for further enhancing building fire safety are identified.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of awareness and beliefs on college students’ preparedness for earthquake risks in Lebanon.

A questionnaire was used to investigate Lebanese college students’ (n=901) perceptions and preparedness for earthquake hazards. Three factors were assessed to determine students’ disaster preparedness (DP): hazard and vulnerability awareness (HVA), fatalistic beliefs (FB) and denial beliefs (DB).

The findings indicate an above average level of earthquake HVA among college students. Although the results do not reflect a high tendency towards DB, participants showed some inclinations to FB. Multiple regression showed that earthquake HVA plays the most important role in determining earthquake preparedness while denial and FB have a negative effect on DP. Fatalism is embedded in Middle Eastern societies, so higher education institutions are urged to increase the preparation knowledge of college students.

This study offers a discussion of the interaction of awareness and belief factors and their effects on vulnerable communities.

The lack of studies about the relevance of disaster awareness factors and disaster evacuation as a part of disaster responses especially for fire cases in an academic environment in Indonesia has triggered this study to explore the disaster awareness factors and evacuation experiment without emergency alarm for case study students in the classroom. The relevance of disaster awareness factors in transforming into practical action and decision in a disaster evacuation need to be examined to study the relevance of both phases in disaster.

This research conducted a quantitative approach by studying questionnaires from 162 respondents collectively divided into five groups to examine the student disaster awareness factors randomly from those groups. The qualitative approach was implemented through the evacuation experiments that were conducted twice to analyze the disaster evacuation performance. The analysis for the relevance is conducted by comparing the result of the questionnaire study and the evacuation experiment.

According to the questionnaire study, generally, the students are highly confident with their hazard knowledge in disaster awareness except that half of them are doubtful about appropriate steps in a disaster. The experiment without explosive sound showed that they have slower responses in the critical moment of evacuation. The response in the experiments showed relevance with several disaster awareness factors

This study has explored the relevance of disaster awareness factors with disaster response in a campus building. In the part of reducing risk during fire disaster, this research shows the importance of social interaction and hazard knowledge during the disaster.

The improvement of disaster evacuation procedures and training in a campus building is mandatory to reduce disaster risk based on the relevance of disaster awareness factors and disaster response in this study.

This study measures the relevance of disaster awareness factors performance of the students by comparing it to their actions and decisions in an experimental setting of fire building. The disaster awareness factor performance was measured by a questionnaire survey while the experiments were deployed to observe the performance of their actions and decisions during evacuation as part of the disaster response phase.

The purposes of this article are to outline the existing seismic risk in Lebanon and to identify the crucial role of Lebanese school education in advancing both a culture of safety and the resilience of Lebanese communities to destructive earthquakes.

This paper sets out to illustrate the exposure of Lebanon to seismic hazards and to investigate the current status of Lebanese public schools in terms of their preparedness for earthquake events. Interviews were conducted with principals from 17 different schools. From these interviews emerged the following four themes: curriculum deficiency, the structural vulnerability of school buildings, a lack of preparedness for natural hazards and the need for community engagement in this regard.

School principals in Lebanon confirmed the need for schools to engage in earthquake disaster preparedness and mitigation, as well as to show an enthusiastic attitude for earthquake hazard reduction in terms of hazard education, greater preparedness and community engagement.

As this article highlights the important role of school education in promoting earthquake disaster risk reduction, it has beneficial implications for educators, policymakers, administrators and government officials.

The paper aims to examine one local government’s efforts to increase local-level engagement in building community disaster resilience. Presenting the empirical evidence of stakeholder engagement activities that increase risk awareness and encourage collective action, the study addresses a key priority for the Post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (Hyogo Framework for Action 2) to identify methods for increasing local-level implementation of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

A qualitative, case study approach is used to explore the case in depth. A review of literature from the multidisciplinary areas of communication, social and political theory frames data collection and analysis. Data collection includes observation, document analysis and interviews with policymakers, practitioners and local stakeholders to document achievements and lessons learnt from all perspectives.

Preliminary results indicate that strong political leadership and inter-departmental coordination have contributed to engaging local-level participation in disaster risk reduction in the Municipality of Amadora, Portugal. Findings indicate that the implementation of a wide spectrum of public engagement initiatives has increased awareness of hazard risks amongst specific demographic groups and improved community and government capacity to identify and implement risk reduction strategies.

As this study is a work-in-progress and data analysis is in the early stages, interview transcripts included in this paper are limited to members of the team and their Director, Amadora Town Councillor for Civil Protection Services.

It is commonly acknowledged that to date, achievements of the Hyogo Framework for Action 2010-2015 largely remain at the national level and have not reached local levels in a substantial manner. Addressing the need for more industry-led research to explore examples of successful stakeholder participation, the paper’s findings can be used by emergency management practitioners who recognise the need to merge climate change adaptation, risk reduction and local-level engagement to encourage public participation, inclusiveness and proactive planning.

Co-authored by an Australian academic and a member of Amadora’s Campaign Team, the paper is a combination of empirical data from one city’s practical experience to develop and implement communication strategies in developing and implementing strategies to build community disaster resilience, analysed within a framework of communication, social and political theory.