Effects of Environmental Cues and Informal and Official Warnings on Protective Action Decision Making: A Case Study for Earthquakes and Tsunamis in the Indian Ocean

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The objective of this research study is to translate the results of an earlier Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) award (BCS-0522301, HSD SGER: Factors Affecting Behavioral Response to Natural Warning Signs of Tsunami: the Case Study of the December 26, 2004 Earthquake) to a robust longitudinal study to provide greater insight into people?s social-cognitive processing of information related to environmental cues and warnings and corresponding protective action behavior. Very few social science studies had investigated human response to tsunamis? environmental cues and informal and official warnings before the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, but the largest and most comprehensive study was conducted in Thailand in the months afterward by NSF SGER award BCS-0522301. The SGER showed that the high death toll from the 2004 tsunami was not due to a lack of warning, but to people?s inability to accurately interpret and act on information that was available to them before the tsunami impacted the shore. The information included diverse environmental cues and informal warnings at differing time scales. For example, the SGER showed that environmental cues and informal warnings provided enough forewarning for most people to survive in 2004, as some 74 percent of tsunami survivors in Thailand noticed the shoreline recession or unusual waves and currents up to 15minutes before the first wave crest hit the shore. However, these cues did NOT trigger appropriate behavior, as 65 percent saw many people in the danger zone, watching the sea, when the first crest arrived! Similar behavior was recorded in nearly every tsunami-affected country. This project will study the current situation in Thailand and aspects of the 2004 and 2005 events there. First, the SGER respondents (N=663) will be re-interviewed to test whether the Protective Action Decision Model (PADM; Lindell and Perry, 2004) can predict response to environmental cues and warnings in 2010. A separate but parallel study focuses on understanding aspects of disaster memory in this population. The goal is to improve fundamental understanding of the links between environmental cues and warnings and response and to develop improved predictive models and educational materials. No behavioral model has been tested for tsunamis but the SGER data provide the best starting point. The PADM has proven successful in predicting response to other hazards in the US, but is untested elsewhere. Demonstrating the utility of the PADM, developed for a Western society, in an Eastern (Asian) society would add greatly to its utility. Likewise, understanding the occurrence, order and timing of environmental cues, warnings and response in diverse settings during 2004 and how memory of the event has changed will help identify root causes of many deaths across space and time as the 2004 disaster unfolded. This is important because tsunamis will continue to threaten both residents and visitors in swelling coastal populations worldwide. Through improved understanding of how society interfaced with the 2004 disaster and recalls memory of it now (five years later), real change can be created in how and what information should be communicated. Moreover, these methods can be replicated for other hazards. This research is critical to help build coastal community resilience to tsunamis in the US and elsewhere and it addresses the fact that an effective tsunami warning system must reflect the social dynamics associated with environmental cues and informal warnings in addition to official warnings. Findings will be widely disseminated through print publications, the Web and used to frame effective education programs preparing communities for future tsunamis.