Testing the public’s response to receiving severe flood warnings using simulated cell broadcast

European Governments must implement a public alerting system to reach mobile phone users affected by major emergencies and disasters by June 2022. Cell Broadcast is used to issue emergency alerts in several countries but has not yet been introduced in the UK. This paper presents the results of a joi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Natural hazards (Dordrecht) 2022-06, Vol.112 (2), p.1611-1631
Main Authors: Smith, Kate R., Grant, Silvia, Thomas, Robert E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cellular telephones
Civil Engineering
Coronaviruses
Disaster management
Disasters
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Emergencies
Environmental Management
Environmental risk
Flood risk
Flood warnings
Floods
Geophysics/Geodesy
Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences
Hydrogeology
Natural Hazards
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Summary:European Governments must implement a public alerting system to reach mobile phone users affected by major emergencies and disasters by June 2022. Cell Broadcast is used to issue emergency alerts in several countries but has not yet been introduced in the UK. This paper presents the results of a joint research exercise that explored recipients’ responses to cell broadcast messages that warned of floods of varying certainty, severity, and urgency. We adopted a mixed-methods approach employing semi-structured questions and focus groups to assess the perceptions of 80 workshop participants who received simulated emergency alerts on pre-prepared handsets. Our results suggest that although emergency alerting is welcomed, it is necessary to provide accurate and verifiable information, address accessibility challenges, and state location clearly and understandably. This life-saving technology, if used aptly by not over-alerting, specifying the specific urgency, certainty, severity and location of the flood risk, has the real potential of upgrading flood warnings in the UK.
ISSN:0921-030X
1573-0840
DOI:10.1007/s11069-022-05241-x