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Testing the use of a ‘questionnaire survey instrument’ to investigate public perceptions of tsunami hazard and risk in Sydney, Australia

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Abstract

The Indian Ocean tsunami (IOT) of December 2004 has demonstrated that the coasts of Australia are vulnerable to tsunami flooding. As a consequence of the IOT, the Australian Federal Treasurer announced in 2005 that the Bureau of Meteorology and Geoscience Australia will jointly develop and implement the Australian Tsunami Warning System. Effective response to tsunami warnings is highly dependent on public awareness and perception of tsunami hazard and risk. At present, no efforts have been made to investigate and publish public awareness of tsunami hazard and risk and as such, emergency managers have little idea of the likely challenges to effecting appropriate tsunami risk management. We develop a short questionnaire survey instrument and trial that instrument in order to investigate its suitability for generating information about the perceptions of tsunami hazard and risk in the Sydney region. We found that the design, layout and format of the questionnaire were suitable for our purpose and should be useful for generating information appropriate to emergency management agencies tasked with the responsibility of developing tsunami education campaigns and risk mitigation strategies in Australia. However, certain limitations, such as individual question design and format, should be considered before a much larger survey of various stakeholders is conducted.

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Geoff Withycombe, Executive Officer of the Sydney Coastal Councils Group Inc for introductions to Council Officers. All participants are thanked for their willingness to be involved in this study. Keping Chen from Risk Frontiers is thanked for providing the data used to construct Fig. 2. Kevin McCracken from the Department of Human Geography, Macquarie University is thanked for guidance on using the ABS data. We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the journal Editor for very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physical Geography, Macquarie University, North Ryde, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia

    Deanne Bird

  2. Risk Management Research Group, School of Safety Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, Australia

    Dale Dominey-Howes

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  1. Deanne Bird
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  2. Dale Dominey-Howes
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Correspondence to Deanne Bird.

Appendix

Appendix

Survey Questionnaire:

‘Public perception of tsunami risk in the Sydney region’

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Bird, D., Dominey-Howes, D. Testing the use of a ‘questionnaire survey instrument’ to investigate public perceptions of tsunami hazard and risk in Sydney, Australia. Nat Hazards 45, 99–122 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-007-9172-8

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