Abstract
Drowning on rocky coasts is a problem with global significance, but it is a particularly acute issue in Australia where rocky coasts account for 19% of coastal drownings. The risk of drowning is often framed as a consequence of waves washing over shore platforms, which sweep unsuspecting victims into the sea. Although the physical processes of ‘wave overtopping’ are understood, few studies have investigated which elements of shore platform environments are perceived as being hazardous. Using coastal regions of Victoria, Australia, as the case, this study explores how Victoria’s lifesaving community perceives risk on shore platforms. These perceptions are then compared to quantitative risk ratings to analyse whether physical risk assessments designed by coastal risk experts align with lifesavers’ perceptions. Lifesavers are non-certified risk ‘experts’, whose safety training and exposure to hazardous situations inform their ‘experiential-expertise’, which is contrasted with the more common quantitative and science-based ‘expert’ risk assessments. The aim is to explore lifesavers perceptions of risk and to contrast two different ‘expert’ constructions of risk; one of which is experience based and the other a more traditional quantitative output of modelling. Exploration of this type of ‘expert’–expert hazard contrast is lacking with a management focus on lay perceptions. To understand how lifesavers perceive risk on shore platforms, the authors explore risk as relational. This conceptual approach takes an important first step towards thinking about risk as more than the simple combination of physical wave overtopping process and social perceptions. Instead, it seeks to understand the socio-environmental interactions that are perceived as hazardous. Data for this analysis were collected via an online questionnaire of Surf Life Saving Australia membership whose patrols are within 1 km of a shore platform in Victoria, Australia (n = 4683). By thinking about risk as relational, ‘slipping’ emerges as an under-explored hazard on shore platforms, despite being the main contributor to how lifesavers, themselves, unintentionally entered the sea. This study shows that the prevailing way of framing risk—perpetuated by the media and expert risk models—is often divorced from how risk is perceived by ‘experiential-experts’. This suggests coastal risk policy needs to integrate perceptions of the socio-environmental interactions that produce risk with the aim of accommodating the relational ways people perceive risk on shore platforms.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams J (1995) Risk. Routledge, London
Adger WN, Dessai S, Goulden M, Hulme M, Lorenzoni I, Nelson DR, Naess LO, Wolf J, Wreford A (2009) Are there social limits to adaptation to climate change? Clim Change 93:335–354
Aven T, Renn O (2009) On risk defined as an event where the outcome is uncertain. J Risk Res 12:1–11
Ballantyne R, Carr N, Hughes K (2005) Between the flags: an assessment of domestic and international university students’ knowledge of beach safety in Australia. Tour Manag 26:617–622
Barnett J, Breakwell GM (2001) Risk perception and experience: hazard personality profiles and individual differences. Risk Anal 21:171–178
Beetham EP, Kench PS (2011) Field observations of infragravity waves and their behaviour on rock shore platforms. Earth Surf Proc Landf 36:1872–1888
Birch WD (2003) Geology of Victoria, Melbourne, Special Edition 23: Geological society of Australia
Boholm A (1998) Comparative studies of risk perception: a review of twenty years of research. J Risk Res 1:135–163
Bradstreet A, Sherker S, Brighton B, Weir A, Thompson M (2012) Research review of rock fishing safety in New South Wales: a report by Surf Life Saving Australia to the NSW Department of Primary Industries. Surf Life Saving Australia, Sydney
Brander R, Bradstreet A, Sherker S, MacMahan J (2011) Responses of swimmers caught in rip currents: perspectives on mitigating the global rip current hazard. Int J Aquat Res Educ 5:476–482
Brannstrom C, Trimble S, Santos A, Brown HL, Houser C (2014) Perception of the rip current hazard on Galveston Island and North Padre Island, Texas, USA. Nat Hazards 72:1123–1138
Brewer F (2014) The search continues for a missing fisherman who was swept off a remote rock platform during dangerous surf conditions at Seal Rocks yesterday http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/05/08/4000335.htm. Accessed 14 Apr 2016
Brighton B, Sherker S, Brander R, Thompson M, Bradstreet A (2013) Rip current related drowning deaths and rescues in Australia 2004–2011. Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 13:1069–1075
Castree N (2003) Environmental issues: relational ontologies and hybrid politics. Prog Hum Geogr 27:203–211
Christian B (2015) Malaysian man’s death off WA coast from freak wave accident sparks call for more warning signs. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-22/inquest-into-malaysian-mans-drowning-death-from-wave-wa-coast/7049124. Accessed 14 May 2016
Coroner NDS (2015) Coroners Court New South Wales: inquest into rock fishers deaths. Coroners Court New South Wales, Glebe
Dolan P, Hallsworth M, Halpern D, King D, Vlaev I (2014) Influencing behaviour: the mindspace way. J Econ Psychol 33:264–277
Donovan AR, Oppenheimer C (2015) Modelling risk and risking models: the diffusive boundary between science and policy in volcanic risk management. Geoforum 58:153–165
Drozdzewski D, Shaw W, Dominey-Howes D, Brander R, Walton T, Gero A, Sherker S, Goff J, Edwick B (2012) Surveying rip current survivors: preliminary insights into the experiences of being caught in rip currents. Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 12:1201–1211
Drozdzewski D, Roberts A, Dominey-Howes D, Brander R (2015) The experiences of weak and non-swimmers caught in rip currents at Australian beaches. Aust Geogr 46:15–32
Fenner P (2005) Surf life saving Australia. S Pac Underw Med Soc 35:33–43
Fischhoff B, Slovic P, Lichtenstein S (1982) Lay foibles and expert fables in judgments about risk. Am Stat 36:240–255
Flynn J, Slovic P, Mertz CK (1994) Gender, race, and perception of environmental health risks. Risk Anal 14:1101–1108
Gallop SL, Woodward E, Brander RW, Pitman SJ (2016) Perceptions of rip current myths from the central south coast of England. Ocean Coast Manag 119:14–20
Hatfield J, Williamson A, Sherker S, Brander R, Hayen A (2012) Development and evaluation of an intervention to reduce rip current related beach drowning. Accid Anal Prev 46:45–51
Horlick-Jones T, Sime J (2004) Living on the border: knowledge, risk and transdisciplinarity. Futures 36:441–456
Hughes MG, Heap AD (2010) National-scale wave energy resource assessment for Australia. Renew Energy 35:1783–1791
Hunjan R (2016) Sydney missing rock fisherman search is a ‘body recovery mission’, police say. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-18/police-search-for-body-rock-fisherman-swept-off-kurnell-rocks/7257020. Accessed 24 May 2016
Ingold T (1993) The temporality of the landscape. World Archaeol 25:152–174
Ingold T (2000) The perception of the environment: essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. Psychology Press, London
Jasanoff S (1998) The political science of risk perception. Reliab Eng Syst Saf 59:91–99
Jasanoff S (2004) States of knowledge: the co-production of science and the social order. Routledge, London
Jones M (2003) Investigation into the coronial files of rock fishing fatalities that have occurred in New South Wales between 1992 and 2000. NSW Water Safety Taskforce, Sydney
Jutson JT (1953) The shore platforms of Lorne, Victoria, and the processes of erosion operating thereon. In: Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 1953, pp 125–134
Kagi J, O’Conner K (2016) Fisherman swept off rocks at Salmon Holes black spot near Albany amid bad weather. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-26/search-suspended-man-swept-off-rocks-at-salmon-holes-albany-wa/7360508. Accessed 29 Apr 2016
Kasperson RE, Renn O, Slovic P, Brown HS, Emel J, Goble R, Kasperson JX, Ratick S (1988) The social amplification of risk: a conceptual framework. Risk Anal 8:177–187
Kennedy DM, Milkins J (2015) The formation of beaches on shore platforms in microtidal environments. Earth Surf Proc Landf 40:34–46
Kennedy DM, Sherker S, Brighton B, Weir A, Woodroffe CD (2013) Rocky coast hazards and public safety: moving beyond the beach in coastal risk management. Ocean Coast Manag 82:85–94
Kennedy DM, Ierodiaconou D, Weir A, Brighton B (2017) Wave hazards on microtidal shore platforms: testing the relationship between morphology and exposure. Nat Hazards 2:741–755
Krippendorff K (2012) Content analysis: an introduction to its methodology. Sage Publications, London
Kuhn TS (1962) The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Manson SM (2001) Simplifying complexity: a review of complexity theory. Geoforum 32:405–414
McCarroll RJ, Brander RW, MacMahan JH, Turner IL, Reniers AJ, Brown JA, Bradstreet A, Sherker S (2014) Evaluation of swimmer-based rip current escape strategies. Nat Hazards 71:1821–1846
Mitchell RJ, Ware L, Bambach MR (2014) The role of evidence, standards and education in rock fishing safety in New South Wales, Australia. Aust N Z J Public Health 38:579–584
Moran K (2008) Rock-based fishers’ perceptions and practice of water safety. Int J Aquat Res Educ 2:128–139
Moran K (2011) Rock-based fisher safety promotion: five years on. Int J Aquat Res Educ 5:164–173
Moran K (2017) Rock-based fisher safety promotion: a decade on. Int J Aquat Res Educ 10:1
Moran K, Willcox S (2013) Water safety practices and perceptions of ‘new’ New Zealanders. Int J Educ 7:136–146
Newman SM, Carroll MS, Jakes PJ, Williams DR, Higgins LL (2014) Earth, wind, and fire: wildfire risk perceptions in a hurricane-prone environment. Soc Nat Resour 27:1161–1176
Östberg O (1980) Risk perception and work behaviour in forestry: implications for accident prevention policy. Accid Anal Prev 12:189–200
Otway H, Thomas K (1982) Reflections on risk perception and policy. Risk Anal 2:69–82
Paton D, Smith LM, Johnston D (2000) Volcanic hazards: risk perception and preparedness. N Z J Psychol 29:86–91
Petts J, Owens S, Bulkeley H (2008) Crossing boundaries: interdisciplinarity in the context of urban environments. Geoforum 39:593–601
Poloni G, O’Conner K (2016) Salmon holes: body of Afghan national recovered after being swept off Great Southern coast. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-27/body-found-salmon-holes-wa-fisherman-swept-off-rocks/7361206. Accessed 29 Apr 2016
Renn O (1998) The role of risk perception for risk management. Reliab Eng Syst Saf 59:49–62
Renn O (2008) Risk governance: coping with uncertainty in a complex world. Earthscan Publications, London
Renn O, Klinke A, van Asselt M (2011) Coping with complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity in risk governance: a synthesis. Ambio 40:231–246
Richardson B, Sorensen J, Soderstrom EJ (1987) Explaining the social and psychological impacts of a nuclear power plant accident. J Appl Soc Psychol 17:16–36
Shand TD, Peirson WL, Cox RJ, Banner ML (2009) Predicting hazardous conditions on coastal rock platforms. Coasts and ports 2009: in a dynamic environment. http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=864205448694665;res=IELENG
Shaw WS, Goff J, Brander R, Walton T, Roberts A, Sherker S (2014) Surviving the surf zone: towards more integrated rip current geographies. Appl Geogr 54:54–62
Sherker S, Williamson A, Hatfield J, Brander R, Hayen A (2010) Beachgoers’ beliefs and behaviours in relation to beach flags and rip currents. Accid Anal Prev 42:1785–1804
Shire SC (2016) Visitor insights 2016. Surf Coast Shire. www.surfcoast.vic.gov.au
Sjöberg L (2000) Factors in risk perception. Risk Anal 20:1–12
Starr C (1969) Social benefit versus technological risk. Science 165:1232–1238
Surf Life Saving Australia (2013a) Silver medallion aquatic rescue. Surf Life Saving Australia. http://www.sawtellsurfclub.com.au/ckfinder/userfiles/files/Learner%20Guide%20(SMAR).pdf. Retrieved 5 Apr 2015
Surf Life Saving Australia (2013b) Surf life saving safety. SLSA website. lifesaving.com.edu. Accessed 04 May 2015
Surf Life Saving Australia (2015) 2015 national coastal safety report. Australia, Sydney
Tsai C-H, Su M-Y, Huang S-J (2004) Observations and conditions for occurrence of dangerous coastal waves. Ocean Eng 31:745–760
Wachinger G, Renn O, Begg C, Kuhlicke C (2013) The risk perception paradox—implications for governance and communication of natural hazards. Risk Anal 33:1049–1065
Williamson A, Hatfield J, Sherker S, Brander R, Hayen A (2012) A comparison of attitudes and knowledge of beach safety in Australia for beachgoers, rural residents and international tourists. Aust N Z J Public Health 36:385–391
Acknowledgements
This project is funded by the Australian Research Council Linkage Program (LP130100204). We thank the Department of Environment and Primary Industries coordinated imagery programme for access to the georegistered aerial photography and the Future Coasts Program for access to the LiDAR data.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kamstra, P., Cook, B., Kennedy, D.M. et al. Treating risk as relational on shore platforms and implications for public safety on microtidal rocky coasts. Nat Hazards 91, 1299–1316 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-018-3184-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-018-3184-4