Assessing tsunami hazard risk awareness and evacuation intentions of highly exposed remote rural coastal communities: A Wairarapa, New Zealand case study
- Author
- Evans, A.
- Year
- 2022
- Journal / Source
- MSc in disaster Risk and Resilience
- Publisher / Organisation
- University of Canterbury
- Pages
- 264 pp
- Summary
- A total of 415 surveys were distributed to Wairarapa rural communities: Riversdale Beach, Castlepoint, Lake Ferry and Cape Palliser areas, with 87 in total returned (21% response rate). Several key findings were identified from the results of the survey. The positive impact that the recent implementation of tsunami blue lines had on awareness and evacuation intentions was evident throughout the survey responses. However, preparedness appeared to be relatively low, and three key findings of concern were identified from the survey results, including: • Almost half of the respondents (49%, n = 38) thought they would have ten or more minutes available to move to safety from a tsunami, meaning this portion of respondents did not intend to evacuate within the recommended ten-minute natural warning evacuation threshold for local source tsunami. This suggests that there is a heightened risk to life for this group in a local source tsunami event. • Awareness of natural warnings for local tsunami events was higher than it had been in existing studies (73%, n = 58). However, the level of awareness is still inadequate given the life safety risk that is posed by not recognising natural warning signs. This was coupled with an ongoing reliance on official warnings, particularly tsunami sirens(61%, n = 49), for local source tsunami events. • There is an ongoing reliance on vehicles for evacuation in local source tsunami (72%, n = 56), suggesting that many respondents had not considered the risk of traffic gridlocks and congestion in these small rural communities when there are population influxes during the summer months.