Major hazard prevention is a main challenge given that it is specifically based on information communicated to the public. In France, preventive information is notably provided by way of local regulatory documents. Unfortunately, the law requires only few specifications concerning their content; therefore one can question the impact on the general population relative to the way the document is concretely created. Ergo, the purpose of our work is to propose an analytical methodology to evaluate preventive risk communication document effectiveness. The methodology is based on dependability approaches and is applied in this paper to the Document d'Information Communal sur les Risques Majeurs (DICRIM; in English, Municipal Information Document on Major Risks). DICRIM has to be made by mayors and addressed to the public to provide information on major hazards affecting their municipalities. An analysis of law compliance of the document is carried out thanks to the identification of regulatory detection elements. These are applied to a database of 30 DICRIMs. This analysis leads to a discussion on points such as usefulness of the missing elements. External and internal function analysis permits the identification of the form and content requirements and service and technical functions of the document and its components (here its sections). Their results are used to carry out an FMEA (failure modes and effects analysis), which allows us to define the failure and to identify detection elements. This permits the evaluation of the effectiveness of form and content of each components of the document. The outputs are validated by experts from the different fields investigated. Those results are obtained to build, in future works, a decision support model for the municipality (or specialised consulting firms) in charge of drawing up documents.

Abstract.Major hazard prevention is a main challenge given than it's particularly based on information communicated to the general public. In France, preventive information is provided by the way of a regulatory document named DICRIM (In French "Document d'Information Communal sur les Risques Majeurs" that 10 means in English "Municipal Information Document on Major Risks"). It is made by mayors and addressed to the public in order to provide information on major hazards affecting their municipalities. Unfortunately, the law imposes only few specifications concerning its content therefore one can question the impact on the general population relative to the way it is concretely realized. Ergo, the purpose of our work is to propose an analytical methodology to evaluate preventive risk communication effectiveness and apply it to the DICRIM. The 15 methodology is based on dependability approaches. EFA (External Functional Analysis) permits the identification of (i) the service and technical functions involved, and (ii) the form, content and regulatory constraints of a DICRIM. FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis) is used to define the dysfunctions and detection elements are then listed to evaluate conformity with the 3 types of constraint. The outputs are validated by experts from the different fields investigated. Those results are obtained in order to build in future works a 20 decision support model for the municipality (or specialized consulting firms) in charge of drawing up documents. The method is applied to a database of 30 DICRIMs. This analysis leads to a discussion on points such as usefulness of the elements missing.

We sincerely thank the referee Mr K Serrhini for his review of our paper and his relevant remarks. Please find below a point-by-point reply to your questions. We hope that our responses will agree with your thinks: (Your question is reported with a Q and our response with a R) Q-In this work, the FMEA failures are concretely identified & characterized by a binary (0, 1) criteria (detections elements) approach leading to a global score for each Dicirm.R-Only regulatory compliance detection elements are characterized by a binary criteria C1