A reflection about the social and technological aspects in flood risk management – the case of the Italian Civil Protection

Abstract

Abstract. The right of a person to be protected from natural hazards is a characteristic of the social and economical development of the society. This paper is a contribution to the reflection about the role of Civil Protection organizations in a modern society. The paper is based in the inaugural conference made by the authors on the 9th Plinius Conference on Mediterranean Storms. Two major issues are considered. The first one is sociological; the Civil Protection organizations and the responsible administration of the land use planning should be perceived as reliable as possible, in order to get consensus on the restrictions they pose, temporary or definitely, on the individual free use of the territory as well as in the entire warning system. The second one is technological: in order to be reliable they have to issue timely alert and warning to the population at large, but such alarms should be as "true" as possible. With this aim, the paper summarizes the historical evolution of the risk assessment, starting from the original concept of "hazard", introducing the concepts of "scenario of event" and "scenario of risk" and ending with a discussion about the uncertainties and limits of the most advanced and efficient tools to predict, to forecast and to observe the ground effects affecting people and their properties.

Flash floods in Catalonia: a recurrent situation

“…Following these previous works and trying to build an integrated approximation to the different scenarios of flood risk (Llasat and Siccardi, 2010), Llasat (2009) has proposed a qualitative floods classification, taking into account the main characteristics of the precipitation event, size and slope of catchments, and the potential impact of the floods. The last objective of a classification like this is giving synthetic information useful for Civil Protection.…”

Flood warnings in coastal areas: how do experience and information influence responses to alert services?

“…We registered the presence of common failures that can be related to how vulnerability is treated in society. Even if we assume that forecasting problems exist, as shown in the literature (Llasat and Siccardi, 2010), we found that the contextualization of warnings can critically modify the effects of the technical instruments upon the community. We believe that many relationships present points of interest for scholars, but we would like to highlight the following points in particular:…”

“…On the other hand, technical elements of warnings, such as those related to organization or monitoring, often prevail in literature. Llasat and Siccardi (2010) proposed a means of integrating the social and technological aspects and increasing the effectiveness of flood risk management. These authors argued that for a modern civil protection service, a particular challenge is how to improve the reliability of warning systems, which in the Mediterranean can still be affected by technological uncertainties inherent in the forecasting and prediction processes.…”

Brief Communication: The dark side of risk and crisis communication: legal conflicts and responsibility allocation

“…Among other factors, this trend highlights the need to find better ways of protecting the rights and interests of risk-emergency managers, as well as those of the communities at risk, the victims of disasters and their relatives (del Carmen Llasat and Siccardi, 2010). The problem is that the protection of different groups may often generate clashes of rights and interests.…”

“…In addition to this, further legal, economic, and social consequences, such as legal conflicts and trials, increased damage to buildings or infrastructures due to missing information, inadequate individual and community preparedness due to lack of information etc., should not be underestimated (del Carmen Llasat and Siccardi, 2010). As already mentioned above, the focus of this work is on the legal consequences, which often influence the attitudes and behaviours of local authorities and civil protection officers.…”