Amato, Alessandro

This study focuses on the risks that tourists would face during a tsunami on the island of Stromboli and discusses how to best inform and prepare them. Tsunamis affect coastal regions, where many of these are leisure destinations for tourists who often don't have adequate knowledge of the region's risks. Due to their proximity to the affected areas, nearsource or local tsunamis usually allow for a limited warning time, posing great challenges to the planning of effective risk mitigation action. Furthermore, tourist populations have a particular significance in studies on risk perception, since their needs intersect with those of the local population and must be taken into account. To gather key knowledge for developing robust risk communication strategies, a survey (n = 699) was conducted between July and October 2023 to assess tourists' risk perception and preparedness. The findings indicate that tourists often misdescribe tsunamis, leading to underestimation of the security threats posed by smaller events and revealing shortcomings in current communication approaches. Given the tourism industry practices on the island, effective communication strategies for tourists should prioritize providing comprehensive information within the first 24 h of their arrival. Furthermore, given the high percentage of tourists who visit the island for a few hours and within certain time slots, we invite the authorities to provide this information before disembarking on the island.

In questa relazione vengono descritte le attività principali svolte nel 2023 relativamente ai diversi canali web istituzionali e alla piattaforma INGVterremoti, fornendo anche, ove possibile, dati statistici utili per la valutazione.

In questo report vengono descritte le attività principali svolte nel 2022 relativamente ai diversi canali web istituzionali e alla piattaforma INGVterremoti, fornendo anche, ove possibile, dati statisticiutili per la valutazione.

The Tsunami Alert Centre of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (CAT-INGV) has been promoting, since 2018, the study of tsunami risk perception in Italy. Between 2018 and 2021 a semi-structured questionnaire on the perception of tsunami risk was administered to a sample of 5842 citizens residing in 450 Italian coastal municipalities, representative of more than 12 million people. The survey was conducted with the computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) methodology, described in Cerase et al. (2019), who published the results of the first pilot survey (about 1000 interviews). The large sample and the socio-demographic stratification give an excellent representation of the resident population in the surveyed Italian coastal municipalities. Moreover, in 2021 an optimized version of the questionnaire was also administered via Telepanel (a tool for collecting proportional and representative opinions of citizens) that was representative of the Italian population and included 1500 people distributed throughout the country. In this work we present the main results of the three survey phases, with a comparison among the eight surveyed regions and between the coastal regions and some coastal metropolitan cities involved in the investigations (Rome, Naples, Bari, Reggio Calabria, and Catania). Data analysis reveals heterogeneous and generally low tsunami risk perception. Some seaside populations, in fact, show a good perception of tsunami risk, while others, such as in Apulia and Molise, reveal a lower perception, most likely due to the long time elapsed since the last event and lack of memory. We do not find relevant differences related to the socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender) of the sample, whereas the education degree appears to affect people's perception. The survey shows that the respondents' predominant source of information on tsunamis is the television and other media sources (such as newspapers, books, films, internet), while the official sources (e.g., civil protection, local authorities, universities and research institutes) do not contribute significantly. Also, we find an interesting difference in people's understanding of the words tsunami and maremoto, the local term commonly used in Italy until the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman event, which should be taken into account in scientific and risk communication. The Telepanel survey, based on a nationwide sample, highlights a lower level of tsunami risk perception in comparison to average risk perception levels found in the coastal-municipality sample. Our results are being used to drive our communication strategy aimed at reducing tsunami risk in Italy, to activate dissemination and educational programs (data driven), to fill the data gap on tsunami risk perception in the North-Eastern Atlantic, Mediterranean and connected seas (NEAM) area, and to implement multilevel civil protection actions (national and local, top-down and bottom-up). Not least, outputs can address a better development of the UNESCO Tsunami Ready program in Italy.

Large-scale coastal urban sprawl, development of tourist accommodations and industrial maritime poles have highly increased the tsunami risk to people living and/or traveling along the coasts of our planet. The disastrous tsunamis in the Indian Ocean (2004) and in the Pacific Ocean (2011), as well as a suite of other damaging events worldwide, have encouraged International Institutions, first of all UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, National Governments and Local Communities to implement Tsunami Warning Systems (TWS), to raise awareness on tsunami risk, and to create a multilevel risk governance. In this framework, research on tsunami risk perception plays a key role. The results of these studies should be taken into account in designing risk mitigation programs and tools (such as drills, activities with local communities, emergency plans, etc.). This paper presents a review of such studies, carried out in several countries worldwide through many thousands of interviews performed with different techniques. Most tsunami risk perception studies were carried out in the regions where the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System and the Pacific Ocean one (PTWS) operate. In the NEAMTWS (North-East Atlantic, Mediterranean and connected seas Tsunami Warning Systems) region, only few specific studies were conducted, mostly within the EU-funded ASTARTE project (2013–2017) and more recently in a few extensive surveys on tsunami risk perception conducted in Italy between 2019 and 2021. Although the twenty-three studies analyzed in our review show a strong heterogeneity of methodological approaches and population samples, they allow us to outline some general considerations on tsunami risk as perceived by people in the different regions of the world. With the help of a table, we schematically summarized the emerging strengths, weaknesses and lessons learned in the twenty-three papers, noting an increase in the number of such studies in the last 5 years. The surveys were mostly concentrated in high-risk areas and focused on local residents. Some differences emerged depending on the memory of past tsunamis, education level, and local cultures. This provides useful hints for sound citizen-based tsunami risk reduction actions, including improved risk communication aimed at increasing the resilience of tsunami-prone populations. The need for increasing the assessment of tourists’ tsunami risk perception, and for a more homogeneous survey strategy also emerge from our analysis.

Communicating scientific information about earthquakes is an important and delicate issue in countries like Italy, where seismic risk is high. Furthermore, continuous and scientifically sound communication is needed, especially in recent times when social media have amplified the risk of being biased by misinformation, fake news and conspiracy theories. For this reason, we have developed a communication strategy for earthquake science and risk in Italy, mostly based on social media. The INGVterremoti platform was born between 2010 and 2012 with the goal of increasing scientific information released to the public, and also establishing a two-way communication channel between scientists and citizens. In the past 12 years, the INGVterremoti platform has gained trust and popularity, increasing the number of involved people, which amounts today to several hundred thousand. The platform consists of a coordinated suite of social media channels and a blog-magazine, where updates on ongoing earthquake sequences and posts on scientific topics are continuously published. Our end users are mostly citizens, but also authorities and media. Special attention has been given to interactions with the public, especially on our Facebook page, in order to understand their information needs, identify rumors and fake news, particularly in areas affected by seismic sequences, and address the most pressing requests. In this paper we describe the INGVterremoti strategy, the different media that we use, focusing on their strengths and weaknesses. We concentrate on the experience, carried out in the last few years, of the publication of provisional information on ongoing earthquakes, a long-standing issue strongly requested by our followers. The INGVterremoti platform has played a fundamental role in many seismic sequences of the past 12 years in Italy, starting from the Emilia sequence in 2012, to the central Italy one, started with the deadly earthquake of 24 August 2016 and still ongoing. Besides the periods of high attention after strong earthquakes, we used the INGVterremoti social media as a tool for releasing continuous and sound information to the public, and as a way to involve citizens in the communication arena.

The present work is part of the 2015 ART-IT project (Early Earthquake Alert in Italy). Its main purpose is the estimation of the PRESTo system [PRobabilistic and Evolutionary early warning SysTem, Iannaccone et al., 2010; Satriano et al., 2011] performance through an ad hoc calibration of the software configuration parameters using only the accelerometric networks installed in an area of Central Italy, selected as test site. The correct operation of an early warning system could be used for a more correct and effective management of a seismic emergency from the first seconds after the occurrence of a strong earthquake, allowing to adopt sudden actions to reduce the exposure and, consequently, the seismic risk. To evaluate the performance of the software, it is necessary to carry out an a priori calibration phase of the configuration parameters in order to guarantee the best performance in terms of seismic event detection and reliability in the estimation of hypocentral parameters. The tests were carried out by means of a series of recorded waveforms simulations considering a selected catalogue of earthquakes with a magnitude range between 3.9 and 5.4, occurred in the Amatrice-Norcia area, with a magnitude range between 3.9 and 5.4, occurred in the Amatrice-Norcia area, with particular focus on the seismic sequence of January 2017.

Very large tsunamis are associated with low probabilities of occurrence. In many parts of the world, these events have usually occurred in a distant time in the past. As a result, there is low risk perception and a lack of collective memories, making tsunami risk communication both challenging and complex. Furthermore, immense challenges lie ahead as population and risk exposure continue to increase in coastal areas. Through the last decades, tsunamis have caught coastal populations off-guard, providing evidence of lack of preparedness. Recent tsunamis, such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004, 2011 Tohoku and 2018 Palu, have shaped the way tsunami risk is perceived and acted upon. Based on lessons learned from a selection of past tsunami events, this paper aims to review the existing body of knowledge and the current challenges in tsunami risk communication, and to identify the gaps in the tsunami risk management methodologies. The important lessons provided by the past events call for strengthening community resilience and improvement in risk-informed actions and policy measures. This paper shows that research efforts related to tsunami risk communication remain fragmented. The analysis of tsunami risk together with a thorough understanding of risk communication gaps and challenges is indispensable towards developing and deploying comprehensive disaster risk reduction measures. Moving from a broad and interdisciplinary perspective, the paper suggests that probabilistic hazard and risk assessments could potentially contribute towards better science communication and improved planning and implementation of risk mitigation measures.

La relazione illustra le principali attività svolte nel 2021 dal GDL INGVterremoti relativamente ai diversi canali web istituzionali e alla piattaforma INGVterremoti, fornendo ove possibile, dati statistici utili per la valutazione.