Publié le 10 mars 2022 – Mis à jour le 11 juin 2022
Communication binds societies, cultures and political systems together. For Natural Risk, then, the understanding and management of communication is essential to deal with human response to the environment. The right type, style and avenue of communication is essential, and there must be a proper perception by the recipient. SARF or Social Amplification of Risk Framework operates when communication fails, but good communication can lead to minimised risk. To be resilient, society must also be connected to its environment. Geoheritage (managed volcanic environments) provides the perfect  framework to ensure this at all levels, as it provides an encompassing, multi-level means of managing and understanding the environment. Geoparks are at the forefront of risk reduction in Japan, for example (S. Nakada pers. com.). Globalisation means that risk is a world system issue, and any truly international institute should cover the world and determine how the system interacts, spreads and feeds back. Two issues stand out as vital:
 
  1. Across the globe risk is not communicated in the same language and confusion arises between the scientific (English) terms and local ones, amplifying risk. As shown by Harris and Lanfranco (Weather, 2017), mutation of terms between the media, the public and the scientist can even cause translation problems and misperceptions within single language. Understanding of how terms are used and perceived, and correct translation of those terms using an agreed terminology is, thus, locally, regionally and globally vital.
  2. Risk is geological, combining lithosphere bio-sphere and atmosphere, yet currently the geological side of risk has lost representation at global organisations (UNDP, UN, etc). This is a problem of poor communication from geoscientists. Somehow we need to make 'geology great again', to troll Macron's troll of Trump.
We here propose to tackle communication and resilience with four linked projects, described below:
  1. Communication Framing versus Recipient Perception
  2. Resilient Recipients: Managing Volcanic Environments
  3. Understanding across the Globe: a Global Risk Multi-Cultural Dictionary
  4. Making the Earth Great Again: a Global framework
Contact : Andrew Harris