Role of the Public and the Private in the Weather Information Service Process

Abstract

This paper conducts a normative analysis on the role of the public sector and the private sector in the service process of weather information. For that purpose, firstly, the service process of weather information including its production to consumption is structurally formulated from the aspect of economics and sociology. Based on the formulated structure, the service process of weather information in Japan is classified into patterns. In addition, the normative role of the public and the private sector is discussed from the aspect of ‘which sector should provide intermediate output in the service process'. The main conclusions of this paper are 1) the information provided by the public, i.e. the JMA (Japan Meteorological Agency) in Japan, cannot help being commoditized. Therefore, the severe weather terminology is the most likely to be low-context and difficult to trigger decision-making. 2) High-context information of severe weather terminology can be provided by the private sector on the market basis. In addition, it is argued that the prerequisites for marketization are 1) the ability of communication of information provider as an expert and 2) potential information users' awareness of their exposure to disaster risk and of the value of establishing trust relationship with information provider as an expert in the normal time.