Questionnaire Study on the Relationship Between Disaster Awareness and the Recognition of Evacuation Points

Abstract

In Japan there has been a shift away from ‘preventing disaster' towards disaster mitigation, or reducing the damage caused by disaster. In order to reduce the damage caused by disasters it is important to maintain preparedness for disaster during non-disaster periods. Ota Ward, Tokyo, at both the local government and community level has made efforts towards disaster preparedness including the publication of hazard maps and evacuation plans as well as evacuation drills. The purpose of this research is twofold; firstly to understand the relationship between percieved and actual awareness of evacuation points, and secondly to understand the relationship between personal daily activity spaces, or out-of-home activity points, and the awareness of evacuation points.

A questionnaire survey was carried out in two areas of Ota Ward, Tokyo, selected for their varying degrees of risk caused by disaster. The survey yielded 714 valid responses. Concerning the awareness of local evacuation points, results showed that while 71.6% of respondents believe that they have some knowledge of their evacuation points only 50.7% could accurately locate their evacuation point on a map. Conversely 40.0% of respondents who didn't believe that they knew where their evacuation point is could correctly locate their evacuation point on a map. This implies that perceived awareness of evacuation points does not necessarily equate to actual awareness of evacuation points.

As well as the questionnaire survey respondents were also asked to plot their local evacuation points and the places they had visit in their daily life, from which a ‘zone' method was proposed to understand the spatial relationship between out-of-home activity points and the awareness of evacuation points. The analysis found that household structure, property ownership, and experience of actually walking the route from home to evacuation point as having a significant relationship to the awareness of evacuation points in that single households, renters and people who have not walked the route to their evacuation point tended to record evacuation points close to their activity spaces rather than designated evacuation points.

In identifying sectors of the community that tend to select evacuation points closer to their daily activity areas which could help to better understand congestion at evacuation points near areas with a concentration of public facilities such as shops and stations as well as methods to better communicate correct evacuation procedures.