Public assessment of the usefulness of “draft” tsunami evacuation maps from Sydney, Australia – implications for the establishment of formal evacuation plans

Abstract

Australia is at risk from tsunamis and recent work has identified the need for models to assess the vulnerability of exposed coastal areas – a fundamental element of the risk management process. Outputs of vulnerability assessment can be used as a baseline for the generation of tsunami pre- vention and mitigation measures, including evacuation maps. Having noted that no evacuation maps exist for Manly, Syd- ney (an area recently subjected to high resolution building vulnerability assessment by Dall’Osso et al., 2009b), we use the results of the analysis by Dall’Osso et al. (2009b) to “draft” tsunami evacuation maps that could be used by the local emergency service organisations. We then interviewed 500 permanent residents of Manly in order to gain a rapid assessment on their views about the potential usefulness of the draft evacuation maps we generated. Results of the sur- vey indicate that residents think the maps are useful and un- derstandable, and include insights that should be considered by local government planners and emergency risk manage- ment specialists during the development of official evacua- tion maps (and plans) in the future.