Emma E H Doyle

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Associate Professor at Joint Centre for Disaster ResearchMassey University Wellington

This paper discusses whether Community Engagement Theory (CET) could be augmented in ways that afford opportunities to develop a framework for understanding how emergent change and transformative learning can occur in disaster response and recovery settings. The foundation for doing so derives from appreciating that CET describes process theory tha...

Introduction This study explored earthquake preparedness over time—before, during, and 10 years after the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES) in New Zealand (NZ; known as Aotearoa in te ao Māori). Method Surveys of Canterbury residents were conducted in 2009, 2013, and 2021, using variables derived from Community Engagement Theory (CET). The surv...

This paper explores how community members collaborate with emergency management organizations in the pre-disaster stage and engage in collective actions for reducing disaster risks in their communities. Utilizing four qualitative case studies from New Zealand, we examined how local groups interested in reducing community level disaster risks form,...

A significant portion of Aotearoa New Zealand’s population is vulnerable to tsunami. To improve evacuation modelling and planning, this study explores the complexities of decision-making for tsunami evacuation. As an exploratory study, four expert elicitation workshops were held to brainstorm key factors influencing evacuation behaviour. Insights f...

Introduction: We conducted mental model interviews in Aotearoa NZ to understand perspectives of uncertainty associated with natural hazards science. Such science contains many layers of interacting uncertainties, and varied understandings about what these are and where they come from creates communication challenges, impacting the trust in, and use...

This paper presents a synthesis and theoretical integration of findings from a research project that explored the data needs and sources for implementing impact forecasts and warnings for hydrometeorological hazards. Impact forecasts and warnings (IFW) have received global attention in recent years as they offer a novel way of improving the communi...

One of the reasons why adaptation and innovation occur in disaster response contexts is because of broader societal changes. Channels of communications between stakeholders and rightsholders in disaster response contexts have changed with societal adoption and ubiquitous use of social media. Social media has shown potential in enhancing disaster co...

A seismicity rate model (SRM) has been developed as part of the 2022 Aotearoa New Zealand National Seismic Hazard Model revision. The SRM consists of many component models, each of which falls into one of two classes: (1) inversion fault model (IFM); or (2) distributed seismicity model (DSM). Here we provide an overview of the SRM and a brief descr...

In Canterbury, New Zealand, earthquake risk and preparedness information has been provided for many years, including before, during and after the 2010-11 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence. Information has been modified over time, depending on the earthquake context, and public appetite for information given ongoing aftershocks. To inform future inform...

Multiday severe weather outlooks can inform planning beyond the hour-to-day windows of warnings and watches. Outlooks can be complex to visualize, as they represent large-scale weather phenomena overlapping across several days at varying levels of uncertainty. Here, we present the results of a survey ( n = 417) that explores how visual variables af...

The rapid growth of Internet-based communication technologies in the form of Social Media (SM) and associated mobile applications has enabled people to share information related to disaster events in “real-time” as they unfold. People are increasingly using SM platforms to report situational information during disasters, such as critical needs, dea...

The global SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic presents a pressing health challenge for all countries, including Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). As of early 2022, NZ public health measures have reduced impacts of the pandemic, but ongoing efforts to limit illness and fatalities will be significantly aided by widescale uptake of available vaccines including C...

In times of disasters, access to medications and health treatments are extremely important in order to sustain health and wellbeing. As such, it is vital to explore how people living with long-term health conditions (LTCs) understand and enact disaster preparedness planning. The aim for this research was to increase knowledge about what enables and...

On 14 November 2016, the Mw 7.8 Kaikōura earthquake and tsunami occurred in Aotearoa New Zealand, impacting the city of Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington). As many people reside in apartments in Wellington, we undertook a survey followed by interviews to understand evacuation information communicated to apartment dwellers, and how residents used that...

The study of risk communication has been explored in several diverse contexts, from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including psychology, health, media studies, visualization studies, the public understanding of science, and social science. Such diversity creates a puzzle of recommendations to address the many challenges of communicating risk...

Policy and technical guidance are only as good as their implementation. Often well-meaning legislation has unintended consequences, as individuals and organisations overlay their own risk perceptions and understanding to an issue. This paper illustrates how behavioural science can be applied to risk-based engineering decisions to improve decision o...

Warning systems are essential for providing people with information so they can take protective action in response to perils. Systems need to be human-centered, which requires an understanding of the context within which humans operate. Therefore, our research sought to understand the human context for Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) in Aotearoa New...

We present a scoping review of methods used to elicit individuals' mental models of science or risk. Developing a shared understanding of the science related to risk is crucial for diverse individuals to collaboratively manage disaster consequences. Mental models, or people's psychological representation of how the ‘world works’, present a valuable...

At 2.27 a.m., on 5 March 2021, an Mw 7.3 earthquake occurred approximately 100 km off the East Cape of the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. This earthquake was felt across the entire country, including in the capital city of Wellington and the surrounding region. Previous work reports varied levels of tsunami evacuation behavior for natural wa...

Impact forecasts and warnings (IFW) are key to resilience for hydrometeorological hazards. Communicating the potential social, economic, and environmental hazard impacts allows individuals and communities to adjust their plans and better prepare for the consequences of the hazard. IFW systems require additional knowledge about impacts and underlyin...

There has been a growing recognition of the need to collect disaster and risk data over the last two decades. Accordingly, better collection and management of disaster data was identified as a priority of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The introduction and implementation of Impact Forecasts and Warnings (IFWs) have further highli...

Mechanisms for sharing information in a disaster situation have drastically changed due to new technological innovations throughout the world. The use of social media applications and collaborative technologies for information sharing have become increasingly popular. With these advancements, the amount of data collected increases daily in differen...

Lahars pose a significant risk to communities, particularly those living near snow-capped volcanoes. Flows of mud and debris, typically but not necessarily triggered by volcanic activity, can have huge impacts, such as those seen at Nevado Del Ruiz, Colombia, in 1985 which led to the loss of over 23,000 lives and destroyed an entire town. We survey...

Early Warning Systems are a key component to building preparedness and response capacities to hydrometeorological hazards that continue to affect people worldwide. Notable historic events have revealed gaps in current hazard-based warning systems. Impact Forecasts and Warnings (IFWs) have been proposed to fill these communication gaps by re-centrin...

Social media applications such as Twitter and Facebook are fast becoming a key instrument in gaining situational awareness (understanding the bigger picture of the situation) during disasters. This has provided multiple opportunities to gather relevant information in a timely manner to improve disaster response. In recent years, identifying crisis-...

Traffic emergencies and resulting delays cause a significant impact on the economy and society. Traffic flow estimation is one of the early steps in urban planning and managing traffic infrastructure. Traditionally, traffic flow rates were commonly measured using underground inductive loops, pneumatic road tubes, and temporary manual counts. Howeve...

We present a system for real-time traffic flow estimation using a low-quality video footage. Traditional methods of traffic data acquisition such as underground inductive-loops, pneumatic road tubes, and manual counts are labour intensive, expensive, difficult to install and can be inaccurate. The recent advancement of computer vision techniques in...

Mobile apps have the potential to aid disaster response by providing an avenue to distribute relevant and time-critical information to the public. Disaster apps already exist in the app markets. However, it is a challenge to engage users in retaining disaster apps on their smartphones. A mixed-methods approach is used in this study to investigate w...

Operational earthquake forecasts (OEFs) are represented as time-dependent probabilities of future earthquake hazard and risk. These probabilities can be presented in a variety of formats, including tables, maps, and text-based scenarios. In countries such as Aotearoa New Zealand, the U.S., and Japan, OEFs have been released by scientific organizati...

Operational earthquake forecasts (OEFs) are represented as time-dependent probabilities of future earthquake hazard and risk. These probabilities can be presented in a variety of formats, including tables, maps, and text-based scenarios. In countries such as Aotearoa New Zealand, the U.S., and Japan, OEFs have been released by scientific organizati...

Early warning systems (EWSs) can prevent loss of life and reduce the impacts of hazards. Yet, recent severe weather events indicate that many EWSs continue to fail at adequately communicating the risk of the hazard, resulting in significant life and property loss. Given these shortcomings, there has been a shift towards people-centred EWSs to engag...

Several mobile applications (apps) targeted for use by the public during disasters already exist. A large amount of research has been conducted to investigate the functionalities of these apps in aiding the public during disasters; however, only a few studies have investigated the apps' usability in the context of crises. In acute situations, seemi...

Emergency Traffic Management (ETM) is one of the main problems in smart urban cities. This paper focuses on selecting an appropriate object detection model for identifying and counting vehicles from closed-circuit television (CCTV) images and then estimating traffic flow as the first step in a broader project. Therefore, a case is selected at one o...

The public has access to a range of mobile applications (apps) for disasters. However, there has been limited academic research conducted on disaster apps and how the public perceives their usability. This study explores end-users’ perceptions of the usability of disaster apps. It proposes a conceptual framework based on insights gathered from them...

Probabilistic statements can be a valuable tool for natural hazard risk communication, including forecasts. However, individuals often have a poor understanding of such probabilistic forecasts caused by them distorting their interpretations of event likelihoods towards the end of the time window and discounting the risk today. We investigated the u...

Early Warning Systems (EWS) are crucial to mitigating and reducing disaster impacts. Furthermore, technology and information systems (IS) are key to the success of EWSs. This systematic literature review investigates the research topics and themes from the past six years of Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM) conference...

The Hikurangi Subduction Interface, located 50 to 100 kilometres off the east coast of New Zealand's North Island, has the potential to generate the most destructive tsunami New Zealand is likely to encounter over a 1000-year timeframe. Yet, while such a severe risk hangs over the area, the number and detail of tsunami risk management policies do n...

Limited research has studied how citizens' perspectives as end-users can contribute to improving the usability of disaster apps. This study addresses this gap by exploring end-user insights with the use of a conceptual disaster app in the New Zealand (NZ) context. NZ has multiple public alerting authorities that have various technological options i...

The cultivation of neighborhood-based social capital has gained significant attention in the disaster management sector in recent years as a means to increase community disaster resilience. However, within the sector, the concept of social capital remains unclear and its measurement is limited at the neighborhood level due to a focus on predominate...

The Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES) began with the Darfield earthquake on 4 September 2010. Continual large and small aftershocks since that time have meant communities have cycled through repeated periods of impact, response and recovery. Scientific communication about aftershocks during such a prolonged sequence has faced distinct challenges...

While the development of risk modelling has focussed on improving model accuracy and modeller expertise, less consideration has been given to understanding how risk models are perceived and used by the end-user. In this think-piece, we explore how risk modelling is perceived and used by three different end-user functions for natural hazard risk man...

Multiple disaster mobile applications (apps) already exist for public use; however, availability does not automatically translate to continued usage. Limited research has explored whether disaster apps are usable and whether the apps' usability affects users' intent for continued use. The paper presents a work-in-progress study that aims to test a...

Successful emergency management decision-making during natural hazard events is fundamentally dependent upon individual and team situation awareness (SA, i.e., how selection, interpretation, and understanding of available information defines the problem and identifies solutions) whilst operating under high time and risk pressures. The development a...

Natural hazard models are vital for all phases of risk assessment and disaster management. However, the high number of uncertainties inherent to these models is highly challenging for crisis communication. The non-communication of these is problematic as interdependencies between them, especially for multi-model approaches and cascading hazards, ca...

We investigated responses to the 2013 Cook Strait earthquake sequence, New Zealand. This included two foreshocks (M5.7 and M5.8) and a mainshock doublet pair: M6.5 Cook Strait (CS) earthquake on 21st July and M6.6 Lake Grassmere (LG) earthquake on Friday 16th August. We examined relationships between preparedness, experience and beliefs during the...

We undertook a survey to explore scientists' preferences for guidance, from the social science literatures, on how to communicate earthquake forecasts, with a particular emphasis on the post-earthquake context. The development of new guidance for scientists will distill the results of previous research into usable materials for scientists who are (...

People tolerate different levels of risk owing to a variety of hazards. Previous research shows that the psychometric properties of hazards predict people's tolerance of them. However, this work has not taken into account events such as earthquakes. The present study tested how earthquakes score vis-à-vis risk properties and risk tolerance as compa...

Purpose As disaster resilience activities are increasingly occurring at the neighbourhood level, there is a growing recognition in research and in practice of the contributions that community stakeholders can make in assessing the resilience of their communities. The purpose of this paper is to describe the process in deriving a disaster resilience...

Communication is fundamental to the transfer of information between individuals, agencies and organizations, and therefore, it is crucial to planning and decision-making particularly in cases of uncertainty and risk. This paper brings forth some critical aspects of communication that need to be acknowledged and considered while managing risks. Most...

How members of society interact during disasters has significantly changed because of technological innovations and new media evolution. The modality changes in crisis communications, such as the popular rise of mobile applications use, may pose risks to the public if not properly studied, with results adopted and utilised. Crisis informatics, as a...

The effective management and response to either volcanic eruptions or (often prolonged) periods of heightened unrest, is fundamentally dependent upon effective relationships and communication between science advisors, emergency managers and key decision makers. To optimise the effectiveness of the scientific contribution to effective prediction and...

This study examines people’s response actions in the first 30 min after shaking stopped following earthquakes in Christchurch and Wellington, New Zealand, and Hitachi, Japan. Data collected from 257 respondents in Christchurch, 332 respondents in Hitachi, and 204 respondents in Wellington revealed notable similarities in some response actions immed...

How members of society interact during disasters has significantly changed because of technological advancements and new media evolution. The modality changes in crisis communication pose risks to public misinformation and confusion if not adopted and addressed. This review, therefore, looks at the literature of crisis informatics from the perspect...

We report on a two-year project to develop, validate and evaluate a complex scenario-based role-play (SBRP) exercise. Using an earthquake scenario, our aim was to assist participants (students in geology, engineering, and hazard and disaster management, as well as emergency management professionals) to improve their science communication skills. T...

Engineers often receive limited or no formal training in risk communication and may not have time to be up to date with current communication research. Additionally, communication training of practitioners is often 1-dimensional and recipe-style, and doesn’t explore contextual and situational nature of communication. Over the past couple of years,...

There is an increasing need to evaluate the underlying drivers of community resilience. Much of the existing research on resilience measurements assesses factors pertaining to a spectrum of societal domains that includes social, economic, institutional, infrastructural, and natural environments. Research has focused on the importance of social resi...

Free to download (open access): http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2016.1200659 In this paper we examine the concept of embodied uncertainty by exploring multiple dimensions of uncertainty in the context of risks associated with extreme natural hazards. We highlight a need for greater recognition, particularly by disaster management and response a...

Research has shown that experiencing a single disaster influences people's risk judgments about the hazard, but few studies have studied how multiple disasters in different locations affect risk judgments. Following two earthquake sequences in two different regions (Christchurch, Cook Strait), this study examined earthquake risk judgments, non-fata...

To reduce earthquake casualties, it is important to understand how human behaviour, during and immediately following earthquake shaking, exposes the individual to increased risk of injury. Research on human behaviour during earthquake shaking has identified three main influences: the environment the individual is located in immediately before and d...

Based on leading best practice by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the World Meteorological Organization, the GeoNet monitoring programme at GNS Science is adopting a probability translation table. The table is used to effectively communicate likelihoods of hazardous events (such as volcanic eruptions, aftershocks, landslides, and...

To further our understanding of how to enhance student science and risk communication skills in natural hazards and earth science courses, we conducted a pilot study to assess the different perceptions of expert scientists and risk communication practitioners versus the perceptions of students. These differences will be used to identify expert view...

Contemporary approaches to multi-organisational response planning for the management of complex volcanic crises assume that identifying the types of expertise needed provides the foundation for effective response. We discuss why this is only one aspect, and present the social, psychological and organizational issues that need to be accommodated to...

After a large earthquake, geoscience agencies deliver information to public audiences about earthquakes that have recently occurred and aftershock forecasts about what might happen. We conducted focus groups and interviews about geoscience communications during the 2010-2012 earthquake sequence in Christchurch, New Zealand. Recorded experiences con...

On 4 September 2010, a Mw7.1 earthquake occurred in Canterbury, New Zealand. Following the initial earthquake, an aftershock sequence was initiated, with the most significant aftershock being a Mw6.3 earthquake occurring on 22 February 2011. This aftershock caused severe damage to the city of Christchurch and building failures that killed 185 peopl...

On 4 September 2010, a Mw7.1 earthquake occurred in Canterbury, New Zealand. Following the initial earthquake, an aftershock sequence was initiated, with the most significant aftershock being a Mw6.3 earthquake occurring on 22 February 2011. This aftershock caused severe damage to the city of Christchurch and building failures that killed 185 peopl...

In 2014 the Integrated Research for Disaster Risk programme endorsed the establishment of the International Centre of Excellence in Community Resilience, Wellington, NZ. This Centre of Excellence is co-hosted by the Joint Centre for Disaster Research (Massey University/GNS Science) and the Wellington Region Emergency Management Office, with the obj...

The impact of uncertainty on Disaster Risk Reduction decision-making has become a pressing issue for debate over recent years. How do key officials interpret and accommodate uncertainty in science advice, forecasts and warnings into their decision making? Volcanic eruptions present a particularly uncertain hazard environment, and to accommodate thi...

The paper reports on the World Social Science (WSS) Fellows seminar on Risk Interpretation and Action RIA), undertaken in New Zealand in December, 2013. This seminar was coordinated by the WSS Fellows program of the International Social Science Council (ISSC), the RIA working group of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) program, the IRD...

The issuing of forecasts and warnings of natural hazard events, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquake aftershock sequences and extreme weather often involves the use of probabilistic terms, particularly when communicated by scientific advisory groups to key decision-makers, who can differ greatly in relative expertise and function in the decision...

The M6.5 Cook Strait earthquake of 21st July 3013 and the M6.6 Lake Grassmere earthquake of 16th August 2013 were felt widely across both the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Shaking was felt throughout the Wellington region and some building damage occurred within Wellington City. In October 2013, the Joint Centre for Disaster Research at M...

When seismicity is elevated near an urban area, it is a critical time to reconsider short-and long-term risk reduction measures. We examine dissemination and use of earthquake forecasts across a range of roles (e.g., scientists, emergency managers, public) during the Canterbury earthquake sequence that began September 4, 2010. We identify various e...

The paper reports onfive early career researchers from around the world were selected to review the RIA framework under the theme of 'decision-making under conditions of uncertainty', and develop novel theoretical approaches to respond to and improve this framework. Six working groups emerged during the seminar: 1. the assessment of water-related r...

This paper presents exploratory research into how local government emergency operations centres (EOCs) are used during emergency management preparedness activities, through a questionnaire survey of 48 organisations from New Zealand, Canada, and USA. Analysis was framed by defining effective emergency management as a person-environment fit process...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute information and recommendations that could better equip emergency managers to prepare for and respond to emergencies and disasters, with a focus on improving their decision‐making capabilities during response. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire‐based survey approach was used in this r...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how training or exercises are assessed in local government emergency management organisations. Design/methodology/approach An investigative review of the resources available to emergency managers across North America and within New Zealand, for the evaluation and monitoring of emergency managemen...