GEOSCIENCE SAVING LIVES: EXPERIMENTS WITH FULL-SPECTRUM NATURAL HAZARD RISK REDUCTION IN INDONESIA

Experiments with Natural Hazard Risk Reduction (NHRR) in SE Asia reveal the success of a full-spectrum approach that transcends traditional approaches of geoscientists hoping that the public will ‘listen’ and someone will do something about it. Research by the WAVES Consortium shows that the involvement of geoscientists, no matter what their specialty, greatly enhances effective communication and implementation of risk reduction strategies in at risk communities. These low-cost, high-benefit educational measures are saving thousands of lives in Indonesia, which has suffered many losses in the past two decades. One example is the abrupt eruption of Kelut volcano in Java where tens of thousands of people were saved due to ‘peace time’ efforts geoscience students to organize and practice evacuation drills. Another example is the use of the 20-20-20 principal for tsunami evacuation: 20 seconds of earthquake shaking (even if it is low intensity) warns that of an earthquake large enough and close enough to cause a tsunami. Coastal communities have 20 minutes to evacuate to 20 meters elevation. The 20-20-20 principle could have saved tens of thousands of lives from the 2004 Banda Aceh Tsunami. Another discovery is the importance of integrating traditionally ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ sciences to listen to the Earth (geoscience), listen to the people (social science) and combine these efforts to empower the with response efficacy, which teaches self-evacuation independent from outside warning systems. We also document the difference between reactive and proactive disaster mitigation. Reactive approaches dedicate huge expenditures on post event humanitarian aid and emergency ‘management’. Pro-active preparedness starts with risk assessment and transitions to communicating and implementing risk reduction strategies before natural hazards strike.