Earthquake early warning in countries where damaging earthquakes only occur every 50 to 150 years – The societal perspective

Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) systems can trigger actions just before the shaking hits and hence mitigate the impact of damaging earthquakes. Recent studies have mainly focused on technical challenges, performance or on the attitudes of the public towards EEW systems in countries where EEW systems are already in operation or where damaging earthquakes are frequent. Building on these efforts, from the societal perspective we assess how different message elements influence the intention to take action and ability to grasp relevant information within a few seconds. Further, we explore the public attitudes towards EEW systems in a country where damaging earthquakes are expected less frequently. In a survey (N = 596, between-subjects experiment) targeting the Swiss public, we assess EEW system preferences and test different versions of EEW messages to identify elements which trigger people to take immediate actions and can be correctly recalled. Our main findings are that i) the public attitudes in countries with moderate seismic hazard are similar to attitudes in countries with high seismic hazard; ii) pictograms trigger people to protect themselves on the spot whereas maps prompt the public to look for further information or to warn others; iii) the designs preferred by the public are not always those that actually trigger them to take action; and iv) people tend to react proportionally to the hazard level. We show that insights from studies focusing on societal issues related to EEW systems can help operators define technical settings and to address specific concerns or likely misconceptions in education campaigns.