4 interrelated questions

• What impacts can be expected, and mitigated, from tephra (ash) fall?

• “False alarms” -- How much risk are you willing to accept before evacuation?

• What are the costs and benefits of restricting tourism in the event of unrest?

• How will emergency response to Fuji unrest be coordinated? And tested in advance?

What impacts can be expected, and mitigated, from tephra (ash) fall?

• What threshold of tephra fall is fatal?• Would fatalities be expected from Fuji tephra

fall?• What threshold is so unpleasant that many

will leave?• How to mitigate risk from tephra fall?

How much risk are you willing to tolerate, in order to avoid evacuation?

• Early warnings have high risk of false alarm; late warnings may be too late

• Wide-area evacuation might be unnecessarily wide; a small area might be too small.

• Warnings, Emergency plans and Evacuation Decisions require decisions about how much risk to accept.

Needed: A social contract between citizens, officials, and scientists!

If the public is risk averse, it will need to accept some possibility of false alarms, and be prepared to make and stay in precautionary evacuation for as much as several weeks, possibly more than once!

If the public wants to accept more risk, it will need to accept possibility that forecast will be too late or the evacuation area too small for full protection!

Cost/Benefits of Evacuations (including halt to tourism in evacuated zone)

Costs of evacuation– Direct: food, transport for evacuees; – Indirect: loss of jobs, business, and hedonic value of tourism; social

disruption (schooling, family, community)

Benefits of evacuation– Savings (Avoided losses) of live and property (can use VSL for value of life)– Peace of mind

One suggestion on how to decide whether to evacuate (Woo, Nat Haz, 2008):

Evacuate if P (large eruption) > [costs of evacuation/ losses if no evacuation]

Coordination of response --

• For risk mitigation (public safety), unify into a single, Cabinet-level emergency coordinating center? If yes, where?

• For scientific response, unify discussion in one center near Fuji? If yes, where?

Emergency response plan

• Is it already prepared?• When was it last updated?• How often will it be tested?