Differential response to multiple hazard.

Research into response to natural hazards has emphasised the important interplay between the nature of the hazard and the experience, goals and limitations of the decision maker. Even as marked variations occur in the temporal or spatial incidence of particular hazards, variations in human behavioural characteristics produce significant difference in hazard perception and response, and ultimately in the relief measures selected to alleviate environmental stress. However, it should be recognised that exposure to single specific hazards may be a rarity, at least in many parts of Australia. In any given situation, individuals frequently face a range of associated concerns or risks from nature, which are seen to impinge upon their welfare or their income to varying degrees, e.g. flood and drought and fire, etc. In these circumstances the environment constitutes a multiple-hazard situation, the separate components of which are subjectively ranked, assessed and approached according to perception of the relative degree of risk they represent. Research emphasis on discrete natural hazards in isolation tends to produce a cross sectional picture of human behaviour in terms of flood-plain man, cyclone man, etc., in which the participants are examined often in unrelated segments. A comprehensive appreciation of hazard-prone man is seldom achieved. This paper examines human response to a range of natural hazards identified in selected flood plain areas of North Queensland. The multiplicity of hazards posed by the environment is reflected in alternate forms of adjustment which are weighed, not merely in terms of the probability (and seriousness) of a hazardous event occurring, but with regard to the uncertainties and inter-relationships inherent in the coincidence of several potential hazards in a multi-faceted risk situation. A mathematical model is outlined which attempts to operationalise such aspects in a decision making framework