Using Creative Approaches in Communicating Risks to Populations Exposed to Natural Hazards

What is so special about risk communication? In a country beset with natural hazards and disasters that are projected to worsen due to climate change, there is an urgency for policymakers, practitioners, and educators to understand their role and become better skilled risk communicators. Communication is considered an art and a science. Risk communication comes with greater burden in the sense that it seeks to deliver correct information that the viewer cannot interpret in any other way, elicit the desired response, and incite action with urgency. It is also imperative to communicate messages within the context and ‘realm’ of the audience, otherwise it will be lost. Capturing the attention of the viewer with technical information is a creative challenge. This chapter presents an overview of theoretical foundations of communication, discusses risk communication standards in texts and graphic requirements, accepted conventions, language and symbols for specific groups, and provides concrete applications of communication strategies and new approaches. Finally, this chapter gives concrete recommendations on how to design and create risk communication materials to help and equip the reader who is also a communicator.