By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
With a landslide detection and warning system in development, the Sitka Sound Science Center and RAND Corporation want input from Sitkans about social networking and landslide risk.
To gather this information, the center designed a survey meant to gauge how socially connected locals are about landslide risk and awareness.
Science Center Geoscience Coordinator Cora Siebert said a key goal of the survey is to find how Sitkans communicate with each other about landslides.
“Now what we’re focusing on is the social science part, looking at how people are connected… This survey asks you questions like ‘Who would you call if you were worried about a landslide,” Siebert said.
The survey asks participants to list people with whom they may communicate about landslides, and how trustworthy they would consider those people to be on the topic.
Siebert noted that the end goal is to create a tool which Sitkans can use to judge landslide risk for themselves.
A rain tipping bucket in Beat Cove. (Photo provided by Cora Siebert)
“This is not just describing what data means, it’s making sure that people can decide for themselves what the data means,” Siebert said.
The RAND Pardee Center, a public policy think tank based in Santa Monica, California, helped design the social science aspect of the project.
RAND Assistant Policy Researcher Max Izenberg told the Sentinel he hopes to understand popular perception of landslide risk.
“How do people understand preparedness, how do they understand weather phenomena, and how does that change their understanding of landslide risk? And what do they do with that?... We’re thinking of ways in which individual Sitkans can have better access to information on landslide data and make decisions against heightened risk of landslides,” Izenberg said.
He specified that he hopes Sitkans create a warning system that suits the town.
“We want to leave system design up to Sitkans, as stakeholders… People don’t want a traditional top down warning system, they want to have information and, rightly so, be empowered to make their own decision,” he said.
Siebert agreed, noting that Sitkans should be able to evaluate risk for themselves.
“We’re lucky at the Science Center that we put so much effort on science communication… This is not just describing what data means, it’s making sure that people can decide for themselves what the data means,” she said.
Siebert added that a possible warning system could resemble a fire risk chart in the form of a speedometer. A warning system could include customizable elements, in which a person would enter information such as how much time they’d need to evacuate from their home.
Izenberg stressed the need to keep “alert fatigue” to a minimum.
“It’s a phenomena that often occurs when you have too many false positives, say you send an alert and people become fatigued and complacent with alerts and say I don’t need to evacuate,” he said.
Both Izenberg and Siebert said that a customized system could help keep alert fatigue low.
The RAND researcher stressed that all disasters have a human element to them.
“COVID does show individuals that there really is no such thing as a natural disaster. Everything requires a social perspective and the ways that decision makers and individuals prepare and respond to disasters definitely influences the consequence,” he said.
Siebert said at the moment researchers down south are working on risk thresholds by using data now coming in from the ten rain measurement buckets installed throughout Sitka.
“Right now our geoscience partners at the University of Oregon are looking at developing thresholds, which is pretty challenging, because we don’t have a lot of data, because we just installed the sensors. So we’re looking at how we establish thresholds without a lot of data,” Siebert said.
Data from these sensors is already public at www.bit.ly/sitkaData under the subheader AK023. Siebert said eight sensors are hosted by volunteers, with one on Harbor Mountain and the final bucket on the slopes of Verstovia.
Siebert noted the project is funded through the National Science Foundation and conducted with aid from RAND, Sitka Tribe of Alaska, the University of Oregon, and the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Services.
The survey is available at www.bit.ly/SitkaLandslideNetwork. One in 100 participants will receive a $50 gift card to either Sea Mart or AC Lakeside.
Izenburg said the survey has no formal ending date, but will likely run through the end of the year.
