Am I at Risk if an Earthquake Occurs? An Initiative for Raising Seismic Risk Awareness and Knowledge Transferring in the Community

The assessment of seismic risk generates key information for disaster risk reduction and management (DRR). Nonetheless, for such knowledge to have an effective impact on DRR, collaborative efforts across all stakeholders are needed. Such efforts include risk knowledge transferring in such a way that final users can make risk-informed decisions. The challenge of knowledge transferring implies those who generate the knowledge (mainly researchers) to consider the needs of the potential users, among them the community. Among natural hazards, seismic activity, although not the most recurrent phenomenon, is one of the most catastrophic. Several efforts to increase seismic risk knowledge have been carried out at world, national and regional levels. Nowadays, seismic risk assessment follows a relatively established methodology which generates seismic risk metrics related to monetary, human and physical impact that are useful for DRR. Despite the advances on seismic risk knowledge, community seismic risk perception may significantly differ from the perception of those involved in DRR, especially in regions such as Colombia, where there has not been a devastating earthquake in the last two decades. Risk perception is not only influenced by direct information (i.e., having experienced a damaging earthquake); indirect experience gathered from the media and education is also fundamental. As an effort to increase community seismic risk perception, a seismic risk awareness workshop was designed and implemented by a collaborative effort between public and private institutions. The workshop generates a space for dialogue with the attendees to answer questions about earthquakes, the components of seismic risk and seismic risk management, among other relevant aspects. To share this activity, a workshop guide was developed, and videos were made focusing on Medellín and its metropolitan area and the city of Santiago de Cali (Colombia). The workshop has been offered since 2021, and it has been delivered to the community, students, children, decision-makers, among others. The execution of the workshop has allowed us to identify the attendees’ interest in topics related to seismic risk, concerns of the inhabitants with respect to the quality of the construction of their homes, interest in obtaining more information, and willingness to be informed on topics that usually do not include citizens due to its scientific complexity.