Amanda Wallis, VUW Ph.D. candidate

Will speak on;

The role of place attachment in increasing resilience to nature’s hazards

Date: Wednesday 13 December 2017
Time: 9am 
Venue: EA527, 5th Floor, Easterfield Building

Abstract:

New Zealand is exposed to many natural hazards, including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and flooding. Preparedness for these hazards is crucial to ensuring individual and community resilience in the face of environmental threats. I propose that place attachment (a person’s bond to their meaningful places) plays an important role in personal preparedness for a range of hazards. I will firstly test the relationship between place attachment and existing disaster preparedness in two surveys distributed to Wellington residents (Study 1 and 2). These surveys will also serve to factor out place attachment across various dimensions (e.g., social and physical) and spatial targets (e.g. house, neighbourhood, city, and country). I intend to then experimentally manipulate place attachment in Study 3 to test its outcome on behavioural intentions to prepare. Finally, using findings obtained in Studies 1-3, a place attachment intervention will likely be trialed with a community sample in the Wellington region with the goal of enhancing actual disaster preparedness behaviours (Study 4).