Analysis of human behavioral attributes in improving disaster evacuation strategy of mount merapi

Abstract

Mount Merapi is one of the active volcanoes in Indonesia. Physical conditions of the Merapi environment which is suitable for farming and tourism attract people to stay in the area although it tends to be more prone to be affected when the eruption disaster occurs. Different public perceptions of disasters when such events occur can influence their behavior and hence community decision-making during evacuation process. Thus, evaluation of the evacuation planning based on population behavior is important to be considered. This study aims to determine attributes that influence the behavior of the people around Mount Merapi during evacuation phase and the relationship between those attributes in order to improve the evacuation strategy. Literature review, survey and interview were conducted to obtain the attributes influencing the behavioral attributes, while Damster-Shafer and Bayesian Network were used to evaluate correlation among attributes. The results indicate that experience of disaster training has a strong correlation to evacuation behavior, followed by trust to community leader and perception of danger. Those three attributes are then considered in the improvement of evacuation strategy.