Introduction
A common practice in public policy research is to transfer the world’s best practices to the local context. The experience of countries that have repeatedly succeeded in some policies serves as a model for others. Nevertheless, public policy students should be careful when they recommend copying some policies from other states without contextual adjustments because the same policies may work differently in various cultural, social, and political settings. This paper will contribute to the studies of emergency responses by analyzing the case of the 2021 Australian Bushfires.
Australia had a disastrous situation during the 2019-20 bushfire season when nearly three billion animals were killed or displaced (Figure 1) (BBC, 2020). The World Wide Fund considers it for Nature one of modern history’s worst wildlife disasters (BBC, 2020). However, after two years, Australian authorities were more successful in preventing large-scale bushfires. This paper will try to understand how Australian authorities communicated with the public during the crisis and will derive some useful recommendations for this experience in the context of Qatar.
Aim & Objectives of the Document
There are many ways to discuss the 2021 Australian bushfires because the response to this emergency happened in multiple spheres and involved the participation of many actors. Therefore, there is a need to delineate the sphere, which will be analyzed in depth in this paper. The aim of the paper is to improve Qatari authorities’ response to emergencies. Although a base of policies already exists in Qatar, it is always a beneficial idea to monitor best practices for communication with the public during emergencies.
The objectives are to explore the case of the 2021 Australian bushfires with several intentions. Firstly, it is necessary to critically analyze how relevant Australian authorities communicated with the public before, during, and after the events of emergency. The general outlook will be on how the whole state machine mobilizes in critical situations. Secondly, the important part is understanding how Australian authorities communicate with people living in distant places. Since these people are difficult to inform about upcoming dangers, they are the most vulnerable to becoming victims of a natural disaster.
Strategies for Communicating with the Public
Education Plans Before Emergency
Educating the Australian public about the dangers of bushfires occurs well before an actual emergency. The Country Fire Service (CFS), a key organization in firefighting, conducts educational courses for the population. Molan and Weber (2021, 1) note that these education programs “are pedagogically well-designed, available in multiple languages and targeted at specific market segments”. These educational plans are created with the clear premise that the authorities cannot be sure that people’s contingency plans are adequate for a real disaster.
The problem here is that studies show that most of the deaths that have occurred during earlier bushfires in Australia have been caused by people who did not respond to life-threatening circumstances (Strahan and Gilbert, 2021). One particular problem was household members’ disagreement about whether they should stay or leave their homes (Strahan and Gilbert, 2021). Some older people did not want to leave their traditional places of residence, which was the factor why people overstayed there and died.
Informed of such problems, CFS tries to be as clear as possible in its educational programs. To understand how they organize educational materials, it is useful to investigate their website. There, they provide a clear checklist of preparations one should complete before bushfires. By clicking on the button “What’s your plan?”, one will find information on how to pack emergency kits, prepare home and property to ensure survival during bushfires, and choose the place of relocation (CFS, n.d.). To sum up, Australian authorities use social media, websites, and traditional media outlets every year, and the 2021 season was no exception.
Reaction During Bushfire
During the 2021 bushfires, authorities used a range of channels to communicate with the public. The first integral tool is the use of the integrated Australian Warning System. Australian states united their forces in delivering a nationally consistent system of warnings during emergencies (Department of Fire and Emergency Services, 2021). There are three color levels of emergency: advice, watch and act, and emergency warning (Figure 2). Australians may see these warnings on the roads and in the mobile app designed by Australian authorities. The easy-to-interpret signs and their universal outlook in different states make communicating Emergency Services with people more efficient.
Another tool for communicating with Australian citizens is the Emergency Alert warning messages. This system sends warning voice messages to landline telephones and text messages to mobile phones (Emergency Alert, 2022). These messages are short and do not provide a coherent plan of action. Policy analysts have criticized this reliance on this system because the occasional failure to send a message can discourage people from leaving their homes (Molan and Weber, 2021).
The Royal Commission indicated another problem related to the Emergency Alert System into National Natural Disaster Arrangements in their 2020 report. The problem was that in cross-border areas, it was hard to deliver messages to all people because some were connected to one state while others were to another (Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements, 2020). Therefore, the decision was made to reform this warning system, but it was delayed and not implemented because of the COVID-19 outbreak.
After the Bushfires
Lastly, it is important to analyze the last stage in the authorities’ communication campaign during emergency events in Australia in 2021. The crucial feature of the 2021-2022 bushfires is that there was little harm to infrastructure and people because of the excellent work of emergency services and humanitarian organizations. There were only several buildings destroyed and one person killed (Opie, 2022). However, the government updated recovery efforts in cases of great destruction and big human losses, such as in the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season. On Twitter, the Government of Australia (2020) answered people about the financial and technical assistance available to them and their businesses affected by bushfires. In the 2021 season, the governmental accounts were mostly focused on COVID-19 but were not as active on social media as during the most escalated periods in 2020.
Communication Strategy for Distant Residents
The practical part of this paper is to find appropriate communication strategies for Qatar authorities to inform residents who live in distant places. The experience of the Australian response to bushfires in 2021 will inspire these solutions. In Australia, one of the methods to inform people from rural areas about bushfires was the creation of media GIS content (Perera et al., 2021). Using satellite data-based content, the maps showed the latest bushfire images, wind direction, and smoke-covered areas (Perera et al., 2021). These maps were synchronized with Google Maps, one of the most used navigation applications, to show residents safe places to relocate. These technologies are suitable for modern times when many residents have Internet access.
Such measures are suitable for Qatar, a highly technologically developed place. With 99% of the population having access to the Internet, Qatar led the world in Internet adoption in 2021 (Qatar e-Government, 2021). Therefore, it means that digitalizing communication strategies applies to Qatar. In addition, Muslim traditions of respect and support for the elderly mean that their relatives and neighbors will warn those elderly who cannot use the Internet of impending danger.
Some articles also point out that people from remote places can also have additional communication barriers. For example, McGill et al. (2023) discuss the impact of Australian bushfires on children with communication difficulties. The authors admit that “natural disasters can significantly impact children’s health, development, and wellbeing, as well as their access to education and support services” (McGill et al., 2023, 20).
Children with communication difficulties due to speech and language pathology cannot use the Internet. In active forest fires, they may not have access to their caregivers. In such a scenario, authorities should elaborate on a plan for communicating with such a target audience. Boesch et al. (2022) indicate that teaching disaster-related vocabulary and visual aids prepared for times of crisis are valuable strategies for informing such disabled people. It is similar to the strategy of using Australian Warning Systems, which is displayed on digital screens.
Such an approach can also be useful in Qatari settings. The Government of Qatar should guarantee that it protects the rights of all residents, no matter their geographical, social, and physical conditions. Qatar can ensure the implementation of policies for constructing electronic signs with clear-cut signs of upcoming danger. It is also possible to educate children with language-related pathologies with the basic vocabulary of emergencies they may encounter.
Finally, one must understand how to bring the new reforms to those living farther afield in Qatar. Firstly, this can be done through state TV channels and news releases. Watching the news releases in the morning or the evening, Qataris can see the necessary information about innovations. Secondly, the Qatari government must use social networks, including Instagram and Twitter, to spread verified information. In digitalization research, such strategies of targeting specific groups are called tailoring. For example, it can be done through hashtags, messages in local media, and targeted advertisements in social media apps. As for the tone of the message, it should be respectful toward the residents. It is necessary to explain in detail the innovations and answer questions received in the comments and private messages. To do this, Qatar authorities can hire groups of young workers who can quickly respond to comments from residents.
Conclusion
This report focused on the strategies of the Austrian authorities in the fight against forest fires. Initially, the focus was not on strategies for fighting and preventing fires and the work of rescue services but on strategies for communicating with residents in danger. Thus, Australia uses many methods for such communication. Schools and other educational institutions often provide training and lessons on how to properly plan what to do in an emergency. This strategy helps train people to act decisively and without delay.
During fires, the Australian authorities use many communication channels to share information with the people. It happens through TV, radio, special symbols, social networks, and smartphone applications. After the fires, the authorities report on the work done through the media and their communication channels. The final stage helps to get feedback on the mistakes made.
In general, people were effectively informed of the imminent danger. Statistics show that the number of victims has been reduced in recent seasons, as people know how to act in an emergency. From what can be improved, this system alerts people via SMS. In some situations, SMS did not reach the addressees, leading to a slowdown in evacuation. Therefore, it is necessary to clearly understand that the absence of SMS does not mean there is no danger. People must understand that SMS may not reach them, so they must rely on other ways to get information about bushfires.
Recommendations
Here, many methods have been proposed to alert citizens about the threat of fires. All of these methods can be implemented in Qatar. Since Qatar is a developed country, all the necessary technological and expert resources are at the government’s disposal. Also, there is an opportunity to attract specialists from Australia to assist in these reforms. The only thing worth paying attention to in the Qatari context is the blocking of some platforms such as WhatsApp, Skype, and Facebook. Therefore, the government needs to form its strategies for digitalizing communication with the population based on statistics on the use of social networks.
Reference List
Australian Government (2020) [Twitter]. Web.
BBC (2020) ‘Australia’s fires ‘killed or harmed three billion animals’’. Web.
Boesch, M. C. et al. (2022) ‘Augmentative and alternative communication disaster pre-paredness: roles, responsibilities, and opportunities for speech-language pathologists and other professionals’, Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups. Web.
CFS (no date) ‘Be bushfire ready’. Web.
Department of Fire and Emergency Services, WA (2021) Changes to the WA Bushfire warning system. Web.
Emergency Alert (no date) ‘What is emergency alert?’. Web.
McGill, N. et al. (2023) ‘The impact of climate-related disasters on children’s communication and wellbeing: Addressing Sustainable Development Goals’, International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 25(1), pp.20-26. Web.
Molan, S. and Weber, D. (2021) ‘Improving bushfire preparedness through the use of virtual reality’, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 66, pp.1-13. Web.
Opie R. (2022) ‘CFS volunteer killed in tree falling incident on Lucindale fireground, another seriously injured’, ABC. Web.
Perera, K. et al. (2021) ‘A combined approach of remote sensing, GIS, and social media to create and disseminate bushfire warning contents to rural Australia’, Earth, 2(4), pp.715-730. Web.
Qatar e-Governmment (2021) ‘Qatar ranked first globally in Internet adoption with 99% of total population’. Web.
Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements (2020) ‘Report’. Web.
Strahan, K. and Gilbert, J. (2021) ‘Protective decision-making in bushfire Part 1: a rapid systematic review of the ‘wait and see’ literature’, Fire, 4(1), pp. 1-26. Web.
Appendix A
