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[P-29] Disaster Awareness Improvement by Flood Simulated Experience in Virtual Reality

*Miho Ohara¹, Daisuke Kuribayashi², Masatoshi Denda¹, Yoshimasa Morooka¹, Tsuyoshi Koyabu³ (1. International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM), Public Works Research Institute, Japan, 2. International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM), Public Works Research Institute, Japan (Previous), 3. Disaster Information System Division, IDEA Consultants, Inc.)

Keywords:Understanding disaster risk, Awareness, Virtual Reality, Flood simulation

Improving the understanding of flood risk among people is essential to reduce future casualty caused by delay in evacuation. In this research, a computer application was developed for people to experience a simulated flood using virtual reality (VR) technology, which has been used in various fields in recent years. This application can be easily installed on commercially available VR goggles, and people can experience a virtual flood simply by wearing them. The authors offered opportunities for local residents to try out this application and experience virtual floodwaters coming inside the house due to flooding from a river. After that, a questionnaire survey was conducted for the residents in order to verify whether or not a virtual flood experience can contribute to raising people’s awareness towards floods. A total of 111 residents, consisting of the roughly same number of men and women, answered the questions. Of them, 26% were in their 40s, and 17% in their 30s. When the respondents were asked if they were usually worried about flooding during the rainy and typhoon seasons, those who answered “Not worried too much” accounted for 38%, and those who answered “Somewhat worried” for 34%. When they were asked the same question again after experiencing a virtual flood, 57% answered "Somewhat worried," and 22% “Very worried.” In other words, merely about 40% were worried about flooding before the flood simulation experience, but about 80%, roughly twice as many, came to be worried about flooding after the flood simulation experience. These results indicate that a virtual flood experience contributed to raising people’s awareness of flood disasters.