Communication and Education Strategies to Raise Awareness and Understanding of Volcanic Hazard During Times of Quiescence: A Literature Review

Hufstetler, Rebeckah S.; Smith, Hollie; Hooft, Emilie E. E.; Gattis, Laura

doi:10.5194/egusphere-2026-1123

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https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1123

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10 Mar 2026

| 10 Mar 2026

Status: this preprint is open for discussion and under review for Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS).

Communication and Education Strategies to Raise Awareness and Understanding of Volcanic Hazard During Times of Quiescence: A Literature Review

Rebeckah S. Hufstetler, Hollie Smith, Emilie E. E. Hooft, and Laura Gattis

Abstract. This study synthesizes peer-reviewed research on volcanic hazard communication during periods of quiescence, when immediate crisis pressures are absent but opportunities for long-term preparedness are substantial. While much existing work focuses on communication during eruptions or in specific regions, we examine how volcanic hazards are communicated when a volcano is quiet, a time suited for building awareness, understanding, and sustained public engagement. We conducted a systematic review of relevant studies and grouped findings into three categories: formal educational materials, informal education approaches, and informal communication tools. Common themes include clear and accessible language, participatory strategies, and trust built through two-way communication. Few studies evaluate communication effectiveness, highlighting an important gap in the literature. This synthesis clarifies how communication during quiescent periods can support disaster risk reduction and strengthen community preparedness over time.

Received: 27 Feb 2026 – Discussion started: 10 Mar 2026

Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this paper. While Copernicus Publications makes every effort to include appropriate place names, the final responsibility lies with the authors. Views expressed in the text are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.

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Rebeckah S. Hufstetler, Hollie Smith, Emilie E. E. Hooft, and Laura Gattis

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RC1:
'Comment on egusphere-2026-1123', Rosella Nave, 23 Apr 2026 reply
This manuscript focus on an interesting and relevant topic within the scope of NHESS, such as volcanic hazard communication and education during periods of quiescence rather than during eruptive or unrest crises. The paper fills an important gap in the literature and offers a structured synthesis of peer-reviewed studies. The authors provide a robust search strategy and a clear methodology, including the screening procedure and inclusion criteria. The main findings are credible and relevant. In particular, the manuscript shows that effective communication during quiescence should be audience-specific, participatory, grounded in accurate scientific evidence, and conveyed in accessible language. It also identifies an important gap, namely the relatively small number of studies that evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches or tools. Overall, the manuscript is clearly written in fluent English, well organised, and potentially valuable for both researchers and practitioners.
Nevertheless, the manuscript would benefit from some improvements:
The abstract is clear, although it could be improved by stating the number of studies reviewed.

Figures 1 and 2 should be enlarged, and a larger font size should be used for all text in order to improve readability.

I strongly suggest adding summary reference tables to the main text for all three results subsections — Formal Education, Approaches, and Tools. These tables should include the studies cited by number in the text, together with their corresponding references. At present, the reader must repeatedly consult the supplementary Excel file to identify the papers behind the numbered citations, which reduces readability and traceability. Including these tables in the manuscript would greatly improve clarity and make the synthesis more accessible.

The Conclusions could be strengthened by providing a clearer original contribution from the authors. In particular, the manuscript would benefit from indicating which of the strategies identified in the scoping review may be most effective for communication efforts directed or undertaken by different stakeholder groups, including scientists, educators, communicators, and decision-makers. The paper would also benefit from clarifying how these stakeholders may themselves function as key actors within the various communication approaches discussed. This would enhance both the interpretative depth and the practical relevance of the study.

Reply
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1123-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Rebeckah Hufstetler, 15 May 2026 reply
  
  Thank you very much for your helpful feedback, we appreciate the time you took to review our manuscript, and look forward to working through these revisions and strengthening the paper.
  
  Reply
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1123-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on egusphere-2026-1123', Anonymous Referee #2, 11 May 2026 reply
Evaluation of: Communication and Education Strategies to Raise Awareness […] A literature review
This article conducts a scoping review of communication and education strategies during periods of volcanic quiescence, an important topic to understand as we increase our resilience to volcanic events. However, I am concerned that it is over-selling its presentation as a systematic and comprehensive synthesis of the literature. I thus recommend the manuscript be reframed more transparently as a preliminary scoping assessment, with clearer research questions, stronger justification for the chosen search method and review, and more cautious wording throughout. The review would also be strengthened by placing the volcanology-focused findings within the wider risk and science communication literature, as well as the literature on disaster education and citizen science. This would also enable stronger novel insights to be identified, considering volcanological practice against best practice in DRR. Comments follow:
Choice and design of literature review
While the authors state this is a scoping review, they present the results as if they represent a systematic review and are a complete picture of the literature. This is misleading, as the breadth of the search terms used means critical research and research studies is being missed within each of the topics. A scoping review is acceptable, but the authors must be more transparent about the limitations of such a review and that the literature they summarise may thus have overlooked critical studies.

I would thus recommend the authors consult a paper such as Grant et al (2009) ‘A typology of reviews’ Health Information and Libraries Journal, 26, pp.91–108, and become more familiar with the different review types. Be transparent that as this is a scoping review it is a ‘preliminary assessment of the literature’, but is not a synthesis of research evidence (systematic review), nor does it critically evaluate its quality (critical review), etc.

The authors then, like any research method chosen, need to a) justify why they have chosen a scoping review over other methodologies, and b) what specific research questions they seek to answer with that review. Currently there are some overall broad reasons provided for the search, but no clearly articulated research questions. These are critical to ensure a well-designed set of search terms.

The authors must ensure that the article does not state ‘synthesise’ or ‘systematic’ when this is a scoping assessment. To do otherwise is misleading.

If the authors feel that this is truly a systematic review, then I fear it has been poorly conducted, as the breadth of findings and the lack of depth within these topics (i.e., the missing of critical literature), suggests the search terms used were too broad and/or the exclusion criteria too strict to be a truly systematic review.

Analysis and interpretation of review findings
Unfortunately, the authors skim over the many important topics, but report their findings from these topics as exhaustive and fully inclusive. These findings must be rewritten to be much more transparent and clearer that they represent the articles found in your preliminary scoping review and do not represent a full assessment of literature on these sub-topics.

To strengthen the review, I would recommend the authors include a discussion section where they critically review the findings for each of the three topics (formal education, approaches, tools), by conducting secondary mini reviews on those specific topics (and themes within) to ensure they are capturing the leading research in this space.

Currently, the article adds no new findings or novel insights and is rather a descriptive review. The findings about accessible language, participatory strategies, and trust through two-way communication, are not novel. At best the authors have identified their priority within a quiescent period, however this is well known from other communication best practice literature. A preliminary search on risk or science communication of natural hazards more broadly would have found numerous seminal articles in the DRR community not included in this review.

This latter point arises because while it’s logical to refine the first search to volcanology, it’s vital to then analyse your findings from the scoping review within the broader risk and science communication literature, and across the natural hazards sphere. This will then enable the authors to extract specific new findings and conclusions that are novel for volcanology. Currently, the authors overlook such important topics as citizen science, the science-to-society movement, the problematic knowledge deficit approaches critiqued in risk communication, etc.

To summarise, this paper would be greatly improved if this discussion section placed the volcanological approaches within the broader evolution of science and risk communication, from an older focus on dissemination to a more modern focus on participatory approaches, and included a more nuance discussion of how volcanology compares to the known best practice in this field – see the literature cited below for more. This would help support the authors to identify novel insights.

Presentation of found literature
Currently this is buried in a supplementary table, with numbered # references in the text that reference the table. This is not appropriate, and each paper needs to be cited in the paper itself and appear in the bibliography/reference list.

I would recommend the use of more tables within, including: a summary table of which papers sit within each theme, countries of origin of lead author, countries of case study areas (as appropriate) etc. Reviewing past literature reviews will help the authors identify suitable tables. The authors have much of this information in their supplementary excel file, but need to summarise some of this within the paper itself.

Clarity around audience
It is currently very unclear which audience the authors are considering when they discuss communication and education. Best practice communication and education approaches vary considerably between audiences: from school children, to the public, to stakeholders and decision-makers, to communities as a whole. Yet at times the authors seem to flit between these, or lump them together. I would recommend clarifying clearly which audience, and then being very clear in your findings which audience you are considering. This could be supported by a summary table from the papers’ metadata that matches the tool / approach to the audience.

More recognition of the nuance of space and place
The influence of cultural and geographic, as well as historic, contexts is very lightly reviewed in this paper. However, an article that considers public education in the pacific islands cannot be compared directly to that developed for communities within the USA at Mt Rainier, or Italy, or Nevado del Ruiz. People’s connection to the land, their experience of government, their experience of past volcanic activity, their culture, etc., all impact the design of the education and communication programs within those papers. Hence, they cannot be reviewed collectively unless these factors are acknowledged more clearly and transparently.

This also highlights the importance of including a summary table that maps communication approach to study / cultural context, so we can get a sense of the actual coverage of this review. Then when referencing a cluster of papers within the discussion of a topic, be clearer which geographic context those papers come from.

Misrepresenting the extent of literature on key topics
This is the most concerning flaw in this review. The authors have alighted on certain topics, covered them narrowly via the papers that exist in their review collection, and then made claims that that is the extent of the literature on that topic. This misrepresents literature and is poor review technique.

Examples include their discussion on uncertainty (line 220) and probabilistic language, and “little work addresses this specific to volcanic contexts”. This is misleading, as many authors have explored this topic within volcanology and across natural hazards, which can easily be found by scopus or google scholar. Authors should refrain from such sweeping statements if they have not conducted a secondary search to check. Its absence from your review articles, does not mean it doesn’t exist. A secondary search should include a review of literature that cites your key review articles, and the articles they themselves cite.

Similarly, I would recommend the authors remove the paragraph on communicating uncertainty if they will not cover this topic more thoroughly. They have included unsupported statements about how people think over time (and misrepresent the complexity of this issue, including issues such as time discounting), and have several broad unsupported throw away statements that a further literature search would have found to be unsubstantiated.

The authors should also check the broader leading literature on topics such as trust and co-development, across natural hazards, to contextualise their discussions of this topic.

The authors should carefully reframe sentences throughout to be clear the lessons are relative to the studies they reviewed, not the literature / discipline as a whole. E.g., line 177: “For indigenous populations, studies focus” should be reframed as “our reviewed studies focus…”, etc.

Some examples of missing literature (on risk & science communication, public understanding of science, citizen science, etc), and citations within/to the below:
Fischhoff, B. (1995). Risk perception and communication unplugged: Twenty years of process . Risk Analysis, 15(2), 137–145.

Johnson, V. A., Ronan, K. R., Johnston, D. M., & Peace, R. (2014b). Evaluations of disaster education programs for children: A methodological review . International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 9, 107–123
Note this is also an example of an excellently reported literature review.

Johnson, V. A., Ronan, K. R., Johnston, D. M., & Peace, R. (2014a). Implementing disaster preparedness education in New Zealand primary schools . Disaster Prevention and Management, 23(4), 370–380.

Bostrom, A. (2014). Progress in risk communication since the 1989 NRC report: Response to “Four questions for risk communication” by Roger Kasperson . Journal of Risk Research, 17(10), 1259–1264.

Kasperson, R. (2014a). Four questions for risk communication . Journal of Risk Research, 17(10), 1283–1284.

Shaw, R., Takeuchi, Y., Ru Gwee, Q., & Shiwaku, K. (2011). Chapter 1 Disaster Education: An Introduction. In Disaster Education (pp. 1-22). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Cadag, J. R. D., & Gaillard, J. C. (2012). Integrating knowledge and actions in disaster risk reduction: the contribution of participatory mapping. Area, 44(1), 100-109.

Bauer, M. W., Allum, N., & Miller, S. (2007). What can we learn from 25 years of PUS survey research? Liberating and expanding the agenda . Public Understanding of Science, 16(1), 79–95.

Several articles from the Observing the Volcano World, including: Doyle & Paton; Thompson; Becker; Solana; Newhall

Doyle, E. E. (2022). Understanding the Risk Communication Puzzle for Natural Hazards and Disasters. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science, 208. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389407.013.208

Feng, S., Hossain, L., & Paton, D. (2018). Harnessing informal education for community resilience. Disaster Prevention and Management, 27(1), 43-59.

Paton, D. (2007). Preparing for natural hazards: the role of community trust. Disaster prevention and management: An international Journal, 16(3), 370-379.

Frewer, L. (2004). The public and effective risk communication. Toxicology Letters, 149(1–3), 391 397. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.toxlet.2003.12.049

Bidwell, D. (2009). Is community-based participatory research postnormal science? Science, Technology & Human Values, 34(6), 741–761.

Glicken, J. (2000). Getting stakeholder participation “right”: A discussion of participatory processes and possible pitfalls . Environmental Science and Policy, 3(6), 305–310.

Useful contextual reads:
Kaiser, L., & Boersen, K. (2020). Kura e Tai Aniwhaniwha (schools and tsunami): Bi-cultural and student-centred tsunami education in Aotearoa New Zealand. Australian Journal of Emergency Management, The, 35(2), 58-65.

Guo, L., Fang, M., Liu, L. et al.The development of disaster preparedness education for public: a scoping review. BMC Public Health 25, 645 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-21664-0
Both relevant to this topic, and an example of a more transparent scoping review

Selby: https://repositorio.minedu.gob.pe/handle/20.500.12799/4189

Ronoh, S., Gaillard, J. C., & Marlowe, J. (2017). Children with disabilities in disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction: Focussing on school settings. Policy Futures in Education, 15(3), 380-388.

Ronan, K. R., Haynes, K., Towers, B., Alisic, E., Ireland, N., Amri, A., ... & Petal, M. (2016). Child-centred disaster risk reduction: can disaster resilience programs reduce risk and increase the resilience of children and households?. Australian Journal of Emergency Management, The, 31(3), 49-58.

Paton, D., Becker, J. S., Johnston, D. M., Buergelt, P. T., Tedim, F., & Jang, L. J. (2024). The development and use of Community Engagement Theory to inform readiness interventions for natural hazard events. Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies, 28(1), 37-56.

Hicks, A., Barclay, J., Chilvers, J., Armijos, M. T., Oven, K., Simmons, P., & Haklay, M. (2019). Global mapping of citizen science projects for disaster risk reduction. Frontiers in Earth Science, 7, 226.

Reply
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1123-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Rebeckah Hufstetler, 15 May 2026 reply
  
  Thank you very much for your thoughtful and detailed response. We appreciate the care you took in engaging with the manuscript and in providing helpful suggestions for strengthening it.
  We want to clarify that our intention was not to present this work as a systematic review, but rather as a scoping review conducted in a structured and replicable way. We appreciate your comments on this distinction and will work to make our framing clearer in the revised manuscript. We also appreciate the references you suggested. We look forward to reading them and using them to better place the papers identified in this review within the broader context of disaster risk reduction literature, and will address the details of each individual comment during the revision process.
  
  Reply
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1123-AC2

Rebeckah S. Hufstetler, Hollie Smith, Emilie E. E. Hooft, and Laura Gattis

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https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1123-supplement

Rebeckah S. Hufstetler, Hollie Smith, Emilie E. E. Hooft, and Laura Gattis

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Short summary

Volcanoes often remain in quiescence for long periods before erupting. We reviewed research on how volcanic hazards are communicated during these quieter phases. Clear language, community participation, and trust-building are central to effective outreach and education. However, few studies evaluate whether these strategies improve understanding or preparedness. Strengthening and assessing communication during quiescence can support long-term risk reduction and community resilience.


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