Assessing impacts and community preparedness to cyclones: a fuzzy cognitive mapping approach

Exposure to heightened intensity and frequency of extreme climatic events coupled with higher vulnerability of population has pushed up the disaster risk graph in developing nations. The area under study, India's eastern coast, is particularly susceptible to cyclones originating in the Bay of Bengal. This paper is aimed at identifying perceptions of impacts and preparedness levels of coastal and inland fishermen, the inhabitants of the Ganjam and Puri districts in the eastern coast of India with the aid of fuzzy cognitive maps. Based on communities' perceptions, we have attempted to capture both the economic impacts (losses and damages) wreaked by cyclones as well as the ecological and social impacts in a bid to unearth options for policy makers and planners to be used for bolstering disaster preparedness. The paper also aims at evaluating the effectiveness of current preparedness measures in the context of climate change by deploying various fuzzy cognitive mapping simulation-based preparedness pathways. On the methodological front, our findings confirm that FCM simulations developed through modified activation rule with a hyperbolic transformation function give better results compared to other methods. The findings reveal that none of the preparedness pathways with current preparedness measures is adequate in terms of providing resilience against cyclonic risks. Hence, in order to increase communities' resilience against cyclones, there is a need for new sets of impact-specific preparedness measures.