A Review of Participatory Techniques/Mechanisms and the Development of an Evaluation Procedure in the Context of Community-based Earthquake Risk Management

Synopsis The aim of this paper is to review the participatory techniques/mechanisms in terms of their usefulness in the context of community based earthquake disaster management. The present approaches to evaluation of participatory processes are presented and criticized for their inability to meet the needs and specifics of the context of disaster management. The participatory techniques/mechanisms are seen as platforms for knowledge exchange among different actors. A Mental Model's based procedure for mapping and measuring preparedness is proposed and its applicability evaluated.