Are sirens effective tools to alert the population in France?

Douvinet, Johnny; Serra-Llobet, Anna; Bopp, Esteban; Kondolf, G. Mathias

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2899-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2899-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2899-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 10

Research article

|

30 Sep 2021

Research article |

| 30 Sep 2021

Are sirens effective tools to alert the population in France?

Johnny Douvinet, Anna Serra-Llobet, Esteban Bopp, and G. Mathias Kondolf

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Final revised paper (published on 30 Sep 2021)
Preprint (discussion started on 14 Jan 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of the paper: Why keep alert sirens in France?', Anonymous Referee #1, 09 Mar 2020
- AC1: 'Anonymous Referee#1', Johnny Douvinet, 22 Mar 2020
RC2: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #2, 28 Mar 2020
- AC2: 'Final response to all referee comments (RCs)', Johnny Douvinet, 21 Jul 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (27 Jul 2020) by Paolo Tarolli

AR by Johnny Douvinet on behalf of the Authors (27 Oct 2020) Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (10 Nov 2020) by Paolo Tarolli

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (29 Nov 2020)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (01 Dec 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Dear authors,

The new version of the article is written in the required structure but is still lacking some parts and arguments:
1. there some elements from methods that fit in the results section, and there are some results presented that do not have the methodology explained:
- section 2.1.1 The first two sentences should be in the Results section
- section 2.2.1, some remarks on how the questionnaire was analyzed from a statistical point of view is needed; same for 2.2.2, 2.3.1, 2.3.3,
- section 3.3.2 mention the Gini index without references in methodology on how it was computed and on what data; also, references to some p values do not mention what type of test was applied
- section 3.3.1 does not have in methodology a description of the survey
2. there are many research ideas in the beginning not responded in the conclusions, and the questions of section 1.3 do not fit (with their responses) the scope and the rating of NHESS (scientific significance and quality);
3. the targeted problem, of siren alerts is composed of two parts, the siren as a mean of sending signals and the system that decide the alert; the spatial problem of siren coverage is thus one thing, and the system is another thing; so the paper argue the lack of spatial coverage, but the system decision part is not methodologically appropriately approached; then there is the idea of a lack of risk perception and siren awareness from the people that are not included in the scope of the article but is included in the material, methods, results, discussions, and conclusions.

The lack of these parts makes the article not suited for NHESS, at least in the present shape. I do not recommend a major revision as in the first review, mainly because now since the article is more articulated is clear that it is not suited for this journal.
I think that in a revised version that will deal with these observations, the article could be published in a journal that is suited more to qualitative analyses.
Best regards,

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RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (04 Jan 2021)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The manuscript examines the use of warning sirens in France as part of a system for alerts in emergency situations. The manuscript is interesting, and provides a wealth of information from different sources, including literature, spatial analyses, surveys, and questionnaires. I appreciate this kind of research to bring together these different elements. I believe that this would be of interest to the community of NHESS. The writing is ok, though the text overall would benefit from a thorough proof-reading / copy-edit, but I believe this is part of the NHESS process if accepted.

I do have several main concerns regarding the manuscript in its current form. These are summarized below, and further elaboration is provided in the specific comments section.
(1) The overall aim of the paper is ambiguous, which distracts from the overall message. In the conclusions (lines 473-474) it is stated that “…This study aimed to understand the reasons why sirens are the only alerting tools available in France, and why successive governments have maintained their trust in these tools since the end of World War II, …”. However, in the introduction it is stated that “…the main goal of this paper is to answer the question: “Are siren alerts effective tools for risk management in France?””
(2) Some of the methods should be more thoroughly explained (see detailed comments below)
(3) It is sometimes difficult to understand which parts of the text are original research carried out for this paper, and which parts are summaries of past research. It would benefit the paper to make a clearer distinction
(4) There is overreach in terms of recommendations (see detailed comments below).

Specific comments
• In general, the methods would benefit from more detail so that they are reproducible. Some examples of required improvements are:
a) L140: The paper states that the assumed power 3km radius for each station would be an overestimate in many cases. How much of an overestimate? Any idea for how many this is an overestimate? What does it mean for the findings?
b) L141+: It is not clear to me what population data are used for the analysis. At line ~141 it is stated that municipality level data are used, which left me wondering whether there are no reliable gridded population data that could have been used? Later, around lines 163+, a square mesh population density is mentioned, but which datasets is that? And how does this relate to the data mentioned in in line 141?
c) Section 2.1.1: what kind of a method was used for carrying out the questionnaire? Could the questions be provided in the appendix?
d) Section 2.3.1: Please provide a bit more detail on the survey approach. Were the answers open for example?
e) Section 2.3.2: please provide details here of the statistical methods used, for example those to assess the correlations mentioned. See also for example L370+ in the results, where P values of statistical tests are described – what tests have been used and how are the P values calculated?

• L323-338: the relevance of this information in the results section is not clear to me. This seems to be derived from literature review, which in my opinion should not be part of this section. More generally, please attempt to make more distinction between the results of this study and the results of previous studies.
• L383-389: again, this text feels out of place in the results section. The paragraph starts with a statement that <8% recognize the sound for what it is etc, but the next ~7 lines appear to be general observations from literature not per se related to the findings of this survey, whilst in line 389 the text returns to the results of the survey. Again, there should be a clearer distinction between results of this study and discussion of results.
• L422-471: This part of the discussion contains rather lengthy recommendations for the warning systems in France. Whilst some of these seem like good suggestions, often taken from the literature, I do not really see a link between the results coming from this study and these recommendations. As this is a research paper, I believe that this entire section should be greatly reduced in length, and only recommendations that can be drawn directly based on the results of this study should be provided.
• Conclusions: There is a disconnect between the conclusions and the aim stated at the beginning of the paper. In lines 473-474. It is stated that “…This study aimed to understand the reasons why sirens are the only alerting tools available in France, and why successive governments have maintained their trust in these tools since the end of World War II, …”. However, in the introduction it is stated that “…the main goal of this paper is to answer the question: “Are siren alerts effective tools for risk management in France?”” These are actually two very different questions, and the authors need to provide a clearer focus as to what the value-added of the paper is.

Smaller comments
• L190: RGPD to GDPR
• L328: “he is responsible for” – please use “they” (or if not, at least “he/she” or “she/he”) (also check for similar cases in the rest of the manuscript).
• L365: Why “surprisingly” – this seems like an a priori value judgement that CBC/LB-SMS should be the better solution.

Typos (note that there a more typos, and only a few have been stated below – as mentioned earlier, a thorough proof-read and/or copy-edit is required)
• L11: replace “much use them” with “must use them”?
• L14: replace “to issues alerts” with “to issue alerts”
• L232:Typo: 76.7.3%
• L242 & L297: replace “yo” with “to”

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (23 Feb 2021) by Paolo Tarolli

AR by Johnny Douvinet on behalf of the Authors (24 May 2021) Author's response

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (31 May 2021) by Paolo Tarolli

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (22 Jun 2021)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (18 Jul 2021)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (27 Jul 2021) by Paolo Tarolli

AR by Johnny Douvinet on behalf of the Authors (04 Aug 2021) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (01 Sep 2021) by Paolo Tarolli

AR by Johnny Douvinet on behalf of the Authors (03 Sep 2021) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

This study proposes to combine results of research regarding the spatial inequalities due to the siren coverage, the political dilemma of siren activation, and the social problem of siren awareness and trust for people in France. Surveys were conducted using a range of complementary methods (GIS analysis, statistical analysis, questionnaires, interviews) through different scales. Results show that siren coverage in France is often determined by population density but not risks or disasters.