Access to information in natural disaster management in in Iran: stakeholders’ perspective

Access to information is one of the pillars of a smooth and productive information flow which would provide the best opportunities for an effective Information management. Thus, it is essential to acquire the knowledge about how to access information and ways to improve it, especially in the field of natural disaster management (NDM), which is based on decisions making, in micro and macro level, to reduce risk and increase the resilience. This paper presents an attempt to understand the NDM stakeholders’ perceptions about information, and discuss the challenges they’ve been through to information access.

A qualitative multi-stakeholder, multi-hazard approach employed, and several sources of information (interviews, participation in seminars, field observations, and document studies) were triangulated to gather information to reach a holistic view of the field with a focus on the five groups of stakeholders ( NGOs, public institutions, government agencies, research centers, and information science experts). Fereday & Muir-Cochrane (2006) thematic content analysis was applied to analyze the data and to achieve the adequate accuracy in this qualitative analysis.

Besides the emerged notions about the NDM information characteristics, three conceptual clusters emerged through the qualitative thematic analysis , namely kinds and methods of information access (centralized, decentralized, and desired), factors that influence information access (economical, political, social, organizational, legal, cultural, behavioral, temporal, and technical), and the information impact  (behavioral and practical, emotional, security, and social).

Despite a relative desirability of access to information in terms of the, the quality of information available continues to face serious challenges. Developing local and national strategies needs the cooperation of all stakeholders, and requires the integration of the information produced and shared in the NDM field. Meanwhile, the presence of information science professionals in the circle of NDM decision makers can pave the way for positive changes, and facilitate the information flow and effective communication between stakeholders by providing services and content tailored to their information needs.