Understanding the Warning Process Through the Lens of Practice: Emancipation as a Condition of Action–Some Lessons from France - Reducing Disaster: Early Warning Systems for Climate Change - page 222

Table 12.1 Quantity of
entities in each actor's EA

Quantity of entities/EA Frequency Percentage, n = 93

[ < = 10] 20 21, 5

]10; 15] 22 23, 6

]16; 20] 29 31, 2

[ > = 21] 22 23, 6

European, American models; deterministic or probabilistic models. Each of
these models needs to be treated differently, and all have to be taken into account.
￿ Second, the actors often consider entities which, in theory, are not their concern:
a forecaster in Toulouse may take into account emergency response activities
occurring 500 km away. And the AEs of some municipalities often include
entities relating to the business world, although there is no obligation on them
to do so.
￿ Finally, the actors include in their AEs numerous entities associated with their
action context, in particular territorial and institutional entities. Although the
instruments and procedures are very largely the same across the country, each
actor in a warning process has to deal with very specifi c problems. For a single
fl ood, the form of the problem can vary substantially from one village to another,
depending on whether there is a dike, engineering work on the bridge, etc. Likewise,
for warning 'professionals', institutional or regulatory changes (Vinet 2007 ),
or previous events (e.g. Dedieu 2007 , 2009 ), contribute to the defi nition of the AEs
and of the conditions of action on the ground.

Thus, part of the reality of the actors and of the action process is beyond the
scope of those responsible for establishing the main EWS structures, who therefore
need to be modest and try as far as possible to consider the concrete problems as
they are encountered and formulated by the operational actors.

12.3.1.3 …with Numerous Entities

Finally, I observe that these AEs are large, in terms of the number of constitutive
entities. Over half of the 93 people interviewed reported 16 or more different enti-
ties in their AE (cf. Table 12.1 ). This is much more than suggested by the offi cial
warning preparation documents. In addition, one entity can represent several differ-
ent realities for a single actor: a municipality may simultaneously consider the
Météo-France weather warning map as technical information on the meteorological
conditions, as a trigger for the opening of its crisis unit and as evidence for the
correctness of its decisions.

12.3.1.4 …That Illustrate Actor's Specifi c Problems

The composition of these action environments above all defi nes the actor's specifi c
set of action problems. It depends partly on their theoretical role in the WP, but also