摘要：Education is often considered a means for enhancing adaptive capacity, based on the consideration that formaleducation is likely to improve the ability of individuals to evaluate risks and respond to warning information. We explore therelation between the level and nature of education and enhanced ability to respond to tropical cyclone risk. We make a distinctionbetween formal school-based education and nonformal education in the form of traditional knowledge of environmentalprecursors and conditions that may be associated with tropical cyclone occurrence. We evaluate two possible routes throughwhich education could lead to enhanced ability to respond to tropical cyclone risk; first, education, both formal and nonformal,may lead to a better ability to access, understand, and interpret warning information and hence lead to an appropriate responseto the warning; and second, formal education may be associated with greater income levels and socioeconomic status and thuswith greater resources for evacuating in response to cyclone warning. We find that the hypotheses regarding the link betweenformal education and adaptive capacity are actually not well supported by empirical data. On the other hand nonformal educationin the form of traditional knowledge for predicting cyclones based on environmental precursors emerged as a significantdeterminant of the ability to understand and interpret warning information and provides a strong case for preserving and promotinga hazard-specific traditional knowledge base along with formal education
关键词：cyclones; early warnings; education; traditional knowledge base; warning-response process
