first issue with this idea, is the limit target group. Preparedness should be a aimed at all citizens of a country, not just outdoor people. (outdoor people also seems to be better prepared...)So rewards should be aimed for the general public.

Any rewarding system would require the government to:
- Quantify "preparedness". They could make a list of essential equipment (although people are different, so will there equipment be), but what about plans and mental preparedness?
- Inspect people being "prepared", before giving a reward. (if not, it would be open to fraud)
- Checking/Maintain people's "preparedness", by inspecting people's preparedness every X year. If not, than there would be no system to maintain the level of preparedness.
- Funds to pay for the system and the rewards (read: taxpayer)
- Getting multiple government levels to work with each other. (read: time consuming)

that the list i can list before having morning coffee. Besides rewards as a tool has shown mixed results. Rewards generally causes people to do things for the reward itself, not the thing we want them to do (being prepared). So it is highly likely than some people would do the minimum to get the reward and not actually prepared



Good point Susan, but that is something what is known. That's why the government is educating people for the most likely events, telling people what effect a disaster can have on them and what they can do. It does not seem to be really effective. A problem with such a approach is that, it is not always possible to know what effect a disaster can have and what people can really do to protect them self. So it get impersonal rather quickly.

I'm just pointing out that is really isn't that easy for a goverment to get people to prepare. It's easy to come up with a plan, but turning a plan in to a workable and effective solution is a lot harder than most people think. It is hard enough to get family and friend to prepare, now think of a entire country on a limited budget...