ISO 22578:2025

Overview

ISO 22578:2025 - Graphical symbols - Safety colours and safety signs - Natural disaster safety way guidance system - defines principles for the design, application, installation and maintenance of signage and plans that guide people to safe areas or places of refuge during natural disasters (e.g. tsunamis, floods, debris flows, landslides, tornados, large-scale fires, active volcanoes). The standard focuses on outdoor safety way guidance from locations outside buildings to designated safe areas and assumes a prior risk assessment or authority requirement for deployment. ISO 22578:2025 complements indoor safety way guidance (see ISO 16069).

Key topics and requirements

• Sign selection and design: Use registered safety signs from ISO 7010, public information symbols from ISO 7001, and compliant supplementary signs and arrows per ISO 3864 design principles.
• Sign content: Guidance on evacuation route signs, places of refuge signs and evacuation plan signs, including appropriate text, supplementary symbols and suitability marking for particular natural disasters.
• Planning and deployment: Requirements for system planning based on hazard zone mapping, locations and suitability of places of refuge, evacuation routes, accessible routes, rescue and communication facilities, and language use (including bilingual signage).
• Installation and positioning: Rules for sign location, mounting positions, legibility and identifiability under daylight and night-time conditions (including phosphorescent and retroreflective materials).
• Durability, inspection and maintenance: Guidance on materials, maintenance schedules and repair to ensure long-term performance.
• Performance measurement: Annexes cover examples of installations, distance factors and sizing of visual elements, daylight/night-time illumination considerations, and a normative method for measuring photopic luminance of phosphorescent components.

Applications

• Design and implementation of outdoor evacuation wayfinding systems for coastal zones, river floodplains, volcanic regions and other areas at risk of defined natural disasters.
• Development of public information maps and evacuation plans for municipalities, tourism hubs and critical infrastructure sites.
• Procurement and specification of compliant safety signs and materials (including phosphorescent components) for civil protection, emergency management and urban planners.

Who should use this standard

• Emergency planners, civil protection agencies and local authorities
• Signage designers, wayfinding consultants and urban planners
• Manufacturers and specifiers of safety signs and photoluminescent materials
• Facility managers, tourism operators and infrastructure owners in hazard-prone areas

Related standards

• ISO 7010 - Registered safety signs
• ISO 7001 - Public information symbols
• ISO 3864-1, -3, -4 - Design principles; colorimetric and photometric properties
• ISO 16069 - Safety way guidance systems (indoor)
• ISO/CIE 19476 - Performance of illuminance and luminance meters

Keywords: ISO 22578:2025, natural disaster safety way guidance system, evacuation route signs, places of refuge, safety colours, phosphorescent signage, ISO 7010, ISO 16069.