An Analysis of the Integration of Place Attachment into Visualizations of Hurricane Storm Surge Threats

该项目调查了减少飓风风暴潮对社区安全和福祉可能造成的破坏性影响的方法。减少和管理风暴潮的风险具有挑战性，因为风暴潮的复杂性质和风暴潮预报的内在不确定性。天气预报员和应急管理人员经常使用地图和动画(可视化)向公众传达风暴潮风险和威胁。然而，关于这些可视化如何影响人们对风险的理解和反应，我们知之甚少。该项目将有助于可视化的研究，以及这些可视化在传达危险天气风险方面的效果如何。通过将重点放在沿海社区的依恋上，调查人员将提高对人们如何与有关沿海灾害的信息进行互动的理解，以及可视化在理解和决策中所起的作用。调查人员将在整个项目中与从业者和利益攸关方接触，从规划阶段到研究结果的传播，确保项目相关性，并为受影响社区的需求建立强大的社会效益。该项目将通过对包括少数族裔服务学院和大学在内的各种机构的学生和教职员工进行跨学科培训来支持教育活动。该项目将侧重于可视化在以相关和可用的方式交流复杂科学概念方面的作用，从而促进提高公众科学素养的更广泛努力。该项目将有助于在地理学、地球空间科学、制图学以及决策、风险和管理科学及其与传播危险天气风险的交叉方面取得基础理论和方法上的进步。这项研究将弥合科学家如何传达空间上明确的风暴潮信息与沿海高危社区公众对风暴潮信息的解释和使用之间的差距。研究人员将考虑空间和地点等概念在数据表示中的作用，并假设通过理论和经验知情的可视化将人们与地点联系起来，将提高高危人群对风暴潮危险威胁的理解和应对。该项目的研究问题是：沿海社区的居民如何感知他们日常生活中的地方感，以及当危险的风暴潮威胁时？如何将地方感构建整合到风暴潮威胁的可视化中？风暴潮可视化中表示空间和地点的不同方式如何与人们对危险的理解和反应相互作用？调查人员将使用多方法跨学科方法，采用实验性参与式认知绘图过程，研究和开发创新的风暴潮可视化，就风险感知和对决策因素的依恋程度进行迭代焦点小组，并进行在线调查，以测试不同类型可视化的影响。这套方法结合在一起，将能够告知可视化、对地点的依恋和其他因素如何影响人们对风暴潮危险的理解和反应。这项研究包括沿海地区的利益攸关方参与和几个相关政府机构的专家。尽管该项目的重点是佐治亚州和南卡罗来纳州的沿海地区，但其方法、技术和可视化概念将与美国其他易受风暴潮影响的沿海社区相关。此外，理论和经验发现将与非沿海社区相关，通过了解如何使用对可视化中的位置的依恋来改善风险危险的沟通和决策。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project investigates ways of reducing the devastating effects that hurricane related storm surges can have on the safety and well-being of communities. Reducing and managing risks from storm surge are challenging because of the complex nature of the hazard and the inherent uncertainty in storm surge forecasting. Weather forecasters and emergency managers often use maps and animations (visualizations) to communicate storm surge risks and threats to the public. However, little is known about how these visualizations influence people's understanding and response to risk. This project will contribute to research on visualizations and how well these work for the communication of hazardous weather risks. By focusing on attachment to place within the context of coastal communities, the investigators will improve understanding of how people interact with information about coastal hazards and what role visualizations play in understanding and decision-making. The investigators will engage with practitioners and stakeholders throughout the project, from the planning stages to dissemination of the research results, ensuring project relevancy and building strong societal benefit for the needs of affected communities. This project will support educational activities through interdisciplinary training of students and faculty at a variety of institutions including from minority serving colleges and universities. The project will contribute to broader efforts to increase public scientific literacy by focusing on the role of visualizations in communicating complex scientific concepts in a relatable and usable manner. This project will contribute to fundamental theoretical and methodological advances in geography, geospatial science, cartography, as well as decision, risk and management science and their intersection with communication of hazardous weather risks. The research will bridge the gap between how spatially explicit storm surge information is being conveyed by scientists and their interpretation and use by members of the public in at-risk coastal communities. The investigators will consider the role of concepts such as space and place in data representation and hypothesize that connecting people to place through theoretically and empirically informed visualizations will enhance at-risk populations' understandings of and responses to storm surge hazard threats. The project's research questions are: How do residents of coastal communities perceive a sense of place in their everyday lives and when hazardous storm surge threatens? How can sense of place constructs be integrated into visualization of storm surge threats? How do different ways of representing space and place in storm surge visualizations interact with people's understandings of and responses to the hazards? The investigators will use a multi-method interdisciplinary approach that employs an experimental participatory cognitive mapping process, research on and development of innovative storm surge visualizations, iterative focus groups on risk perception and the degree to which attachment to place factors in to decision-making, and an online survey to test the impact of different types of visualizations. Together this suite of methods will be able to inform how the visualizations, attachment to place, and other factors influence people's understandings of and responses to storm surge hazards. The research includes stakeholder engagement in coastal areas and experts from several related government agencies. Although the project focuses on coastal Georgia and South Carolina, the methods, technology, and visualization concepts will be relevant to other coastal communities in the U.S. vulnerable to hurricane storm surge. Furthermore, the theories and empirical findings will be relevant to non-coastal communities by understanding how attachment to place within visualizations can be used to improve communication of risk hazards and decision-making.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.