A Virtual Workshop Involving College Students to Explore the Relative Role of Visualization and Stakeholder Interaction on Risk Perception

Weather forecasts of extreme weather are only useful if the recipients of that information take appropriate action. Many factors shape public perceptions of extreme weather risk, so understanding these factors is important to encourage preparedness. This poster describes techniques and preliminary results from a workshop on preparedness for coastal flooding from a landfalling hurricane. Over 160 U.S. college students from around the country participated in a 4--hour virtual workshop to evaluate the impact of: (1) standard weather forecasting graphics vs. 3D computer graphics visualization, and (2) awareness of multiple stakeholders’ perspectives about the risk of coastal flooding. Participants experienced a narrative about a hurricane with potential for devastating storm surge flooding on a fictitious coastal college campus. They answered survey questions before, at key points during, and after the narrative, interspersed with forecasts leading up to predicted storm landfall. During facilitated breakout groups, participants were assigned to role-play characters and to fill out an “ethical matrix,” a tool that makes explicit the perspectives of diverse stakeholders. Discussing the matrix encouraged them to consider circumstances impacting others’ evacuation decisions. This poster will highlight the workshop results, namely the relative impacts of the visualization versus the ethical matrix interactions. Interestingly, the 3D computer graphics visualizations of storm surge flooding did not have a significant impact on participants. Participants’ behavior and comments suggest that the interaction between characters may be more important. In particular, the character interaction helped participants appreciate the evacuation challenges of others in the community and increase their perception of storm surge risk. The workshop also increased participants’ intentions to prepare for storm surge flooding in the future.