New tools for Visualization Research to improve Hazard and Risk Communication
Project Team
Peter Stempel, Associate Professor, Landscape Architecture
Project Funding
Level 3 – Joint projects in Arts, Humanities, and Social and Behavioral Sciences
Project Description
Government officials, emergency managers, and scientists feel urgency in communicating increasing uncertain hazards associated with storms and sea level rise. They frequently turn to localized 2D and 3D hazard visualizations that are perceived to be more effective in communicating risk despite inconclusive evidence regarding their effects on risk perception, and a growing body of evidence suggesting that they may backfire, for instance by inappropriately anchoring expectations regarding uncertain outcomes. This proposal supports collaboration between the department of Landscape Architecture in the College of Arts and Architecture and the Computational and Spatial Analysis Core (CSA) in the Penn State Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) to co-design new research tools for the testing of localized hazard visualizations used for disaster risk reduction and risk communication. These tools will allow the team to systematically address long standing research gaps regarding the effects of visualizations on perceptions of risk and the legitimacy of forecast models when visualizations are widely disseminated. These long-standing research gaps have been identified by scholars in landscape and urban planning, risk communication, cartography, and by the National Academies of Science. We argue that they stem from the interdisciplinary nature of the problem that requires expertise in natural hazards, hazard visualization, access to communities, and expertise in spatial demography to adequately address the multiplicity of factors affecting risk perception. This proposal funds the new team’s co-development of tools and analytical methods necessary to support applications to funders such as NSF and DOE, with the first being to NSF “Science of Science, Discovery, Communication, Impact,” which has been approved by the grant’s program manager.