Research Team: Anne Jefferson, Mike Fedoroff, Michael Gerst
Insitution: University of Minnesota, University of Vermont, University of Alabama, University of Maryland
Start Date: June 1, 2023 | End Date: May 31, 2025
Research Theme:
The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act created a whole-of-government approach to improve climate services, including developing Flood Inundation Maps (FIMs). These maps are intended to provide actionable information to support near-term flood response decisions.
In addition to the hydrologic challenges of delivering operational, reliable, and spatially explicit decision support tools, it is critical for
- the maps to be understandable to different publics and decision-makers,
- for uncertainty information to be understood appropriately by both technical and non-technical users, and
- for communication to ensure data service equity in underserved communities (Executive Order 13985, NOAA Strategic Plan Goal 2), and conform to accessibility requirements of Section 508.
Because this is a new product, there is limited existing research and a time-sensitive need to test FIMs with different groups of people (i.e., audiences) before these products are widely distributed. The goal of this project is to engage and test FIM approaches with technical users and flood-impacted communities. To accomplish this goal the team will create a new method for testing user-controlled interfaces given audience segmentation that includes three objectives: 1) Tribal engagement and interviews with producers and users, 2) synthesis and diagnosis, and 3) visualization testing.
Testing will be conducted with two groups of people. First, the team will engage technical users including hydrologic scientists (e.g. NWS-RFC, Service Coordination Hydrologists (SCH)), Warning Coordination Meteorologists (WCM), power users (people who are technically savvy with FIM services), and broadcast meteorologists. Second, understanding by impacted communities will be assessed through a public survey.
The interdisciplinary project team has a well-established track record of effective collaboration with Federal agencies and local and Tribal governments; previous results and indicators have been operationalized by NOAA forecast producers (TRL 4-7 research) and water management agencies.
Through regular engagement with the NOAA FIM team, the team has already collaborated on the operationalization of evidence-based social science research into the pre-public release of FIM. Additionally, the project will result in publications, presentations/briefings, and peer-reviewed operational recommendations to improve the translation and use of FIMs for these technical and public audiences. This project will also lead to continued and expanded relationships with Tribal leaders and emergency managers and a communication strategy for Tribal engagement on floods. Overall this work will increase the ability of different people to correctly interpret the FIMs, facilitating their use in flood management decisions and ultimately saving lives and livelihoods.