Abstract
Because of its ubiquitous nature and catastrophic impacts, flood information should be readily available and continually evaluated, to maximize utility for the public and professionals. Web-based tools can fill existing needs for actionable information to inform decisions regarding flood damage mitigation for new and existing structures. The goal of this research is to identify the current capabilities, gaps, and future demands of Web-based flood communication systems. To understand the current and potential niche of Web-based flood tools, a review of the literature concerning the effectiveness of mass media, grassroots-based “citizen science” efforts, and social media in communicating flood risk is conducted. Then, the strengths of 50 major, freely-available, Web-based flood information portals are reviewed. Results suggest that mass media often provide actionable information, especially for short-term benefit immediately before, during, and immediately after the flood for individuals and community leaders. Citizen science and grassroots efforts encourage planning strategies to prevent or mitigate flood. Social media is most beneficial in raising awareness of the flood hazard and communicating short- and long-term mitigation and adaptation strategies. However, while mass media, citizen science, and social media have revolutionized the way that people plan for, survive, and recover from floods, their utility is largely restricted to addressing short-term information needs at the meso-scale or broader and/or conveying information about singular events to scientists and/or other professional interests. Actionable information to inform long-term planning and mitigating flood, for both the public and community leaders, remains lacking. A particular need is for communication mechanisms that satisfy several criteria simultaneously: wide broadcast, appealing delivery method, and focus on enhancing decision-making for long-term needs rather than solely for short-term benefit. Particularly useful would be a new, webtool that provides sufficient functionality to enhance flood risk reduction decision making, considering both the costs and benefits of mitigation.
Highlights
COMMUNICATION FOR MINIMIZING FLOOD RISKPerennially the world’s most ubiquitous and expensive natural hazard, flooding increases in notoriety as populations and economic investment in coastal and other flood-prone areas continue to climb sharply (Dewan et al, 2006; Bushra et al, 2021)
We address three questions about communicating the flood risk: 1) What information exists about the success of various vehicles for communicating the flood hazard and their effects on flood hazard mitigation? 2) What actionable information is available online and required for citizens and community leaders? 3) What is the functionality for the intended users of online tools to provide actionable information to aid flood risk reduction decision making?
While progress made in webtool development in recent years to mitigate the flood hazard, especially with applications such as Flood Factor, represents impressive advancement of science communication, there remains an absence of tools that optimize freeboard benefitto-cost ratio at the individual building scale, for both new and existing residence owners, renters, developers, engineers, architects, and planners, in a bottom-up approach
Summary
The world’s most ubiquitous and expensive natural hazard, flooding increases in notoriety as populations and economic investment in coastal and other flood-prone areas continue to climb sharply (Dewan et al, 2006; Bushra et al, 2021). Its strengths are in enhancing public awareness of the necessity for long-term planning strategies to prevent or at least mitigate the flood hazard, thereby enhancing both individual- and communitylevel efforts Toward this end, modern Internet capabilities allow for additional advances in citizen-science-based data collection for natural hazards (De Longueville et al, 2010), including flood risk assessment. Social media is most beneficial in raising awareness of the flood hazard and communicating short- and long-term mitigation and adaptation strategies It is the easiest and quickest way for local authorities to assimilate actionable information to the masses before, during, and after the flood event. One specific type of actionable information missing from social media sources is user-defined, point- or polygon-specific, flood
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