Using the National Weather Service's impact-based decision support services to prepare for extreme winter storms.

In recent years, the National Weather Service (NWS) increased its focus on providing decision support services to the emergency management community and other core partners to help them understand its forecasts and take appropriate actions in the face of upcoming extreme events. In 2011, the Weather-Ready Nation Strategic Plan began to formalize the NWS approach to impact-based decision support services (IDSS). NWS recognizes IDSS as a primary service and is working to fully and more effectively provide it to federal, state, local, and tribal decision-makers. To do so, it is important that NWS understands how users are benefiting from existing IDSS, even as they look to improve it. This article aims to provide emergency managers (EMs) with an understanding of the efficacy of IDSS. The authors define IDSS and describe the IDSS products and services available during each stage of the emergency-management cycle: preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery. To demonstrate the role of IDSS for the emergency management community, the authors use a case study analysis to compare two winter storms in the New York City area with similar characteristics but differing in their implementation of IDSS: the December 2010 winter storm (no formal IDSS) and the January 2016 winter storm (formal IDSS). In comparing the winter storm case studies, the authors find that formal IDSS provides EMs and other core partners with accurate, actionable, and consistent weather information and support that allows them to respond to winter storms in a way that reduces impacts to lives and livelihoods.

Eyeing the storm: How residents of coastal Florida see hurricane forecasts and warnings.

This paper examines the societal dimensions of warning decisions during extreme weather events in one of the most hurricane-prone areas in the U.S., Miami-Dade County, Florida. With the aim of informing improvements in the hurricane forecast and warning system, and better understanding warning decisions in extreme weather events, we explore how members of the public obtain and use hurricane forecasts and warnings in decision making. Results from in depth mental models interviews with members of the public (N=28) and survey data from three counties in Florida (N=460) show that a large majority of respondents have some hurricane experience, which influences their thinking about storm impacts, individual actions to mitigate the hazard, and vulnerability to the hazard. Comparison with results from previous research with warning system professionals (National Weather Service forecasters, media broadcasters, and public officials) indicates several gaps between professionals and laypeople including different perceptions of hurricane risks overall and related to flooding from storm surge. The findings suggest several areas for improvements in the hurricane forecast and warning system.

"Know What to Do If You Encounter a Flash Flood": Mental Models Analysis for Improving Flash Flood Risk Communication and Public Decision Making.

Understanding how people view flash flood risks can help improve risk communication, ultimately improving outcomes. This article analyzes data from 26 mental models interviews about flash floods with members of the public in Boulder, Colorado, to understand their perspectives on flash flood risks and mitigation. The analysis includes a comparison between public and professional perspectives by referencing a companion mental models study of Boulder-area professionals. A mental models approach can help to diagnose what people already know about flash flood risks and responses, as well as any critical gaps in their knowledge that might be addressed through improved risk communication. A few public interviewees mentioned most of the key concepts discussed by professionals as important for flash flood warning decision making. However, most interviewees exhibited some incomplete understandings and misconceptions about aspects of flash flood development and exposure, effects, or mitigation that may lead to ineffective warning decisions when a flash flood threatens. These include important misunderstandings about the rapid evolution of flash floods, the speed of water in flash floods, the locations and times that pose the greatest flash flood risk in Boulder, the value of situational awareness and environmental cues, and the most appropriate responses when a flash flood threatens. The findings point to recommendations for ways to improve risk communication, over the long term and when an event threatens, to help people quickly recognize and understand threats, obtain needed information, and make informed decisions in complex, rapidly evolving extreme weather events such as flash floods.

Factors Affecting Hurricane Evacuation Intentions.

Protective actions for hurricane threats are a function of the environmental and information context; individual and household characteristics, including cultural worldviews, past hurricane experiences, and risk perceptions; and motivations and barriers to actions. Using survey data from the Miami-Dade and Houston-Galveston areas, we regress individuals' stated evacuation intentions on these factors in two information conditions: (1) seeing a forecast that a hurricane will hit one's area, and (2) receiving an evacuation order. In both information conditions having an evacuation plan, wanting to keep one's family safe, and viewing one's home as vulnerable to wind damage predict increased evacuation intentions. Some predictors of evacuation intentions differ between locations; for example, Florida respondents with more egalitarian worldviews are more likely to evacuate under both information conditions, and Florida respondents with more individualist worldviews are less likely to evacuate under an evacuation order, but worldview was not significantly associated with evacuation intention for Texas respondents. Differences by information condition also emerge, including: (1) evacuation intentions decrease with age in the evacuation order condition but increase with age in the saw forecast condition, and (2) evacuation intention in the evacuation order condition increases among those who rely on public sources of information on hurricane threats, whereas in the saw forecast condition evacuation intention increases among those who rely on personal sources. Results reinforce the value of focusing hurricane information efforts on evacuation plans and residential vulnerability and suggest avenues for future research on how hurricane contexts shape decision making.

Flash Flood Risks and Warning Decisions: A Mental Models Study of Forecasters, Public Officials, and Media Broadcasters in Boulder, Colorado.

Timely warning communication and decision making are critical for reducing harm from flash flooding. To help understand and improve extreme weather risk communication and management, this study uses a mental models research approach to investigate the flash flood warning system and its risk decision context. Data were collected in the Boulder, Colorado area from mental models interviews with forecasters, public officials, and media broadcasters, who each make important interacting decisions in the warning system, and from a group modeling session with forecasters. Analysis of the data informed development of a decision-focused model of the flash flood warning system that integrates the professionals' perspectives. Comparative analysis of individual and group data with this model characterizes how these professionals conceptualize flash flood risks and associated uncertainty; create and disseminate flash flood warning information; and perceive how warning information is (and should be) used in their own and others' decisions. The analysis indicates that warning system functioning would benefit from professionals developing a clearer, shared understanding of flash flood risks and the warning system, across their areas of expertise and job roles. Given the challenges in risk communication and decision making for complex, rapidly evolving hazards such as flash floods, another priority is development of improved warning content to help members of the public protect themselves when needed. Also important is professional communication with members of the public about allocation of responsibilities for managing flash flood risks, as well as improved system-wide management of uncertainty in decisions.

Coastal emergency managers' preferences for storm surge forecast communication.

Storm surge, the most deadly hazard associated with tropical and extratropical cyclones, is the basis for most evacuation decisions by authorities. One factor believed to be associated with evacuation noncompliance is a lack of understanding of storm surge. To address this problem, federal agencies responsible for cyclone forecasts are seeking more effective ways of communicating storm surge threat. To inform this process, they are engaging various partners in the forecast and warning process.This project focuses on emergency managers. Fifty-three emergency managers (EMs) from the Gulf and lower Atlantic coasts were surveyed to elicit their experience with, sources of, and preferences for storm surge information. The emergency managers-who are well seasoned in hurricane response and generally rate the surge risk in their coastal areas above average or extremely high-listed storm surge as their major concern with respect to hurricanes. They reported a general lack of public awareness about surge. Overall they support new ways to convey the potential danger to the public, including the issuance of separate storm surge watches and warnings, and the expression of surge heights using feet above ground level. These EMs would like more maps, graphics, and visual materials for use in communicating with the public. An important concern is the timing of surge forecasts-whether they receive them early enough to be useful in their evacuation decisions.

Economic valuation of ecosystem services: discussion and application.

Ecosystems provide a wide range of services that improve human welfare. Changes in ecosystems imply potential changes in the generation of these ecosystem services and thus changes in welfare. In the lingo of economists, these welfare changes are measured as changes in economic values--increases in welfare being benefits and decreases in welfare being costs. For instance, individuals may benefit from, and thus value, reductions in risks to endangered species. Yet values for many changes in ecosystem services are not captured in market transactions, and thus measuring these values requires nonmarket valuation methods. This paper discusses ecosystem services and values from the viewpoint of an economist, explains what is meant by the valuation of ecosystems, and provides an overview of methods for valuation of ecosystem services. An example is presented from a recent natural resource damage assessment--the Green Bay total value equivalency study. Resources in the Lower Fox River and Green Bay in Wisconsin have been injured by polychlorinated biphenyl contamination from numerous paper mills along the river over several decades. The Green Bay study examines individuals' preferences and values for reducing ecosystem risks and improving ecosystem services and how these values are related to individuals' awareness of and use of ecosystem services in the area. The study uses methods from nonmarket valuation to scale potential restoration projects.