Nurture Nature Center shares social science research at the American Meteorological Society’s 100th Annual Meeting

Nurture Nature Center shares social science research on improving the use of probabilistic hydrologic information in decision-making at the American Meteorological Society’s 100th Annual Meeting

NNC Executive Director Rachel Hogan (right) and Science Director Kathryn Semmens (left) at the 100th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting in Boston, MA in January 2020.

Rachel Hogan and Kathryn Semmens attended the 100th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society in Boston, MA from January 12-16th, 2020.  The meeting is the world’s largest gathering for weather, water, and climate professionals and was well attended with 5923 registered attendees, 755 sessions, 2792 oral presentations, and 1562 poster presentations.

In addition to seeing the latest meteorological research and networking with forecasters, the Nurture Nature Center team presented interim findings for their 2-year social science project, “Making Sense of Uncertainty: Improving the Use of Hydrologic Probabilistic Information in Decision-Making”, funded by NOAA’s Office of Weather and Air Quality Joint Technology Transfer Initiative.  The project is a collaboration with Dr. Burrell Montz at East Carolina University and builds upon previous research the team has conducted over the past decade.

Specifically, the project involves investigating how public and professional users understand and would use flood forecast products, especially ones that give a range of probable outcomes. NNC traveled to Eureka, CA, Durango and Gunnison, CO, and Owego, NY in the spring and fall of 2019, holding a total of 16 focus groups with residents and professionals.  The team found that probabilistic information was valued but there were notable differences in understanding.  NNC plans to finalize analysis and submit a final report to NOAA later this spring.  The next step will be to work with NOAA to transition some of the proposed product design recommendations to operation.

For the presentation abstract see here: https://ams.confex.com/ams/2020Annual/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/361897

A recording of the presentation should be available at the end of February.

Visit https://focusonfloods.org/social-science/ for more information about our social science work.

Dr. Semmens presenting in the Weather Ready Nation session