Integrating Place and Sense of Place into Geovisualizations of Hurricane Storm Surge Risk

Geovisualizations play a central role in communicating hurricane storm surge risks to the public by connecting information about the hazard to a place. Meanwhile, people connect to places through meaning, functions, and emotional bond, known as a sense of place. The mixed-method approach presented in this paper focuses on the intersection of sense of place, geovisualization, and risk communication. We explored place meaning, scale of place, and place attachment in the coastal communities in Georgia and South Carolina. We conducted cognitive mapping focus groups and developed a series of geovisualizations of storm surge risk with varying representations of place. We then investigated people's ability to connect visual storm surge information to a place and understand their risk by testing these geovisualizations in a large population survey (n 5 1442). We found that a 2D regional-scale map displayed together with a 3D abstract representation of a neighborhood was the most helpful in enabling people to relate to a place, quickly make sense of the information, and understand the risk. Our results showed that while the geovisualizations of storm surge risk can be effective generally, they were less effective in several important and vulnerable groups. We found substantial impacts of race, income, map-reading ability, place attachment, and scale of place on how people connected the storm surge risk shown in the visual to a place. These findings have implications for future research and for considering the way weather forecasters and emergency managers communicate storm surge information with diverse audiences using geovisualizations.