Abstract

While the National Weather Service and its River Forecast Centers and Weather Forecast Offices produce visuals, graphics, and outreach designed to support weather forecasts and warnings and inform decisions about natural resource management and emergency services, opportunities exist for risk communication scholarship to refine theory and promote best practices for communicating such information to the various stakeholders who need it. In September 2019, two focus groups were conducted with a sample (N = 14) of National Weather Service-Memphis’ core partners to gauge perceptions about how the Weather Forecast Office provides technical information about flood risk patterns, paying particular attention to evaluations of its Mississippi River Outlook product. Research findings demonstrated that core partners may benefit from targeting risk information depending on partners’ information needs and their technical knowledge/expertise. Similarly, the results suggested a need to offer context or interpretation for unique data points (e.g., gage tables, experimental forecasts, charts, and graphs) to successfully communicate important risk information and to clarify potential misunderstandings; this consideration was underscored by the finding that core partners tended to disseminate the Mississippi River Outlook product to others in the community (e.g., business owners; residents). These findings highlight the importance of audience testing in the development of risk communication and decision-making tools.

摘要

虽然国家气象局及其河流预报中心和天气预报办公室制作视觉效果、图形和外展，旨在支持天气预报和警告，并为有关自然资源管理和应急服务的决策提供信息，但风险交流奖学金有机会完善理论并促进将此类信息传达给需要它的各种利益相关者的最佳做法。2019 年 9 月，以样本（N = 14) 国家气象局-孟菲斯的核心合作伙伴，以衡量对天气预报办公室如何提供有关洪水风险模式的技术信息的看法，特别注意对其密西西比河展望产品的评估。研究结果表明，根据合作伙伴的信息需求和他们的技术知识/专长，核心合作伙伴可能会从目标风险信息中受益。同样，结果表明需要为独特的数据点（例如，量具表、实验预测、图表和图形）提供背景或解释，以成功传达重要的风险信息并澄清潜在的误解；核心合作伙伴倾向于将密西西比河展望产品传播给社区中的其他人（例如，企业主; 居民）。这些发现强调了受众测试在风险沟通和决策工具开发中的重要性。