Integrating Social and Behavioral Sciences Within the Weather Enterprise (2018) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
3 Assessing the Current State of Social and Behavioral Sciences Within the Weather Enterprise
3 Assessing the Current State of Social and Behavioral Sciences Within the Weather Enterprise
Pages 39-80
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 39... ...
We also review the status of: • Integrating SBS into research-to-operations efforts. • Routine data collection efforts that help support SBS-weather research.
|
From page 40... ...
Drawing on insights from these related areas of research could help inform studies of near-term hazardous weather. 3.1 OVERVIEW OF RECENT/CURRENT SBS ACTIVITIES Research Activities Myriad studies have been conducted that have examined SBS aspects of weather hazards across a range of disciplines, investigating varying concepts and theories and using different methods.
|
From page 41... ...
. Weather Enterprise System-Focused Research SBS research can examine, in many different ways, the weather enterprise as a system.
|
From page 42... ...
; and • communication strategies, crowd behavior, and event safety management when weather hazards affect large gatherings of people in outdoor venues such as at sports events, festivals, and on college campuses (e.g., Sherman Morris, 2010; Zeitz et al., 2009)
|
From page 43... ...
. Message Design There are myriad research studies that pertain to the design, interpretations, and effects of weather forecast and warning messages, focusing on different populations regarding weather hazards such as hurricanes, floods and flash floods, tornadoes, and high winds, as well as everyday weather.
|
From page 44... ...
to review the scientific base for protective actions that are recommended to the public in response to specific weather hazards (FEMA, 2017b)
|
From page 45... ...
and other partners support periodic assessments for SBS weather research, this would help to assure that those who plan, manage, and seek to apply SBS research are aware of what issues have already been well-addressed by the research community, and what issues remain as critical knowledge gaps. Literature syntheses and assessments are useful to stakeholders across the weather enterprise in part because much of the important research being done appears only in specialized disciplinary journals that may, unless there is open access, be inaccessible to people who are not specialists in that discipline -- for instance, operational or broadcast meteorologists generally do not have access to academic journals that require paid subscription.
|
From page 46... ...
. Given the large, diverse audiences that the private sector can reach -- and the significant motivation to gain insights on how these audiences use and perceive the value of their services -- the private sector has numerous potential opportunities to undertake SBS research and apply SBS insights to their operations.
|
From page 47... ...
Others have used panel groups to understand product usage and perception. • Many utilize SBS research to identify need states that are then woven into product strategy.
|
From page 48... ...
. Most weather-related companies recognize that they share some common goals that reach across the weather enterprise, and some weather-related companies are open to exploring new opportunities for public–private partnerships -- either for supporting actual SBS research, or for advancing research agenda-setting, research communityand capacity-building, and information-sharing activities.
|
From page 49... ...
. Scientists identified five priority themes for SERA research, with the recommendation that these be addressed first within an ongoing and sustainable SBS research effort.
|
From page 50... ...
• Living With Extreme Weather workshop. The goal of this May 2015 work shop was to "bring together researchers from the social, behavioral, and economic sciences, as well as physical sciences, engineering, technology and operational domains, to chart a bold and innovative course for addressing one of society's greatest challenges: reducing mortality associated with extreme weather" (Droegemeier et al., 2016)
|
From page 51... ...
Due to sustained interest and support primarily from the Societal Impacts Program (SIP, discussed below) , as well as from NWS, WAS*
|
From page 52... ...
WRaDS research integrates social sciences approaches and methods with knowledge about weather and climate research, prediction, and predictability. It includes studies with members of various publics, forecasters, public officials and public agency personnel, broadcast meteorologists, and other stakeholders, drawing from and contributing to the atmospheric science, natural hazards, risk communication, and environmental anthropology communities.
|
From page 53... ...
The programs discussed above focus on SBS specifically for weather hazards. There are also numerous other programs that conduct relevant SBS research and capacity building within the broader scope of societal risk, hazards, and disasters.
|
From page 54... ...
Following a few years of study and preparation, the AMS launched a new peer-reviewed journal, pub lished quarterly, that provides SBS researchers investigating applications in the Earth sciences with a platform for publishing their work. The quality, quantity, and diversity of the articles continue to grow, as does the journal's reputation in the SBS community.
|
From page 55... ...
Though not focused on SBS research per se, it has a focus on societal impacts. In addition to these structured, sustained efforts, SBS-related research issues increasingly thread through other AMS meetings such as the AMS Washington Forum and the AMS Summer Community Meeting.
|
From page 56... ...
In addition, the International Research Committee on Disasters has for several years co-organized a set of research presentations as an addition to the main meeting that provide a forum for SBS-weather research. While too many to fully discuss here, there are numerous other agency- and disciplinary-focused conferences that offer potential as useful forums for discussing weather-related SBS research.
|
From page 57... ...
. The FY 2017 joint funding announcement for the Hurricane, Hazardous Weather, and Hydrometeorology Testbeds10 included SBS research topics.
|
From page 58... ...
To understand what occurs within these teams, researchers need concepts and methods to study the decision-making processes and interactions among forecasters, emergency managers, weather observing spotters, and other stakeholders during severe weather events (Bass et al., 2011)
|
From page 59... ...
As a result, this approach offers a rich opportunity for growth. Data Collection for SBS-Weather Research Advancing the social and behavioral sciences requires the regular collection and sharing of high-quality data, including ongoing observations that may need to be sustained over periods of months, years, or even longer.
|
From page 60... ...
This program draws on part nerships and combined resources of federal, state, local, and private sector to assemble and rapidly deploy teams of investigators. The teams, which are drawn from disciplines such as structural and civil engineering, architecture, building construction, natural hazards research, and code development and enforcement, are deployed to evaluate the performance of the buildings and related infrastructure in response to the effects of natural and man-made haz ards (FEMA, 2016)
|
From page 61... ...
, which summarizes findings from several recent surveys, highlights critical factors of risk communication (particularly the relevance of the risk to the individual) , and the importance of communication networks such as the workplace and school.
|
From page 62... ...
In addition to the need for survey research on experiences and survival of weather hazards, there is a need for continued development of in-depth and holistic anthropological and ethnographic research on weather hazards and the weather enterprise, as illustrated by, for example, Daipha (2015) , Henderson (2016)
|
From page 63... ...
. ing behavior and for managing traffic and cargo, have potential to be a rich source of research information on driving behavior under hazardous weather conditions (Malta et al., 2007; Toledo et al., 2008)
|
From page 64... ...
Big data also is playing an increasing role -- and offering increasing research and operational pportunities -- o in SBS-weather research, particularly through user-generated content and platforms. Such platforms may be used to elicit information, for instance, by crowdsourcing weather reports through NOAA's mPING (mobile Precipitation Identification Near the Ground14)
|
From page 65... ...
This capacity promises to revolutionize weather information services. Big data poses novel analytical and ethical challenges, however.
|
From page 66... ...
Although SBS researchers are trained in privacy protection of human subjects, there have been instances where people were identifiable by their social media posts, despite researchers having taken steps to anonymize the data (e.g., Zimmer, 2010) , thus raising new and evolving privacy concerns (e.g., Boyd and Crawford, 2012)
|
From page 67... ...
, and a supplemental award opportunity in collaboration with NSF. The cooperative agreement funds have supported a mixture of foundational and applied research efforts -- as well as the NCAR Societal Impacts Program (SIP)
|
From page 68... ...
It is impossible to assess from the public data how much of a total award goes specifically toward SBS research, and when the research is truly interdisciplinary, it is not feasible to truly disentangle SBS research from the other sciences involved. Thus, this analysis can at best be considered an approximation.
|
From page 69... ...
ENG-CMMI awards from IMEE Program Directors were identified by searching for awards made by IMEE Program Directors (by name) and award titles and abstracts for "weather" or a related term (e.g., hurricane)
|
From page 70... ...
As is evident from the examples collected, NSF has funded a variety of useful research on human perceptions of and communications about weather hazards (with a small amount of this jointly funded by NOAA) , and research on modeling and simulation of resilience and responses of integrated social and physical systems to repeated weather hazards.
|
From page 71... ...
Many of the COEs support research of direct relevance to the weather enterprise; they support SBS research on public attitudes and behaviors related to risk assessment, perception, and communication applied to multiple hazards, including weather hazards. Appendix A lists some specific examples of research that is relevant to weather concerns being supported at four COEs: the Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence led by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (see Table A.6)
|
From page 72... ...
Yet, despite this progress, multiple arriers still limit how SBS research is conducted and applied in the weather b enterprise. Some barriers are not specific to SBS and weather (in that they are present whenever disparate research and practitioner communities come together)
|
From page 73... ...
The report suggests that improving team effectiveness requires careful attention to factors such as leadership, team composition, professional development, and organizational support. Funders of team science are advised to pay attention to collaborative merit -- that is, how the team members work together and integrate disciplinary per spectives and methods across the life of the research project.
|
From page 74... ...
In contrast, the types of social science data related to weather hazards that are freely available are relatively limited in the type of information they can provide to test and shed light on key concepts and theories. Another common challenge when groups with differing disciplinary knowledge interact is the potential for miscommunication because vocabulary is not shared or terms are actually defined differently among disciplines.
|
From page 75... ...
These limitations also are felt in the workforce, affecting whether or not there is any SBS expertise within different weather organizations, and where and how this expertise is situated within a given organization. NOAA/NWS has very little social science expertise within its line office, for example, and extremely few other academic, research, or operational meteorological organizations have SBS expertise either.
|
From page 76... ...
This imbalance in what expertise is brought to the table drives how research and application problems are framed, what research agendas are set, how funding priorities are determined, how success is defined, and even what time frames are considered -- for instance, by focusing only on the forecast and warning processes rather than preparedness and mitigation opportunities. One interesting example of a framing challenge comes from the growing concern among meteorologists about 7-10 day forecasts of weather hazards such as winter storms being posted and shared via social media, sometimes with little to no context of uncertainty information, and in some cases these might be worst-case scenarios.
|
From page 77... ...
Limited Understanding and Misperceptions of SBS by the Weather Community The barriers discussed above exemplify a general problem that impedes progress in meaningfully integrating SBS within the weather enterprise -- that is, the limited understanding of SBS by many members of the weather community. This problem manifests in many ways, for instance: • Interdisciplinary insights are lost when just one person -- often found pportunistically -- is selected to be "the social scientist" and tasked to pro o vide answers, often drawing on just one theory or one set of studies.
|
From page 78... ...
For example, some meteorologists wanting to know how to best issue warnings and/ or evacuation recommendations in anticipation of a severe weather event may seek advice from a social scientist (for example, a risk communication expert) , hoping for a direct, unequivocal recommendation.
|
From page 79... ...
Addressing the barriers discussed above will help ensure that SBS research can effectively advance the goals of the weather enterprise. Providing the level and consistency of support that can sustain a growing body of thoughtful, rigorous SBS research will help bolster perceptions of this research across the weather enterprise.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.