Funds will allow NOAA to better understand how the public uses communication products and reacts to emergency announcements during floods and other weather events.
The Department of Commerce and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have announced $10m in funding to support social science research related to flooding services and products.
These funds from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda will allow NOAA to better understand how the public uses communication products and reacts to emergency announcements during floods and other weather events. Ultimately, the goal is to help communities to better prepare for weather emergencies such as flooding caused by atmospheric rivers.
The funding will be spent over the course of five years and will help to establish NOAA’s Societal Data Insights initiative within NOAA Research’s Weather Programme Office.
This initiative will focus on ensuring that communities across the country understand and know how to respond to severe weather alerts in order to keep themselves and their families safe. It will also enable experts to develop tools that can integrate the scientific study of humans and social relationships with information about weather, flooding and climate.
“Storms and flooding take a huge toll on local economies across the country, and we have historically underinvested in the data infrastructure needed to prepare for the impacts of these disasters,” said Gina Raimondo, US secretary of commerce.
“This investment, part of President Biden’s commitment to investing in America and combating the climate crisis, will allow NOAA to effectively communicate with communities in advance of severe weather events to help save lives and minimise property damage – all while improving resilience to natural disasters caused by climate change.”
The research project will include surveys of individuals before, during and after an atmospheric river event. There will also be a week-long hackathon to help researchers identify new types of data and ways for NOAA’s Societal Data Insights to integrate datasets, including advancements in AI and machine learning; and lessons learned to improve future weather communications tools.
“This investment will allow NOAA to effectively communicate with communities in advance of severe weather events to help save lives and minimise property damage”
“Most social science research only surveys people after a storm," said Michael Morgan, assistant secretary of commerce for environmental observation and prediction.
"This project will allow us to understand how an individual’s risk perception may evolve before, during and after an extreme weather event. Additionally, the use of AI will enhance our capacity to evaluate responses and improve future weather communication.”
As part of this effort, an award was made to the National Science Foundation to conduct a research project to explore new methods of combining social and meteorological data focusing on flood events.
Throughout this research project, NOAA will work with the NSF AI Institute for Research on Trustworthy AI in Weather, Climate and Coastal Oceanography and its partners from the NSF National Centre for Atmospheric Research.