Visualizing Vulnerability and Impacts of Climate Change

This report from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) looks for new ways of visualising and communicating the future likely impacts of climate change. It looks for bringing those new ways together in a single tool to help bridge two gaps, which are: the gap between scientific consensus and popular belief and the gap between broad-brush information on impacts and vulnerability, and the level of information that decision-makers and stakeholders need to help them make better decisions.

From the Abstract: "A brief review is given of current spatial modelling of climate change impacts ...combined with landscape visualization. This is followed by an overview of scenarios of future climate change impacts and the issues related to uncertainty. Methods for representing urban and rural vulnerability are discussed, with some treatment of thresholds. The communication of vulnerability in promoting public debate, individual action, and communal and policy action is addressed, particularly in relation to the possible future development of visualization science. The report concludes with a summary of some of the outstanding issues, and possible ways of advancing this important but difficult agenda."

The document details the problems of current spatial modelling, including the need to present charts and graphs with error bars that state the uncertainties they contain and maps that are taken as definitive when they suggest probability. Computer modelling of landscape visualisation - digital photomontage and a real-time landscape model - can be a means of integrating science and intuition and engaging lay-people and involving their personal experience. It can be flexible in presenting different options or choices. However, problems recognised here include: the degree of generalisation in a model, diverse interpretations, trivialisation due to the association with "fun" rather than function, and variations in acceptance based on age demographics, among others. "Landscape visualization is one of a group of methods and tools sometimes referred to as 'visual representation', which may be of different types and complexity. For example, there are specialized stand-alone environments such as the Macaulay Institute’s [Aberdeen, United Kingdom (UK)] (2008) Virtual Landscape Theatre, consisting of a large curved screen and a system of multiple computers and projectors. This is used for various purposes, including obtaining feedback from stakeholder groups on different types of landscape changes, such as changes in woodlands and vegetation, wind farm developments, and urban expansion... A simpler but more widely available (web-based) example is using Google Earth", as in this UK Department for International Development (DFID) example.

A caution recognised in the use of this type of visualisation is raising fears that the transfer of this sensitive information to the general public could potentially undermine ongoing planning procedures. "This raises the broader issue of involvement and inclusion in consultation and decision-making processes. Clearly, 'consultation' merely involving one-way communication of preferred options (and restricting wider access to other visualizations for some reason deemed undesirable) is no consultation at all. Yet relatively wide participation in decision-making may lead to unintended consequences, some of which may well be negative from a broader, societal perspective." According to research, there are some methods and tools that can reduce the risks of unintended consequences from wide participation (e.g., expert opinion, stakeholder identification, cognitive mapping, and network analysis.) These researchers argue that genuine consultation has to be done "within a methodological framework that provides an appropriate operational protocol. They outline one such framework, built around problem identification, analysis of the actors involved, analysis of the problem itself, participatory modelling and design of whatever decision support is needed, analysis of alternative options, and implementation of the preferred options with subsequent monitoring and possible modification if needed.... An appropriate framework may be able to address some of the information sensitivity, credibility, and stakeholder inclusion issues that can dog more ad hoc approaches to consultation. This appears to be a key researchable issue..."

Tools for communicating vulnerability and for knowledge exchange include: web-based platforms to link stakeholders; capacity-building workshops; and the dissemination of printed material, including books, briefs, and technical notes, as well as more innovative material such as cartoon strips. Radio soap operas and script writing competitions on climate change are also communication tools. In natural resource management (NRM), "several methods have been used in planning, from on-the-spot sketching of participants' opinions and preferences within the context of a participatory workshop, via visual preference surveys using pre-assembled pictures or photos, to the sophisticated use of three-dimensional GIS [geographic information system] modelling, with models and analyses carried out either by third parties or by stakeholders themselves." Computer "hardware and visualization software makes the concept of interactive and dynamic landscape visualization or virtual reality, or 'collaborative environments' within which several stakeholders could engage at the same time, a realistic option for the future."

According to this document, new ways of visualising and communicating "user" or consumer information on the likely future impacts of climate change are now being studied. Linking tools like the Savannah ecosystem model and a household model can result in information for public presentation: "This linked model tracks wildlife and livestock movements in a landscape, as well as the growth and distribution of the feed resources on which they depend, and relates these to household activities (cropping, household movement, and other economic activity) in the same landscape. Outputs from this integrated assessment modelling work have been used in public meetings in Kajidao, Kenya, using simple maps and graphics, and were found to be highly effective discussion tools in such forums....Embedding this two-dimensional spatial model within a three-dimensional virtual reality framework could allow multiple users and stakeholders to watch the impacts unfold of a whole range of 'what-if' questions, in compressed time." A question of ethics surfaces in the use of manipulated scientific models to influence attitudes and behaviour concerning climate change. Is scientific neutrality violated and, moreover, should it be violated, to communicate an urgency regarding climate change in order to achieve behaviour change? A further question for research is the relationship between information provision (by visualisation, maps, or other means) and possible behaviour change. The field of psychology could be engaged to analyse why information provision is not necessarily a catalyst for behaviour change. A stronger role for psychology in analysis of behaviour resulting from engagement with technology and regarding human adaptation to climate change in the field of NRM might result in behaviour change communication knowledge that would benefit the environment.

Table 2 on page 33 of the document offers a chart of biophysical indicators such as sea level rise, the possibility of linking each indicator to "futures scenarios", its visibility or "imaginability" in the landscape and whether the effects can be assimilated readily by a lay-viewer, and what an indicative data source might be for each indicator. In applying this information to communication, the document recommends multidisciplinary inputs from: climate science; the computing community with expertise on virtual reality; vulnerability sciences; agricultural, economic, and ecosystems sciences; and the psychological sciences. Possible next steps include:

1. Assemble a "framework for action"
   
2. Design and implement case studies 
3. Include a broader role for the use of visualisation tools - "When seen in a broad context, the development and implementation of visualization tools in concert with other methods may well be able to address some of the key requirements that are voiced time and again by stakeholders in developing countries concerning adaptation."