1. Making Social Science Actionable for the NWS: The Brief Vulnerability Overview Tool (BVOT)
- Author
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Friedman, Jack R., LaDue, Daphne S., Hurst, Elizabeth H., Saunders, Michelle E., and Marmo, Alex N.
- Subjects
United States. National Weather Service -- Powers and duties ,Weather forecasting -- Analysis ,Decision-making -- Analysis ,Decision support systems -- Analysis ,Emergency management -- Analysis ,Business ,Earth sciences ,Decision support software ,Powers and duties ,Analysis - Abstract
This paper provides an introduction to a new tool that is designed to provide operationally useful vulnerability information to National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Forecasting Offices (WFOs). The Brief Vulnerability Overview Tool (BVOT) is a shapefile containing local known, spatially specific, and weather-hazard-related vulnerabilities in a format that is easily integrated into the existing forecasting, warning, and decision support responsibilities and tasks of NWS WFO meteorologists. The methods for gathering vulnerability data and then building a BVOT for a WFO leverage and strengthen the relationships that NWS WFOs already have with their local emergency managers (EMs) and core partners to work together to identify operationally useful, local vulnerability knowledge. The BVOT is populated with discrete, known vulnerabilities to provide NWS meteorologists spatial situational awareness of those people, places, and things of greatest concern to their core partners. Crucially, the BVOT is a subsample of all potential vulnerabilities; its primary purpose is to make meteorologists aware of those weather-hazard-specific vulnerabilities that, as we posed to them, "keep them awake at night." Here, we describe the development of the BVOT as a social science-informed operational tool; how the BVOT methods have evolved and how it can be integrated into the culture of the NWS as a tool for building and maintaining relationships with partners; and how the BVOT is designed to be used and its impact on operational decision-making as observed in NOAA's Hazardous Weather Testbed. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Operational meteorologists in the National Weather Service often rely on everyday knowledge of vulnerabilities to shape their messaging to communities threatened by hazardous weather. This study seeks to test methods that will permit meteorologists to work with local communities and emergency managers to collect knowledge about local vulnerabilities so that they can be formally shared and integrated into everyday operations. The results of this research provide an illustrative pathway demonstrating how social science-informed research can be used to improve meteorological operations. Future work should investigate how other findings from social science can be translated into real, operational impacts. KEYWORDS: Social science; Operational forecasting; Communication/ decision-making; Decision support; Vulnerability, 1. BVOT: An inductive approach to actionable vulnerability decision support The mission of the U.S. NWS is to "provide weather, water, and climate data, forecasts, warnings, and impact-based decision support [...]
- Published
- 2024
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