Can end-users' flood management decision making be improved by information about forecast uncertainty?

Frick, Jacqueline; Hegg, C.

doi:10.1016/j.atmosres.2010.12.006

Cited by 58 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Downton et al, 2005;Demeritt et al, 2007;Morss et al, 2008;Frick and Hegg, 2011). Their aim was to better understand how decision makers manage uncertainty in different situations: for instance, in predicting flood risk (Downton et al, 2005), in communicating everyday weather forecasts (Morss et al, 2008) and within the warning and alert chain (Frick and Hegg, 2011).…”

Section: Published By Copernicus Publications On Behalf Of the Europementioning

confidence: 99%

Stakeholders' issues for action during the warning process and the interpretation of forecasts' uncertainties

Créton-Cazanave

Lutoff

2013

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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This article considers the socio-geographical approach carried out as part of the MedUp program. It presents a study of the ways that the French "actors" manage forecast uncertainties during a flash flood warning process. In order to better understand the role of forecasts' uncertainties in decision making, we focused on the actions people took and how what they say explains their actions. The practices of actors involved in warnings for the Vidourle watershed (Gard, France), in particular, are analyzed using a practice-based approach. A set of categories of the "actors" was developed based on their descriptions of the problems they faced during the flash flood warning, independent of their socio-professional status and position in the warning chain. Five actor profiles result from this: Translators, Managers, Committed, Navigators and Vulnerable. For each profile, specific action contexts are defined, determining how each deals with uncertainty

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Section: Published By Copernicus Publications On Behalf Of the Europementioning

confidence: 99%

Stakeholders' issues for action during the warning process and the interpretation of forecasts' uncertainties

Créton-Cazanave

Lutoff

2013

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…Ritchie et al, 2004;Ramos et al, 2013), especially when forecasts do not reach their final users, when the provider is not trusted, or when forecasts are not appropriately understood (e.g. Ramos et al, 2010;Frick and Hegg, 2011). In other words, while quantifying forecast quality is a necessary step in the assessment of W&C services, other indicators should be considered for capturing the stakeholders' judgment of the value of the forecast products, i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A coupled human–natural system to assess the operational value of weather and climate services for agriculture

Liu

Giuliani

Castelletti

2017

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Recent advances in weather and climate (W&C) services are showing increasing forecast skills over seasonal and longer timescales, potentially providing valuable support in informing decisions in a variety of economic sectors. Quantifying this value, however, might not be straightforward as better forecast quality does not necessarily imply better decisions by the end users, especially when forecasts do not reach their final users, when providers are not trusted, or when forecasts are not appropriately understood. In this study, we contribute an assessment framework to evaluate the operational value of W&C services for informing agricultural practices by complementing traditional forecast quality assessments with a coupled human-natural system behavioural model which reproduces farmers' decisions. This allows a more critical assessment of the forecast value mediated by the end users' perspective, including farmers' risk attitudes and behavioural factors. The application to an agricultural area in northern Italy shows that the quality of state-ofthe-art W&C services is still limited in predicting the weather and the crop yield of the incoming agricultural season, with ECMWF annual products simulated by the IFS/HOPE model resulting in the most skillful product in the study area. However, we also show that the accuracy of estimating crop yield and the probability of making optimal decisions are not necessarily linearly correlated, with the overall assessment procedure being strongly impacted by the behavioural attitudes of farmers, which can produce rank reversals in the quantification of the W&C services operational value depending on the different perceptions of risk and uncertainty.

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“…In particular, probabilistic forecasts, predictive distributions or ensemble traces of future evolution of streamflows are not a guarantee that forecasts are going to be useful. High quality data, sophisticated models and colourful graphical representations may lose their value if probabilistic forecasts do not reach their users, if the provider is not trusted or if forecasts are not appropriately understood (Faulkner and Ball, 2007;McCarthy et al, 2007;Ramos et al, 2010;Frick and Hegg, 2011;Pappenberger et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do probabilistic forecasts lead to better decisions?

Ramos¹,

Andel

Pappenberger

2013

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

151

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Abstract. The last decade has seen growing research in producing probabilistic hydro-meteorological forecasts and increasing their reliability. This followed the promise that, supplied with information about uncertainty, people would take better risk-based decisions. In recent years, therefore, research and operational developments have also started focusing attention on ways of communicating the probabilistic forecasts to decision-makers. Communicating probabilistic forecasts includes preparing tools and products for visualisation, but also requires understanding how decision-makers perceive and use uncertainty information in real time. At the EGU General Assembly 2012, we conducted a laboratorystyle experiment in which several cases of flood forecasts and a choice of actions to take were presented as part of a game to participants, who acted as decision-makers. Answers were collected and analysed. In this paper, we present the results of this exercise and discuss if we indeed make better decisions on the basis of probabilistic forecasts.

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Can end-users' flood management decision making be improved by information about forecast uncertainty?

Cited by 58 publications

References 16 publications

Stakeholders' issues for action during the warning process and the interpretation of forecasts' uncertainties

Stakeholders' issues for action during the warning process and the interpretation of forecasts' uncertainties

A coupled human–natural system to assess the operational value of weather and climate services for agriculture

Do probabilistic forecasts lead to better decisions?

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