Mind the Gap: Towards a Typology of Climate Service Usability Gaps

Abstract

Literature on climate services presents a large diversity of different services and uses. Many climate services have ‘usability gaps’: the information provided, or the way it is visualized, may be unsuitable for end users to inform decision-making processes in relation to adaptation against climate change impacts or for the development of policies to this end. The aim of this article is to contribute to more informed and efficient decision-making processes in climate adaptation by developing a typology of usability gaps for climate services. To do so, we first present and demonstrate a so-called ‘climate information design’ (CID) template with which to study and potentially improve the visual communicative qualities of climate services. Then, two climates services are selected for a further, qualitative explorative case study of two cases in the north and south of the Netherlands. A combination of focus group sessions and semi-structured interviews are used to collect data from Dutch governmental stakeholders as well as private stakeholders and NGOs. This data is then coded to discover what usability gaps are present. We then present twelve different types of usability gaps that were encountered as a typology. This typology could be used to improve and redesign climate services.

Towards more effective visualisations in climate services: good practices and recommendations

“…Graphs and maps help to understand scientific data, find patterns, identify trends and tell a story. The choice of the optimal representation for a dataset will depend on the visualisation purpose as well as the level of background knowledge of the intended audience and their familiarity with different visualisation formats (McInerny et al 2014;Raaphorst et al 2020). In terms of purpose, certain visualisations favour comparisons whereas others focus on the evolution over time or the composition of a set.…”

Ny bydel i naturen – Hva har utbygging å si for fremtidig overvannssituasjon ved Martineåsen i Larvik kommune?

“…Dersom tilgjengelig informasjon skal vaere nyttig for kommunen og andre sluttbrukere, er det nødvendig at dataene og formatet er tilpasset deres kunnskap og behov. Først da kan kommunene ta i bruk informasjonen for å planlegge og fatte beslutninger som tar hensyn til et klima i endring (Raaphorst et al, 2020).…”

Accelerating Climate Service Development for Renewable Energy, Finance and Cities

“…In this paper, climate services are defined in line with the definition of the EU Roadmap as also proposed by scientific literature [2]. This means that CS includes the transformation of climate-related data and relevant information into customized products, such as projections, forecasts, trends, economic analysis, assessments, counselling, and the development and evaluation of solutions [3].…”

“…An important aim of the development and application of climate services (CS) is to facilitate the implementation of climate change mitigation, and risk management in relation to climate change impacts [1,2]. In the current paper, we focus on CS in support of climate risk reduction options such as disaster risk reduction, early warning systems, and climate change adaptation options given business as usual emission scenarios and climate change mitigation scenarios.…”