2018 Conference

Individual Paper Presentation

Sea level rise (SLR) is a global environmental risk whose effects vary from location to location. Online interactive SLR maps are tools for communicating about localized risks, and may help audiences understand personal risk exposure (Monmonier, 2008). However, designing maps that clearly communicate to users with varying levels of expertise is a complex challenge (Kostelnick et al., 2013). This presentation describes an applied digital project that combines interactive map-based risk information with video-recorded personal narratives about SLR to give meaningful place-based context to the data and help audiences connect to it.

While most SLR maps can be used to explore localized risk, they typically exclude the perspectives and concerns of affected individuals in favor of other types of visualized data (e.g., projected flooding). This project answers a call for science communicators to share narratives that connect to audiences’ everyday lived experiences of risk (Lejano et al, 2013). In the project, coastal residents’ perspectives and experiences and SLR data are combined in a map-based digital tool through a digital humanities technique called “story mapping.” Story mapping, or spatial narrative, presents individuals’ perspectives or place-based stories on a map in order to tell a story (Ridge et al, 2013). Thus, a story map can both communicate complex map-based risk information and be more inclusive of human stories and narrative voices.

The project focuses on two communities that have experienced historical coastal flooding and are beginning to be impacted by SLR: Florida’s Space Coast and the city of Norfolk, Virginia. The presentation will describe the theoretical background and technical construction of the digital project, and demonstrate how localized narratives can be included in risk communication projects in a way that may make them more meaningful and inclusive of the perspectives and concerns of audiences.