Improving the Value of Forecasts Through an Online, Interactive Mapping Environment: The Example of Wildfire Planning

The Utility of Maps in Hazard Forecasting

The recent wildfires in Southern California remind of us of just how important hazard forecasting has become in helping to ensure the safety and welfare of the public and the role that mapping can play in the process. Short-term forecasts of fire direction and intensity were pivotal in containment and evacuation efforts; Mapping played a prominent role in generating forecasts and in disseminating and sharing information about potential risk.

The usefulness of maps in visualizing and and generating forecasts extends well beyond the California fire event. In the area of climate prediction, numerous sites provide regularly updated maps of long-term and short-term forecasts of a variety of conditions and in some cases, valuable watches and warnings to the public based on the forecasts.

Some Points for Discussion

While the information that is currently out there provides great utility, there are some limitations in the way that the information is is disseminated and formatted that are worth noting. The points are intended to be food for thought and to get us thinking about how we can increase the value of forecasting even further – particularly in an interactive, web-based mapping environment.

First, forecasts are scattered across multiple websites and even within websites, requiring some effort and time on the part of the consumer to find, extract and process information. The sites and links vary in terms of the information they provide. In terms of fire forecasting, some sites focus on drought conditions, others on smoke generation and yet others on combinations of factors to characteristic future fire potential. The forecasting horizons also vary considerably from site to site.

Second, much of the maps provided on the web are in a “hard copy” format and not in an interactive mode where the user can pan, zoom and perform other functions. Some sites do have map viewers however, they are currently limited in the amount and type of data that can be displayed.

Third, and related to the second point, is that the possibility for “layering” data to create custom maps with richer information relevant to the needs of the user is limited. For example, someone may be interested in seeing if an environmentally sensitive or protected area is in the path of a projected wildfire.

Fourth, there lacks a mechanism for consumers and providers of the forecasts to interact and share information. Interaction could be very useful in understanding forecasts but also in terms of improving current predictive models. In the book Making Climate Forecasts Better, Stern and Easterling write: “The utility of forecasts can be increased by systematic efforts to bring scientific output and users’ needs closer together. These efforts may include both analytic efforts to identify the climatic parameters to which particular sectors or groups are highly sensitive or vulnerable and social processes that foster continual interaction between the producers and the consumers of forecasts.”

Fifth, not all information is publicly available and perhaps it should be? In climate forecasting, having access to the “best” information is in the national interest: it can save lives. And in some cases, the private sector is the keeper of such information. A recent study by ForecastWatch, found that in terms of recent historical forecasting of next day rain and snow, government sites had a 21% greater error rate than some of the private companies that do similar projections.

What Could the Future Hold?

The new web is fertile for the development of a system by which forecasts can be provided to the public in a more usable, digestible and efficient manner. Sites like Geocommons could be a one-stop location for viewing forecasts, such as those related to hazards and climatic conditions. In such an environment, visitors could interact with each other or the producers of the forecasts, discuss the validity of the forecasts or provide additional information to augment the projections, all through a wiki or blog-style environment. They could also create custom forecast maps with overlays of additional information that is of most useful to them for solving a problem, understanding a situation or simply planning ahead.