LESSONS FROM THE LOWCOUNTRY HAZARDS CENTER: COMMUNICATING NATURAL HAZARD RISK TO DIVERSE POPULATIONS

The Lowcountry Hazards Center is one of three South Carolina centers devoted to aspects of natural, environmental and anthropogenic hazards in the state of South Carolina. The Lowcountry Hazards Center is designed to support primarily the science and understanding of natural and environmental hazards across the state of South Carolina with a focus to those that are most germane to the coastal counties (Lowcountry) of South Carolina. As such the Center focuses on developing a better understanding of earthquake potential, hurricane impacts, sea level rise and nuisance flooding across the region. Part of the mission of the center is to provide information, briefings, education, and outreach to state and local agencies, schools, media and the general public. These diverse communities require data translation and messaging at multiple levels of detail and content.

The challenges the center has faced in communicating natural and environmental hazards stem from both the current political environment and its relationship to climate-based discussions as well as the fact that hazard planning can often be seen as a reactionary response to an event as opposed to planned future mitigation. The Center's activities range from supporting emergency management agencies on developing hazard plans and mitigation strategies for earthquakes or hurricanes and flooding across the state, to communicating repetitive and chronic impacts of sea level rise and related flooding, as well as storm event-based flooding. Lessons learned in communicating these risks will be discussed. We will focus on the uses of technology and the needs for breaking information down to easily understandable maps and info-graphics. Special emphasis will be placed on the communication of earthquake hazards and flood-related hazards.