Methodologies for the assessment of the impacts of severe storms on society.
Amongst meso-scale weather phenomena, severe storms have received much attention in recent years because of their direct and indirect impacts on a wide range of socio-economical human activities, and associated huge financial losses. New knowledge and technology have created opportunities for improved spatial and temporal weather observation, nowcasting and forecasting, better awareness of the risks and hazards, and better early warning in support of decision-making. But at the same time they have introduced new societal exposures and possibly increased vulnerability, for example due to economic development, and population shifts (e.g. towards mega cities, or coastal environments).
Traditionally, weather-related extreme events are considered from a threefold point of view:
their forecast, their socio-economic impacts, and response strategies.
In the past, social sciences dealing with severe storms were often focused on extreme weather events,
and their impact restricted to life and property losses.
In this session papers are invited from both meteorological and social sciences communities,
and calls especially on integrated studies dealing with these issues through multi-disciplinary
approaches. A good example of relevant framework is the UCAR WAS*IS
(Weather and Society Integrated Studies)
(see
http://www.sip.ucar.edu/wasis/objectives.jsp).
A list of possible relevant topics is given just below:
SOCIAL ASPECTS
Methodologies for the assessment of the impacts of severe storms on society.
Social costs (psychological consequences; damages to public services and facilities; loss of business and
employment; reduced investments; ...); Direct, indirect, short term and long term impacts.
Warning messages, impact and risk information: potential users and needs; communication needs; content;
perception by the users, stakeholders and decision-makers, in terms of understanding and most effective use.
Emergency management plans.
Evaluation/Effectiveness of intervention plans.
Post disasters evaluation (in case of either good or bad forecasts).
Role of policy.
Capacity building and education of population at risk (on the risks themselves, the impacts, and the
accuracy/probability of forecasts).
Social and environmental changes affecting society vulnerability.
Individual and social responses to forecasts or warnings of severe storms.
Human factors to be considered in the design of weather-related information systems.
ECONOMICAL ASPECTS
Economical, spatial, temporal and land-use aspects of adverse impacts of different types of severe storms:
characterization of losses of life and property, degraded infrastructures, environmental impacts, ...
Methodologies for establishing economic costs of severe storms.
Benefits gained from improved Observations and Forecasts: which kind of improvements are most necessary?
Cost/benefit of prevention and mitigation (e.g. evacuation).
Multi-disciplinary approach to estimate hidden costs.
Role of insurance.
Integration of societal information into weather forecasting development.
Storm scenarios.
Protection and design of critical infrastructure.
CULTURAL ASPECTS
Identification of vulnerable populations
Public preparedness: perception of risks by different individuals and cultures
Respective roles of gender, age, social origin, educational level, disabilities,?