Geovisualisation of Risk

The aim of this PhD project is to examine the impact of techniques of geovisualisation on the handling of risk and development of mitigation strategies. Geovisualisation environments can integrate multiple data sources; enable automated hazard identification and risk assessment; allow for human input into all forms of environmental analysis; and create and disseminate visual outputs from the handling of geospatial data. The specific intellectual challenge is to develop an efficient connection between perceived hazards in a wide range of environmental milieus, the visualisation of those hazards and associated risks, and the resultant and necessary decisions made to manage the hazards and mitigate the risks.

An eventual aim of systems which use 'big data' to model, quantify, analyse and communicate risk is to optimise decision making. This project will examine the specific use of hazard-related geospatial data in modelling risk for visualisation in a decision theatre. Further, it will use case study scenarios to identify possible risk mitigation strategies (both structural/physical and non-structural/policy/resource strategies) and determine the role of geovisualisation in generating decisions on intervention, remediation and management.

A range of existing and accessible resources will be used to furnish the environment within which 'big' geospatial data handling will be undertaken: sensor feeds (exemplified by the data infrastructure of the Newcastle Urban Observatory) can be used to contribute to the modelling of impactful hazard situations (e.g. through flood modelling using CityCAT software). Scenario building and visualisation will be undertaken through a visualisation interface developed for the decision theatre in Science Central, and through the real-time data feeds of a multiple-stimuli control centre (e.g. the UTMC 'monitor wall'), enhanced with images, maps and analyses. Visualisation and reporting to decision makers will be assessed for efficiency, and the reaction of human beings in the assessment of risk based on such displays will be gauged.

The research questions to be posed include: what is the role of visual displays in using hazard-sourced data to quantify risk? in what ways can geovisualisation assist in improving environmental modelling of hazards and communication of risk? how can geovisualisation improve decision making (notably of mitigation) in a range of environmental and engineering activities which require risk assessment (including spatial planning, infrastructure management, environmental modelling, emergency response, social policy-making, contemporary urban engineering and management, sustainability education and awareness-raising)?

Decision making processes will be dissected by observing decision makers, and their activities through:
* behavioural analysis of the reaction to hazards and the search for and utilisation of data;
* understanding the way in which environmental models are initiated and populated by geospatial data;
* use of interactive methods in which risk is quantified and visualised in the output from such models;
* reaction to design of visualisations to optimise communication of hazard data and risk probabilities, uncertainties and effects;
identification of optimal mitigation strategy when confronted by alternative and multiple scenario outcomes visualised in a decision theatre.