Communicating Risk and Resilience in Tampa Bay
Urban planners are increasingly embracing storytelling to communicate complex concepts such as climate resilience and urban growth.
Planners as Storytellers
At a recent inCitu webinar, Sarah Vitale from the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council (TBRPC) emphasized that storytelling can help communities visualize and understand climate risks like sea level rise as well as preview potential adaptations such as different housing typologies or landscape design to create living shorelines. Planners at TBRPC are using immersive media to transform static data into interactive experiences, making it easier for the public to grasp and remember the impacts of urban projects and climate risks.
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AR Project Highlight: Tampa Bay Flood Visualization
Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council is leveraging inCitu’s no-code geospatial AR publishing toolkit for multiple projects and activations in Florida. One of the first AR projects TBRPC launched was a sea-level rise demo for the Regional Resiliency Summit, a conference in Clearwater, Florida for national and international leaders to exchange new and innovative practices. The augmented reality demo was available at TBRPC’s expo booth and outside on the beach during the reception, and showed how different types of housing would handle sea level rise. Attendees outside the convention center scanned QR codes showing different storm surge scenarios, helping them visualize the potential impact of rising sea levels.
Beyond Buildings: Living Shorelines in AR
Another prototype by TBRPC’s Alana Todd was visualizing an erosion-resistant living shoreline concept, also known as a bioswale. It’s an example of “green” infrastructure, using natural materials and systems in lieu of hard, “gray” infrastructure such as concrete bulkheads and revetments. Thanks to inCitu’s web-based platform TBRPC easily created a geospatial AR experience without any coding, just a few hours. Screenshots and video of the prototype were shared at a recent webinar, highlighting how inCitu users can easily produce on-site composite videos and images to get quicker, contextual understanding at a meeting or hearing.
Key Impacts: Conquering Engagement Fatigue
According to TBRPC, the immersive, location-based AR storytelling is resonating strongly and boosting engagement. Since mobile, location based activations meet Tampa Bay residents where they are, Sarah Vitale suggests that it could be one way to address one of TBRPC’s core challenges: engagement fatigue. According to Vitale, AR can address three key principles of successful risk communication with flying colors: it brings storytelling to life with a layer of immersion, and communicates from the users’ POV (rather than a bird’s eye model). Lastly, since residents are able to experience not just the climate risks, but also solutions, they are more likely to resist paralysis and support pro-active plans.
Aside from increased public engagement, immersive experiences can also lead to improved decision-making amongst planners and stakeholders themselves, helping them devise more impactful zoning and flood mitigation strategies that can get public buy-in. TBRPC holds several inCitu Pro licenses and plans to incorporate AR into more of their climate resilience and urban growth projects in the near future.
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