Social Science Research Needs for the Hurricane Forecast and Warning System: An Introduction

An average hurricane season in the late twentieth century destroyed around $5 billion in property and killed 20 people in the United States. Largely because of improvements in the hurricane forecast and warning system, the number of deaths has fallen by half every 14 years—but property losses have been doubling every 10 years, largely because of increasing population and development in areas that are vulnerable to hurricanes Willoughby et al. 2007 . Unfortunately, Hurricane Katrina illustrated that even with the improvements in forecasts and warnings, societal factors still exist that can lead to large loss of life. Over the last decade or more, recognition has been growing that the etiology of hurricane disasters, as with other disasters, must be grounded in both the physical and social sciences Blaikie et al. 1994; Peacock et al. 1997; Mileti 1999; Tierney et al. 2001 . As stated in Pielke and Kimple 1997, 867 . “It is generally accepted that weather problems are both social and physical phenomena. Research findings from the social sciences have been crucially important in understanding and improving human responses to economic, social, and environmental weather-related risks. Despite the centrality of this research area, it has in the past received too little attention and resources.” Recent efforts have sought to highlight the importance of and need for social science research on broad issues of disaster reduction. The National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction highlighted that promoting “risk-wise” behavior was “an ongoing challenge that can only be met by effectively leveraging the findings from social science research” SDR 2005, 2 . In a related effort, a recently released report by the National Research Council NRC 2006a emphasizes the need for research on perceptions and needs of multiple users for information on the uncertainty in weather forecasts. The National Science Foundation’s National Science Board NSB 2007 also just released a report focusing on hurricanes that identifies a variety of social science research needs on such issues such as evacuation planning, understanding human behavior, risk planning, and community resiliency. The report highlights the critical need for interdisciplinary and collaborative research on hurricane hazards and their management. Additional calls for integrated research for addressing issues of risks and hazards are found in NSF 2002 and the NRC 2006b. These efforts clearly draw attention to the need for enhanced social science research. This special issue of Natural Hazards Review explicitly endorses these recent calls for social science research and seeks to take them a step further by focusing more narrowly on hurricane forecast and warning and identifying social science needs in these areas. Specifically, this issue offers a series of papers on different societal aspects of the hurricane forecast and warning system. These papers were written to identify gaps in understanding and needs for social science research. Following Hurricane Isabel in September 2003 and its impact on the Atlantic coast and especially in the Washington D.C. area, leaders at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA raised the question, What are the social-science research needs with respect to hurricane forecast and warning systems? In an attempt to address this question, an ad hoc group of academic, private sector, and government researchers and stakeholders was formed to develop a social-science research agenda on the hurricane forecast and warning system. This effort included a workshop in Pomona, California, in February 2005, for which a series of white papers were developed; several sessions at the 2004 and 2005 Natural Hazards workshops held in Boulder, Colorado; and additional input from the broader social-science research community. After the summer 2005 Hazards Workshop, a summary paper was written to present a coherent synthesis of the efforts to date and to provide a road map for continuing effort. As stated in the summary paper “Expected results from this effort are 1 a focused applied research agenda designed to generate short-term immediate benefits; 2 a broader, more basic research agenda addressing fundamental theoretical and exploratory research designed to generate long-term improvements; 3 methods to enable the social science research community to gather and further develop research priorities and future agendas; and 4 a concept for a long-term, multidisciplinary, institutional approach to undertaking identified research priorities.” This special issue includes the five white papers and the summary paper. Although the white papers were written as support for the Pomona workshop and the summary paper was written to provide a synthesis, they have all been revised, updated, and peerreviewed for this special issue. The review and revision process provided additional insights and inputs. The following briefly describes the topics addressed by each of the papers. Willoughby, Rappaport, and Marks review current forecasting practices and tropical cyclone impacts from a physical-science perspective as a link between the physical and social-science aspects of the forecast and warning system. They summarize the science of hurricanes, their impacts, and forecasting them. Willoughby et al. point out that forecasting has improved significantly in the past 50 years; however: demands on information about hurricanes have increased and diversified. Although track forecasts errors have been reduced by 1-2% per year, such other critical aspects of hurricanes as intensity and rainfall lag in forecast improvements. Finally they point out that forecast improvements have reduced mortality by more than two-thirds compared