Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 1 Summary of the technology and representational options explored in the survey
Visualisation option
Illustrated
by…
Mean
rating (1-7)
(N = 15)
Animated time series of regional rainfall and temperature projections
Fig.
1
5.7
Interactive 3D models and fly-overs (including features such as farm
buildings, fence layout, vegetation)
Figs.
4
and
5
a
4.5
Hyperlinked outputs of pasture growth modelling results
Fig.
3
5.0
Realistic panoramas of future farm conditions
Fig.
5
b
4.8
the visualisation products. Fifteen people submitted their questionnaires for
analysis. The major technology options being explored are summarized along with
their participant ratings in Table
1
. In addition participants were asked a number of
questions about their existing sources of climate data and their overall view of
visualisation technology.
The workshop was well attended and the participants were generally positive
about the visualisation products presented and the potential for extension to other
data sets and applications. All the presented products received a positive evalua-
tion (i.e., greater than four on the seven point scale). These are very preliminary
findings with a small survey group who were not necessarily representative of the
farming community or the general public. Amongst this group however, there is
apparently greater support for the more conventional mapping or chart-based
representations than for the interactive 3D models and realistic renderings. This
result requires further exploration and additional surveys will be conducted which
include not only subjective views on the provided representations and tools, but
also objective tests of information communication and before-and-after surveys of
attitudes to climate change and its implications. In this we are following some of
the methodology reported by Schroth et al. (
2009
).
For this small, pre-test group it is instructive to consider some of the comments
made about the different visualisation approaches since these are more likely to be
helpful to future development than quantitative analysis. Table
2
presents selected
comments.
The comments in Table
2
support the suggested greater ambivalence for 3D and
realistic representation suggested in Table
1
. There is indeed a significant polari-
sation of views in which some people are wholly unimpressed and others quite
taken by the potential of the technology. This suggests that one solution is not going
to suit all users of visualisation products and that reaching an entire audience may
require provision of a range of visual media. Nevertheless, when asked for an
overall view on the usefulness of the presented visualisation products, all workshop
participants viewed visualisation tools as at least as valuable as other forms of data
representation to communicate climate change (Fig.
7
), with 14 out of 15 per-
ceiving them as more valuable and five out of 15 very valuable. These results
confirm the potential of visualisation technologies to communicate climate change
data in a format perceived as more valuable than current reporting methods.
