Designing for extreme weather events
Why we need design to help us prepare for a changing world.
Even if we somehow hit the 1.5C Paris Agreement goal, we'll still face more extreme weather and rising sea levels for decades, impacting 70% of all economic sectors worldwide.
Extreme weather events have become more frequent and costly but far less lethal. source
Behind those numbers are stories
“It was horrifying feeling water where it shouldn’t be. Seeing friends’ homes, belongings, and memories ruined is so tough. These small towns are tight-knit; everyone knows each other. So when someone dies, it’s heartbreaking for all of us. ”
“Having no idea of what you are doing or how long you have before your daily water supply is being cut off is an absolutely brutal way of living”
The increase in the frequency and severity of increased weather events amplifies and creates new needs within all population groups. Over the last year, I’ve been involved in different projects that explored the question:
How might we help people better prepare for extreme weather events?
Investing in preparedness saves lives and money
People experience various phases during extreme weather events.
A simplified lifecycle that summarises the key phases a person experiences as they go through an extreme weather event.
The Prepare Phase in extreme weather events is crucial as:
It saves lives through early warnings, enabling people to act.
Every $1 spent on preparation saves up to $6 in damages (source: FEMA).
High media coverage before and during the event boosts donations for damage repair and recovery.
Why are we not prepared for what’s coming?
We're not ready for extreme weather events and often don't know the important steps we should take to be prepared for such emergencies.
Increasingly, people report being impacted by natural disasters, yet most admit lacking a detailed emergency plan for such events. (Wells Fargo study)
A simplified emergency preparedness journey.
Information and knowledge are not enough
Simply providing information and knowledge isn't enough to prepare for extreme weather events. Any solution designed must address people's beliefs and biases, helping them overcome these obstacles and become better prepared. You can read more about the common beliefs and biases that block people from engaging in emergency preparedness here.
Using Design to improve emergency preparedness
Design is commonly seen as a way to make things look good, but it goes far beyond that. It shapes the entire service, from conception to delivery and decommissioning. It provides a structured, human-centred and iterative approach to designing the user's experience but also the most efficient way to organise teams and systems to deliver that experience. As the frequency and cost of natural disasters rise, resource management becomes vital. Design plays a key role in identifying, testing, and implementing interventions in an agile and cost-effective manner while maximising their impact.
Examples of how design helps to build cost-effective solutions:
🚨 Designing effective early warning systems
Providing citizens with clear and timely warnings can mean the difference between life and death. Unfortunately, only 50% of the countries in the world have multi-hazard early warning systems in place. (Source UNDRR & WMO)
According to UNDRR the most successful systems:
detect multiple hazards and forecast the possible consequences,
take an end-to-end approach from hazard detection to action that puts people first
inform people in a timely manner and through official sources to empower people to respond to the risk.
This requires a coordinated effort across multiple stakeholders. As designers, we are experts in facilitating the process of bringing people together and co-create and rapidly testing solutions through prototypes.
🫶 Design helps communities shift from reactive to proactive
As mentioned before, relying solely on "early warnings" is not enough to adequately prepare individuals for extreme weather events. Investing in preparedness is vital to moving people from passively waiting for help to allowing them to organise within their community. With limited resources and increasing requests for intervention, this becomes even more critical. Design, once again, emerges as a potent approach to activate and empower communities. Here are a few tangible examples:
Disasterous dinners
One shining example of this is the ‘Disasterous Dinners’ initiative by the Australian Red Cross. It's not your average dinner party, it's an interactive experience where people explore how they would react in an emergency, all while bonding over a meal. It's a light-hearted way to tackle a heavy subject, and it works. Participants leave with a personal emergency plan and a deeper understanding of their community's hazards.
“Talking, to the community and other Red Cross volunteers, we realised that many people simply weren’t prepared for the situation. We realised that traditional disaster preparation messaging didn’t work for everyone and wanted to create something different. We knew that it would need to be community-focused and engaging, and eventually landed on the concept of an interactive dinner party.”
The guide for those who want to host a Disasterous Dinner party
Communities as a key infrastructure for challenging times
Building stronger community bonds prior to a disaster is vital for preparedness and response. However, since each community is unique, it requires a tailored approach to co-design solutions that people can relate to and actively participate in.
“When everything collapses - no ATMs, no water, no food, no diesel, no communication - you have to tap into a preexisting system of trust and dignity and reciprocity”
A disaster management expert from the Red Cross in Malawi highlighted the importance of understanding the community's culture. They discovered that funerals serve as a valuable opportunity to share information and engage with the community. By collaborating with the people they serve, they can identify and co-create effective and affordable solutions.
Designers play a crucial role in enabling this process, collaborating to develop communities and interventions that empower organisations and people to create and deliver solutions in challenging times.
If you or your organisation is considering better ways to provide support before, during or after extreme weather events, let’s talk.
💛 Thank you to all those who inspired me and contributed over the last months. Isabella Coin, Hayley Payne, Carmen Escobar, Francesca Desmarais, Sara Camnasio. Students from the Master of Service Design at the Politecnico & the Master of Interaction Design at SUPSI.
