Watching it Unfold
Geographies of engagement with live-streamed extreme weather
Title: Watching it Unfold: Geographies of Engagement with Live-Streamed Extreme Weather
Funded by:
Funding amount: £350,000
Dates: 2025–2027
Project partners:
sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ PI:
Dr Simon Dickinson
sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ staff:
Dr Jessy Williams
Overview
Up-to-date data is crucial in enabling us to manage our risk during extreme hazard events. Where we get this data from, however, is changing. Whereas affected populations may have once relied on one source of information, they now face a raft of digital options to learn about events and the risk we face – including government risk alerts and websites, traditional news media, and even social media (including digital personalities who charge for personalised risk information).
Watching it Unfold examines the emerging live platforms and spaces through which people engage with hazards, most notably extreme weather. It focuses on what kinds of live data is available to people during events, and examines how and why they engage with them.
The project has three strands of activity:
Disaster dashboards
It is becoming increasingly common for authorities to use risk communication dashboards or interfaces to share information with the public. These tools present data about different types of risk in visual, numerical and written formats, and are intended to provide a single, accessible source of risk information.
Despite growing global investment in these technologies, there is still no comprehensive understanding of how dashboards are used or how they influence individual decision making during extreme weather events. This project addresses that gap by developing a global inventory of dashboard use in hazard communication, with a particular focus on bringing together currently scattered evidence on patterns of engagement and their impacts.
Online live streams
Live streams have become an important way for people to share and engage with extreme weather events. Some streams are hosted by government authorities, allowing viewers to ask questions about risk. Others are run by online personalities on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Discord or Twitch. In some cases, existing webcam infrastructure – like beach cams – becomes repurposed because they offer direct views of the unfolding event. Crucially, these formats create spaces for conversation and connection around hazardous situations.
This project explores how different types of live stream allow people to witness and participate in extreme events as they unfold. It examines the ways streams become sources of information during these events, and how they shape what people know, feel and do in response.
Community data generation
The project is developing a new community-based approach in Devon in partnership with Prospect Brixham CIC, a pilot data trust organisation. Working together, we are exploring opportunities for community-generated data that can help people understand and manage risk.
To support this, new infrastructure – including live streaming technology – will be installed in the coastal town of Brixham. This will enable residents to decide what kinds of data they want to collect and how that data could be useful to them.
Funded by
Centre for Research in Natural Hazards and Risk Reduction (CHaRR)
Natural hazards cause billions of dollars of damage, significantly effect people's lives, and can have long-term negative environmental effects. Climate change, population growth and urbanisation exacerbate events, and increasingly devastating cascading and multihazard sequences result in unexpected chains of events.
CHaRR brings together researchers from across the University to tackle outstanding questions in hazard science, risk and reduction, thus contributing to the targets of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 as well as the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Centre for Place
The Centre for Place is an interdisciplinary research hub that tackles contemporary societal and global challenges through place-based inquiry.
The Centre integrates creative placemaking, arts–health research, and advanced quantitative methods within robust humanities and social science frameworks, seeking to become a world leader in place-based research, emphasising the importance of place in shaping communities and individuals, and providing innovative, interdisciplinary solutions to urgent global research challenges.
