Map Storytelling to Improve Climate Change Communication

Abstract:

Maps are a key way climate change research is communicated to the public because they are a clear and efficient way to display the spatial aspects of climate change information. However, scientific and seemingly objective maps constructed by researchers often present climate change as abstract and thus have the potential to fail to engage and persuade readers. There have been recent calls within the fields of cartography and geovisualization to incorporate storytelling into map design because stories have been shown to increase climate change engagement through affective engagement and emotional arousal. By combining stories collected through interviews with Oregon coast fishers about the impacts of ocean acidification and hypoxia (OAH) on livelihoods with quantitative spatial OAH data, we seek to investigate how storytelling maps, the combination of narratives and place, are experienced by readers, and what impacts the maps have on readers’ pre-existing attitudes on climate change through an online survey. This research is a collaborative effort between cartographers and biogeochemists to investigate how map design can improve climate change communication.