Creating a Flood Resource Guide for Flood Officials and Communities

Project summary:

Anywhere it can rain it can flood. Communicating flood risk to communities has been a major challenge for community leaders. This project identified, assessed, and reported on the status of current flood education and communication efforts in Texas. To achieve these goals, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin - Moody College of Communication conducted a literature review to identify existing flood communication efforts, prepared a gap analysis on existing flood education and outreach, and conducted interviews with local officials to generate evidence-based data on the influence of flood-related messaging language on Texas audiences. The results of this project are intended to be useful to audiences across Texas, with a focus on improving flood literacy through both long-term and incident-specific messaging.

Project deliverable(s):

A best-practices guide for local officials to provide effective flood education and three proposals to showcase options for addressing flood education and communication gaps in Texas based on varying levels of funding.

Contractor (and Principal Investigator, if appropriate):

The University of Texas at Austin - Moody College of Communication, Dr. Keri Stephens

Contract amount:

$94,967

Project lead:

Yi Ling Chan

Project timeline:

July 2020 - October 2021