Visualizing sea level rise impacts to transportation infrastructure using virtual reality

摘要

Local government officials, including transportation planners, usually rely on two dimensional (2D) visualizations, including charts and maps, to convey future scenarios of sea level rise (SLR) to the public in coastal communities. Recent visualization applications allow for the use of immersive environments, such as virtual reality (VR) into the planning process. A comparison of the before and aftereffects of this quasi-experiment showed the power of VR as a tool to engage with the public in community planning. VR significantly increased participant comprehension to 2D maps and 80.3% of participants reported that the experience motivated them to become more engaged on the topic of SLR. The study also found evidence that the VR experience suppressed political bias for a segment of the population with respect to opinions on the severity of the threat of SLR.