April 17, 2014 -- On April 20, 2010, the Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit “Deepwater Horizon” suffered a blowout and fire. The seafloor blowout preventer failed, resulting one of the world’s largest marine oil spills.

The spill also ignited a storm of social media and 24/7 news coverage unlike any prior spill. Congress provided OR&R with supplemental research funding following the spill and NOAA partnered with the Coastal Response Research Center at the University of New Hampshire to fund three research projects, including one project that focused on the public concerns and improving risk communication tools for oil spills and dispersants. This past week, on April 14, 2014, this team presented their results at NOAA’s campus in Seattle, WA. The presentation by Ann Hayward Walker of SEA Consulting, and Ann Bostrom, Tom Leschine, Robert Pavia and Kate Starbird from the University of Washington, focused on the risk communication challenges and lessons learned from the Deepwater Horizon spill, including:

• Communicating uncertainty and complexity;
• Key public concerns about and public understanding of dispersants and oil spill response;
• Deepwater Horizon Twitter Analysis;
• Scenario use in environmental planning and management; and
• Recommended practices based on their results

One of the major conclusions of the presentation was that the ways in which people access and process scientific information are changing rapidly and the traditional methods for communications by science and response agencies need to be augmented with social media, both as way to communicate to the public, and as a way to listen and incorporate public concerns and perceptions. In addition, risk communication messages and other information need to be carefully crafted and tested with the intended audience to ensure that the messages are clear and effective. This is especially important in crisis situations with topics involving uncertainty and scientific complexity, as only a fraction of the information provided is understood and remembered.

For further information, contact Doug.Helton@noaa.gov.

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