How Stakeholders Adopt and Share Flood Forecast Information: A Survey of Mississippi River Outlook Users

Abstract

Guided by the literature in diffusion of innovations, the technology acceptance model, and risk information sharing, this paper reports the results of a survey distributed to National Weather Service (NWS)-Memphis Weather Forecast Office (WFO) stakeholders who receive the Mississippi River Outlook product and its embedded 28-day experimental forecast. The survey examined perceptual factors that likely influence participants’ adoption of flood forecast information provided in the Outlook, and assessed Outlook recipients’ forecast-sharing behaviors and perceptions. Results revealed that the first responders perceived the Outlook product to be more useful than experts, while experts experienced less social influence to use it than first responders or the public. Although participants were generally favorable toward and intended to use the Outlook in the future, experts were significantly less likely to do so and hold a favorable attitude. The majority of participants reported sharing the Outlook with an average of 11 people, and were most likely to share either the entire Outlook verbatim or specific, verbatim sections. Implications of the Outlook’s perceived characteristics and participants’ Outlook-sharing behaviors are discussed.