Do probabilistic forecasts lead to better decisions?

Maria-Helena Ramos (1) , S.J. van Andel (2) , F. Pappenberger (3)

1 UR HBAN - Hydrosystèmes et Bioprocédés
2 Institute for Water Education
3 ECMWF - European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts

The last decade has seen growing research in producing probabilistic hydro-meteorological forecasts and increasing their reliability. This followed the promise that, supplied with information about uncertainty, people would take better risk-based decisions. In recent years, therefore, research and operational developments have also started focusing attention on ways of communicating the probabilistic forecasts to decision-makers. Communicating probabilistic forecasts includes preparing tools and products for visualisation, but also requires understanding how decision-makers perceive and use uncertainty information in real time. At the EGU General Assembly 2012, we conducted a laboratory-style experiment in which several cases of flood forecasts and a choice of actions to take were presented as part of a game to participants, who acted as decision-makers. Answers were collected and analysed. In this paper, we present the results of this exercise and discuss if we indeed make better decisions on the basis of probabilistic forecasts.

Mots clés: HYDROMETEOROLOGIE; PREVISION HYDROLOGIQUE; MODELE PROBABILISTE

Domaines: Sciences de l'environnement

Maria-Helena Ramos, S.J. van Andel, F. Pappenberger. Do probabilistic forecasts lead to better decisions?. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 2013, 17, pp.2219-2232. ⟨10.5194/hess-17-2219-2013⟩. ⟨hal-01132120⟩