Augmented reality in flood risk communication

Delta cities are increasingly exposed to the risks of climate change, particularly flooding. To address the issue of increased flooding risk, integrated flood risk management methodologies have been adopted, ensuring that flood risk communication has become an important part of flood risk management strategies. Flood visualisation has proved to be a powerful tool in changing perceptions of flood risk by engaging local stakeholders to raise awareness of residual and future flood risk. Rapid advances in the development and adoption of Augmented Reality technology has created new interactive visualisation opportunities in Landscape Architecture design, planning and education. In this paper, we discuss the current state of Augmented Reality in flood risk communication and highlight two key areas: enhancing decision support on-site and visualising the effects of high-level design and evaluation of landscape interventions. We further demonstrate a novel, lightweight tool for flood-risk communication, using mobile Augmented Reality.