Improving Climate Change Awareness through Immersive Virtual Reality Communication: A Case Study

The gradual pace of climate change means that its awareness plays a particularly important role in encouraging support for its amelioration or adopting adaptive behavior. This case study involves an action research project that engages twelve urban planning-related professionals in the experience of immersive virtual reality (IVR) as a tool to improve awareness of the effects of climate change. Mobile LiDAR technology was used to digitally recreate urban models in which the participants could navigate a simulated inundated urban environment and interact with the virtual objects involved. Feedback from the participants indicated the IVR technology to be a potentially useful educational tool for both professionals and the community, offering unparalleled immersion and interaction for climate change awareness which, based on its unique attributes, could offer insights and understanding of the necessity for building resiliency into our living environments.