Environmental Data Storytelling for Strengthening Public Climate Engagement

Nathaniel Brooks

Environmental Data Storytelling for Strengthening Public Climate Engagement

Author(s)	Dr. Nathaniel Brooks
Country	United States
Abstract	Public communication of climate change increasingly takes place in an information environment saturated with scientific reports, dashboards, interactive maps, satellite imagery, news graphics, social-media posts, and numerical indicators. The availability of climate data, however, does not automatically produce public understanding, sustained attention, or willingness to participate in climate action. Environmental data storytelling offers a communication approach in which verified evidence is organized through narrative sequencing, accessible visual representation, human context, and actionable interpretation. This study develops and evaluates a conceptual Data-to-Engagement Storytelling Framework for examining how alternative presentations of identical climate information may influence public comprehension, perceived relevance, trust, engagement, and intention to undertake climate-responsive action. Because no original participant dataset was available, the investigation is explicitly structured as a simulation-based methodological study rather than a completed human-subject experiment. A reproducible synthetic dataset representing 800 hypothetical respondents was generated across four communication conditions: a raw-data dashboard, a static infographic, a narrative data story, and a localized narrative data story. Five communication outcomes were represented on seven-point response scales. Simulated comparisons indicated a progressive increase in engagement as presentation moved from technically organized data toward contextualized and localized storytelling. Mean engagement increased from 3.66 in the raw-data condition to 5.95 in the localized narrative condition, while simulated action intention increased from 3.56 to 5.58. The largest simulated between-condition effects occurred for engagement and perceived relevance. The findings are illustrative rather than empirical, but they demonstrate a testable research design and support a broader argument emerging from climate-communication scholarship: public-facing climate information should preserve scientific accuracy while reducing unnecessary cognitive burden, connecting evidence with meaningful contexts, and showing feasible responses. The proposed framework can guide future field experiments, environmental journalism, climate-service design, public-sector communication, and digital sustainability campaigns.
Keywords	environmental data storytelling; climate communication; public engagement; data visualization; environmental journalism; narrative communication; climate literacy; public participation; sustainability communication
Field	Engineering
Published In	Volume 2, Issue 2, March-April 2021
Published On	2021-04-06

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American Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Innovation and Research

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Environmental Data Storytelling for Strengthening Public Climate Engagement

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