A Pathways Analysis Dashboard prototype for multi-risk systems

Abstract. With accelerating climate change, impacts will compound and cascade, making them more complex to assess and manage. At the same time, tools that help decision makers choose between different management options are very limited. This study introduces a visual analytics dashboard prototype designed to support pathways analysis for multi-risk Disaster Risk Management (DRM). Developed through a systematic design approach, the dashboard employs interactive visualisations of pathways and their evaluation – including Decision Trees, Parallel Coordinates Plots, Stacked Bar Charts, Heatmaps, and Pathways Maps – to facilitate complex, multi-criteria decision-making under uncertainty. We demonstrate the utility of the dashboard through an evaluation with 54 participants at varying levels and disciplines of expertise. Depending on the expertise (non-experts, adaptation / DRM experts, pathways experts), users were able to interpret the options of the pathways, the performance of the pathways, the timing of the decisions and perform a system analysis that accounts for interactions between the sectoral DRM pathways with precision between 71 % and 80 %. Participants particularly valued the dashboard's interactivity, allowing for scenario exploration, adding additional information on demand, or offering additional clarifying data. Although the dashboard effectively supports comparative analysis of pathway options, the study highlights the need for additional guidance and onboarding resources to improve accessibility and opportunities to generalise the prototype developed to be applied in different case studies. Tested as a standalone tool, the dashboard may have additional value in participatory analysis and modelling settings. This study underscores the value of visual analytics for the DRM and Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU) communities, with implications for broader applications across complex and uncertain decision-making scenarios.