Cartographic Storytelling for the “2Ws and 1H” in Flood Perception: An Interactive and Time‐Varying Evacuation Plan for the General Public

ABSTRACT Disaster maps play an essential role in disseminating risk information to the general public. However, conventional disaster maps usually present static flood information, making it difficult to translate flood risk information into individualized and actionable evacuation decisions. This article adopts the idea of cartographic storytelling and proposes a time‐varying coupling approach that links flood simulation outputs with dynamic evacuation route planning for residents. Specifically, the proposed approach updates building risk states as the flood evolves and simultaneously plans routes to shelters according to current conditions and potential risks, thereby transforming complex spatiotemporal flood dynamics into tailored evacuation route recommendations that answer the “2Ws and 1H” questions of public evacuation, namely when to evacuate, where to go, and how to reach a shelter. Finally, a section of the Rhine River in Bonn, Germany, is selected for experimental analysis. The experimental results show that the proposed approach not only presents flood information but also provides actionable insights throughout the evolution of the flood, supporting the public to understand dynamic flood risk changes and take clearer and more timely evacuation actions during flood events. Our findings could support the development of interactive evacuation tools for residents during floods, as well as rescue management and disaster education.