Historical profile and visualisation

What is it?

Historical profile and historical visualization are two similar ways to building a picture of past events that have an effect on a community and stimulate discussion on what has happened in the past. The tools are a powerful way of allowing people to voice opinions and share their history. It also offers a good opportunity to discuss changes in hazards patterns and compare with secondary data on landscape changes, trends in weather patterns.

Awareness of the patterns can influence the decisions taken by community members in the planning process.​ In a historical profile community members create a timeline of the different significant events and developments over the past several decades. With historical visualization, the community members create a chart showing how key aspects of their lives have changed over time

Use it to…

Get an insight into past events, such as major disaster events or crisis, and what changes have occurred over time.

Understand the present situation in the community (causal link between past and present for health issues or hazards and vulnerabilities).

Understand how things may continue to change in the future (trends).

Bring into discussion changes in known risks and new risks (e.g. due to climate change or urbanisation) using secondary information about expected new risks and changes.

Serve as a basis for discussions on future projects within the community

Learn how to do a historical profile

A step-by-step guide to using do historical profile and visualization in EVCA

Want to go more in depth?

Explore how to include new aspects into historical profile and visualization

© International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies 2018

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